After 17 years of tireless campaigning, Thomas Coram (d.1751) receives the Royal Charter from King George II to establish the Foundling
Hospital in 1739.
The 34 acre site was purchased 1740.
On 25 March 1741 the first 30 babies, 18 boys and 12 girls, were admitted to the Foundling Hospital.
The Foundation Stone was layed 16 September 1742.
and by 1744 the interior was being fitted out and by late 1745 the West wing was almost ready for occupation but much remained incomplete including the Court Room in 1746. The West wing is shown completed in Roques Map of 1746.
The Foundation stone for the chapel was layed on 1st May 1747.
The East wing wasn't completed until 1752
In 1926, the Hospital moved to Redhill, Surrey, and then to
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. In 1954, the last pupils left, and the charity
became The Thomas Coram Foundation for Children.
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For an in depth study of the building of the Foundling see - Alan Borg Vol Xii 2002. Georgian Group Journal. - Theadore Jacobsen and the Building of the Foundling Hospital
with an apendix by Richard Hewlings - The Builders of the Foundling Hospital.
https://georgiangroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/GGJ_2003_02_BORG.pdf
The apendix is particularl useful in that it detaills the all the various craftsmen involved.
https://csca.aha.cam.ac.uk/the-hewlings-catalogue/
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According to Borg all papers relating to the Foundling are now in the London Metropolitan Archives.
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Theodore Jacobsen by Thomas Hudson.
Presented by the artist in 1746.
Theodore Jacobsen was a German merchant. In retirement he became an amateur architect and was commissioned to design the Foundling Hospital in 1742. He had become a Governor in 1739 and offered his services as architect free of charge.
In this portrait he is shown holding the architectural plans for the Hospital. Jacobsen’s architecture was a means of augmenting his social status as well as providing an outlet for his philanthropy. He also designed the East India House in London, the Royal Hospital at Haslar and the West Front of Trinity College Dublin.
Thomas Hudson
was the most fashionable portrait painter within Establishment circles in
London in the 1740s and 1750s. He arrived in the capital from Devonshire in the
1720s and entered the studio of Jonathan Richardson.
Hudson became a Governor of the Foundling Hospital in 1746, along with a number of artists who frequented Old Slaughter’s Coffee House on Saint Martin’s Lane.
This group included Francis Hayman and Samuel Scott. More than 30 members of the Foundling Hospital’s Grand Court were past or future patrons of Hudson’s.
Hudson sat alongside Jacobsen on a
sub-committee which was tasked with choosing ‘ornaments’ for the Hospital. He
donated this painting (below) to the Hospital in the year of his election, along with
his portrait of the Hospital's Vice President John Milner.
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/search/venue:foundling-museum-7069
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Daniel Lock (1681 - 1754).
Governor of the Foundling Hospital.
Mezzotint.
Lettered with title and production detail below image:
"Willm. Hogarth Pinxt." and "J. Mc Ardell Fecit".
They say c. 1742 - 65.
The original oil painting is in the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University.
Lock was involved with the designing of the Foundling Hospital in London;
in this
portrait Lock appears to be holding a plan for the Hospital.
Roubiliac’s bust of Lock on the mural monument at Trinity College Cambridge shows Lock surrounded by emblems of
architecture, painting, sculpture and music.
The monument was completed by Nicholas Read after the death of Roubiliac on 1762.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1902-1011-3330
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/33874
For the Roubiliac Lock bust see -
https://explore.trin.cam.ac.uk/assets/lock/
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Foundling Hospital viewed from the West
Richard Wilson
dated 1746
The Hospital was still under construction at this time although Wilson has omitted any evidence of this, presumably in order to present a more idealised image of the Hospital.
The West Wing for the boys had been completed in October 1745 but the East Wing and the Chapel were still unbuilt when Wilson produced this painting.
Wilson donated this work along
with another landscape painting of St George's Hospital to the Foundling
Hospital in 1746. The pair were displayed alongside six other roundels of London
hospitals and educational institutions. The Court Room was one of the first
public spaces for the display of British art and therefore a major opportunity
to attract wealthy patrons.
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Extract from Roques Map of 1746.
The Chapel and Girls East Wing no yet commenced building.
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Samuel Wale was elected a Governor of the Foundling Hospital in 1746. There are three painted roundels of Greenwich Hospital, Christ's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospitalwhich he presented to the Hospital in 1748, to form part of the decoration of its Court Room.
Image courtesy -
Foundling Hospital, London. Etching by H. Roberts, 1749,
after J. Robinson after T. Jacobson
image courtesy the Wellcome Library.
The Foundling Hospital, Holborn, London: a view of the courtyard south elevation.
Engraving by B. Cole, 1754 [after P. Fourdrinier, 1742].
https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ryufe3cc/images?id=m2a2akgx
The chapel was designed with a view to musical performances
which, as stated above, brought large sums of money to the hospital funds, and
the organ was first used by Handel himself at a special performance of the
Messiah.
