Unforgotten Children: the moving story of Chester’s role in caring for abandoned children in the mid-eighteenth century.
This moving talk looks at a forgotten aspect of Chester’s past when hundreds of young children from London’s Foundling Hospital were taken into local care during the 1760s. These were children – often illegitimate – who were given up by their parents in the hope of a better life for them. Many of them lived at the city’s Blue Coat School; others were cared for in villages around the area.
The talk explores how the Chester Branch Foundling Hospital was established, how the children were cared for and educated and how they were sent off to work as young as age eight.
The free talk will be given by Dr. Anthony Annakin-Smith, a popular speaker on local history, who has been researching the hospital for several years.
Suitable for ages 18+