Victorian Women, Unwed Mothers and the London Foundling Hospital
Victorian Women, Unwed Mothers and the London Foundling Hospital

Author: Jessica A. Sheetz-Nguyen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-05-10

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1441194541

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This volume seeks to address the questions of poverty, charity, and public welfare, taking the nineteenth-century London Foundling Hospital as its focus. It delineates the social rules that constructed the gendered world of the Victorian age, and uses 'respectability' as a factor for analysis: the women who successfully petitioned the Foundling Hospital for admission of their infants were not East End prostitutes, but rather unmarried women, often domestic servants, determined to maintain social respectability. The administrators of the Foundling Hospital reviewed over two hundred petitions annually; deliberated on about one hundred cases; and accepted not more than 25 per cent of all cases. Using primary material from the Foundling Hospital's extensive archives, this study moves methodically from the broad social and geographical context of London and the Foundling Hospital itself, to the micro-historical case data of individual mothers and infants.

London's Forgotten Children
London's Forgotten Children

Author: Gillian Pugh

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2011-11-30

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 0752480200

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In 1739, the London Foundling Hospital opened its doors to take in the abandoned children of the city. It was the culmination of seventeen years of campaigning by Captain Thomas Coram, driven by his horror at seeing children die in the streets. He was supported in his endeavours by a royal charter and by William Hogarth and George Frideric Handel. The Hospital would continue as both home and school for over 215 years, raising thousands of children until they could be apprenticed out. London's Forgotten Children is a fascinating history of the first children's charity, charting the rise of this incredible institution and examining the attitude towards illegitimate children over the years. The story comes alive with the voices of children who grew up in the Hospital, and the concluding, fully updated, account of today's children's charity Coram is an ongoing testament to the vision of its founder.

The Foundling
The Foundling

Author: Stacey Halls

Publisher: Bonnier Zaffre Ltd.

Published: 2020-02-03

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1838770089

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The captivating Sunday Times bestseller from the author of The Familiars Two women, bound by a child, and a secret that will change everything . . . London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst, that Clara has died in care, Bess is astonished to be told she has already claimed her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why. Less than a mile from Bess's lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. When her close friend - an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital - persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart. From the bestselling author of The Familiars comes this captivating story of mothers and daughters, class and power, and love against the greatest of odds . . . 'The new Hilary Mantel' COSMOPOLITAN 'Stacey Halls is a writer of great originality, great imagination and great sense of place. Atmospheric, intelligent, accessible, every novel is worth reading, then reading again and again' KATE MOSSE Another gripping, immersive, intelligent work of historical fiction from the bestselling author of The Familiars' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE, author of THE MERCIES A moving, atmospheric chiller' INDEPENDENT 'A breathtaking achievement' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'Enjoyable and atmospheric' THE TIMES 'Historical drama at its very best' MY WEEKLY **MRS ENGLAND: the brand new novel from Stacey Halls is out now** *Sunday Times bestseller February and September 2020* *Winner of Women's Prize for Fiction x Good Housekeeping Futures award - Good Housekeeping 14 Oct 2022*

Victorians and the Case for Charity
Victorians and the Case for Charity

Author: Marilyn D. Button

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2013-10-18

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1476605866

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This collection of all new essays seeks to answer a series of questions surrounding the Victorian response to poverty in Britain. In short, what did various layers of society say the poor deserved and what did they do to help them? The work is organized against the backdrop of the 1834 New Poor Laws, recognizing that poverty garnered considerable attention in England because of its pervasive and painful presence. Each essay examines a different initiative to help the poor. Taking an historical tack, the essayists begin with the royal perspective and move into the responses of Church of England members, Evangelicals, and Roman Catholics; the social engagement of the literati is discussed as well. This collection reflects the real, monetary, spiritual and emotional investments of individuals, public institutions, private charities, and religious groups who struggled to address the needs of the poor.

Illegitimacy, Family, and Stigma in England, 1660-1834
Illegitimacy, Family, and Stigma in England, 1660-1834

Author: Kate Gibson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-07-08

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0192867245

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Illegitimacy, Family, and Stigma is the first full-length exploration of what it was like to be illegitimate in eighteenth-century England, a period of 'sexual revolution', unprecedented increase in illegitimate births, and intense debate over children's rights to state support. Using the words of illegitimate individuals and their families preserved in letters, diaries, poor relief, and court documents, this study reveals the impact of illegitimacy across the life cycle. How did illegitimacy affect children's early years, and their relationships with parents, siblings, and wider family as they grew up? Did illegitimacy limit education, occupation, or marriage chances? What were individuals' experiences of shame and stigma, and how did being illegitimate affect their sense of identity? Historian Kate Gibson investigates the circumstances that governed families' responses, from love and pragmatic acceptance, to secrecy and exclusion. In a major reframing of assumptions that illegitimacy was experienced only among the poor, this volume tells the stories of individuals from across the socio-economic scale, including children of royalty, physicians and lawyers, servants and agricultural labourers. It demonstrates that the stigma of illegitimacy operated along a spectrum, varying according to the type of parental relationship, the child's race, gender, and socio-economic status. Financial resources and the class-based ideals of parenthood or family life had a significant impact on how families reacted to illegitimacy. Class became more important over the eighteenth century, under the influence of Enlightenment ideals of tolerance, sensibility, and redemption. The child of sin was now recast as a pitiable object of charity, but this applied only to those who could fit narrow parameters of genteel tragedy. This vivid investigation of the meaning of illegitimacy gets to the heart of powerful inequalities in families, communities, and the state.

Hard and Unreal Advice
Hard and Unreal Advice

Author: K. Martin

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2008-04-01

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0230594050

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The first detailed and systematic study of the social science of poverty as practiced by the Victorian experts who had so much influence on relief policy in this area, and who were among the founders of British social science. The book examines what they knew, or what they thought they knew, about the poor.

Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis, 1700–1850
Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis, 1700–1850

Author: Samantha Williams

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-04-23

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 3319733206

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In this book Samantha Williams examines illegitimacy, unmarried parenthood and the old and new poor laws in a period of rising illegitimacy and poor relief expenditure. In doing so, she explores the experience of being an unmarried mother from courtship and conception, through the discovery of pregnancy, and the birth of the child in lodgings or one of the new parish workhouses. Although fathers were generally held to be financially responsible for their illegitimate children, the recovery of these costs was particularly low in London, leaving the parish ratepayers to meet the cost. Unmarried parenthood was associated with shame and men and women could also be subject to punishment, although this was generally infrequent in the capital. Illegitimacy and the poor law were interdependent and this book charts the experience of unmarried motherhood and the making of metropolitan bastardy.

A British Childhood? Some Historical Reflections on Continuities and Discontinuities in the Culture of Anglophone Childhood
A British Childhood? Some Historical Reflections on Continuities and Discontinuities in the Culture of Anglophone Childhood

Author: Pam Jarvis

Publisher: MDPI

Published: 2019-12-16

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 3039219340

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This book considers how adults attempt to socialise young children into the adults it aspires to produce, from a number of diverse perspectives. The evolution of storytelling and its impact upon child development is initially explored, followed by the consideration of how social class, ethnicity, culture, and colonialism impact upon the ways that societies ‘school’ children about what to expect from adulthood. Different perspectives of early years education and growing up within a British/British colonial perspective are discussed and analysed. There is a focus throughout upon the way that children are constructed by the society in question, particularly those who are considered to be of lower status in terms of being poor, orphaned, or from ethnic groups against which the dominant culture discriminates. Topics covered by the chapters include topics covered by this Special Issue: current and historical constructions of childhood; the development of linguistic and ‘storying’ skills in childhood; childhood play and recreation; childhood and ‘folk’ narratives; philosophies of childhood; childhood and industrialisation; childhood and post-industrialisation; childhood education; childhood health; and cultures of childcare.

The Victorian Baby in Print
The Victorian Baby in Print

Author: Tamara S. Wagner

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-10-15

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0192599984

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The Victorian Baby in Print: Infancy, Infant Care, and Nineteenth-Century Popular Culture explores the representation of babyhood in Victorian Britain. The first study to focus exclusively on the baby in nineteenth-century literature and culture, this critical analysis discusses the changing roles of an iconic figure. A close look at the wide-ranging portrayal of infants and infant care not only reveals how divergent and often contradictory Victorian attitudes to infancy really were, but also challenges persistent clichés surrounding the literary baby that emerged or were consolidated at the time, and which are largely still with us. Drawing on a variety of texts, including novels by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Mrs Henry Wood, and Charlotte Yonge, as well as parenting magazines of the time, childrearing manuals, and advertisements, this study analyses how their representations of infancy and infant care utilised and shaped an iconography that has become definitional of the Victorian age itself. The familiar clichés surrounding the Victorian baby have had a lasting impact on the way we see both the Victorians and babies, and a critical reconsideration might also prompt a self-critical reconsideration of the still burgeoning market for infant care advice today.

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing

Author: Lesa Scholl

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-12-15

Total Pages: 1753

ISBN-13: 3030783189

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Since the late twentieth century, there has been a strategic campaign to recover the impact of Victorian women writers in the field of English literature. However, with the increased understanding of the importance of interdisciplinarity in the twenty-first century, there is a need to extend this campaign beyond literary studies in order to recognise the role of women writers across the nineteenth century, a time that was intrinsically interdisciplinary in approach to scholarly writing and public intellectual engagement.