“So that they may be usefull to themselves and the community”: Charting Childhood Disability in an Eighteenth-Century Institution

Abstract

While much of the eighteenth-century discourse on impairment focused on “repairing” the disabled body, a parallel line of thinking also emphasized the potential of disabled children to lead normal lives. By the 1770s, the London Foundling Hospital was faced with the daunting task of securing arrangements of employment or care for a large number of its disabled children. The hospital responded to this challenge by initiating a series of apprenticeship negotiations motivated not only by practical concerns, but by a specific understanding of the possible potential of the disabled child. The hospital’s efforts on behalf of its disabled children reflected a unique understanding of the disabled child and adolescent that was built upon the notion that any child, regardless of infirmity, needed to be afforded the opportunity to progress from the dependence of childhood to the independence of adulthood. The London Foundling Hospital thus played an essential role in demonstrating to the public that the disabled child did not require a “normal” body in order to live an independent adult life.