MEMORY

Tokens for retrieval

Link a la versión en castellano

When we think about the concept of memory, it's usually the milestones that come to mind, those unique moments in everyone's life. But it's not always the big things that carry the most weight in our memories. Today I bring a bittersweet story about something little which has in turn signified a great amount of knowledge and the preservation of a memory: the fabric tokens impoverished or single mothers left with their infants when leaving them to the care of an institution called The Foundling Hospital in the hope of a possible retrieval when things got better. These swatches of fabric were preserved as records and have become one of the largest and very rare textile archival collections of the fabrics used by the common people in the wake of the first Industrial Revolution in the UK.   

Because I am immersed in the history of art and fashion at the moment, I am coming across all sorts of interesting stories, the one I’m telling you today has no relevance to the class I’m working on, but I fell in love with it, so I thought you might too.

The Foundling Hospital was founded in 1739 in London by the philanthropist Thomas Coram, who had been campaigning for years for the care and education of abandoned children and babies. Imagine XVIII century London, with its insalubrious streets and the hardships that its poor classes had to overcome on an everyday basis. Unwanted children were abandoned in the streets and they lived, if they survived. in the worst possible conditions. The idea of a foundling hospital was not something new in Catholic Europe; there were many in France, Italy or Spain, but it was certainly a novelty in protestant England where destitute children were sent to the Parishes' workhouses, which were created under the Poor Law and functioned like prisons. The European hospitals (in the sense of hospitality, not in curing illness) were in most cases far from perfect catholic institutions traditionally run by nuns, but of course, in XVIII England there were no nuns, so abandoned babies had little possibility of survival.

It became one of the most fashionable subscription charities in London at the time. This is quite a remarkable institution because it not only pioneered as a charity but also in the ways it approached funding, for example, the first publicly accessible displays of contemporary British art were held on their premises, impulsed with the patronage of William Hogarth, a well know artist who encouraged many others to donate work for the charity, and so the contemporary art gallery was born. Frederik Handel composed a piece for the hospital and held a charity concert on the premises which included his very famous Messiah, which he continued doing for years, leaving the hospital the full score of the work after his death. Having raised by the end of his life a huge amount of money for the Hospital.

The accepted babies were initially sent to wet nurses in the countryside and returned to the Hospital in London when they were around 5. Once they reached the age of 11 to 14, they were sent on apprenticeships, like the military for the boys and domestic service for the girls. The intention was to offer refuge and shelter for these babies and also give them the opportunity of a successful life. It wasn’t only the single mothers who left their children there, many children were handed to the institution because their parents believed they’d have a better chance at life in the Hospital’s care.

Once the babies were admitted, the mothers would be kept anonymous but were asked to leave a token with the registration, since the moment these children came into the institution they were adopted by it and their names changed. The token would assist with the identification if the mother later wanted to retrieve their child when their circumstances improved. The custom of leaving a token and changing the name of the infant was a standard all over Europe. Since many of these women had nothing, as they were in general poor, shamed and destitute, quite often the token left was a piece cut from a gown or a sleeve, a ribbon or trimming, either from the baby’s clothing or the mother’s, it could also be other things like coins or medals. At the time it was usual to make babies' clothes from adults' worn out garments. The fabrics they left, usually cotton, wool and linen were the ones typically used by the common classes. We are quite familiar with the rich fabrics of the past as they have been widely documented and preserved, but the clothes worn by the poor classes have been very difficult to study because these materials deteriorate and disappear with use and time, hence the enormous cultural and emotional value held by this collection of fabrics.

Often, the tokens were accompanied by little notes or sometimes the cloth or ribbon had the note written on them. Some other times, the pieces depicted hearts, to signal the emotion felt by the mothers leaving their children. And why cloth? Mostly because although these women were vastly illiterate they all had access to cloth and the language of ribbons and hearts. 

Sadly, only about 1% of the children were in fact retrieved by their mothers. These fabric tokens, kept in between the pages of the registration books, not only talk about memory and the types of fabrics used in the wake and aftermath of the First Industrial Revolution, they also talk about the histories of these women and the pain of leaving their children. They convey the emotions, the terrible fact of having to leave a child to care, of a society that punished women and children on moral grounds and of the immense power that a little piece of clothing can hold.

Today, the Foundling Hospital has disappeared but on its grounds, there is a park where adults are only allowed if accompanied by children. In the area was later built The Foundling Museum, where this archive is kept, together with many other records of the time and tokens of another kind like coins, everyday objects or little medals which are less fragile and can be visited. We all can understand the pain these women felt, but I found this little folk song while researching this post that talks about the tragedy suffered by these women and the way society reacted to them. It’s quite sad, but really pretty too, so I thought you might want to hear it.

That’s all for me this week. Wish you a beautiful weekend! As always, your love and appreciation can be shown with a little click, so please use those buttons!

Love,

Patty