Coram’s Foundling Hospital Archive is a unique and rich historical resource, known for its completeness. The archive spans the full history of the Foundling Hospital, from 1739 to 1954, when the residential school closed. The half-million records detail the lives of the 27,000 children in the Hospital’s care, their mothers’ circumstances, and the Hospital’s operation and guiding principles. In addition, the archive is a significant source for social history, women’s history, and regional English history, as well as the history of apprenticeships, medicine, textiles, and more.
To make this important resource widely available, Coram has digitised and transcribed 405 volumes dating from 1739 to 1899. Nearly 100,000 pages, or 23% of the entire archive, can now be viewed online – for free. These records document the lives of 22,031 Foundlings and 823 London Parish children.
Explore the Foundling Hospital Archive online
About the digital archive
The digital archive is the work of many people who contributed their time and expertise. The London Archives, which houses the physical archive, used its specialist facilities to conserve and digitise the records.
Then, over a four-year period, nearly 6,500 volunteers throughout the world helped Coram transcribe the digital images in order to make their handwritten contents searchable online. Coram is enormously grateful to all the volunteers for making the digital archive a reality.
The digitised records fall into these categories:
- Petitions from mothers and others: 115 volumes, 1762-1881
- Billet Books containing tokens: 203 volumes, 1741-1814
- Admission and baptism registers: 8 volumes, 1741-1885
- Apprenticeship registers: 4 volumes, 1751-1898
- Registers of country nurses and inspectors: 6 volumes, 1749-1812
- Branch Hospital registers: 5 volumes, 1757-1772
- Records claiming children: 21 volumes, 1758-1796
- Committee Minutes: 43 volumes, 1739-1895
Coram’s digital archive was created during the Voices Through Time: The Story of Care programme (2019-2024), made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Visiting the physical archive
The entire physical archive is housed at The London Archives. All records that have been digitised are now closed to visitors. The remainder of the records up to 1910 can be viewed on-site with a reader’s ticket. (Most of the 20th-century records are closed under data protection.) Search for the Foundling Hospital in The London Archives’ catalogue at https://search.lma.gov.uk