Textile DNA

Abstract

Attached to the “billet” of foundling number 7000, a 3-month-old girl admitted to the Foundling Hospital, London, on Jan 13, 1758, is a pink and white flowered ribbon and a note from her parents who “Beg to have care Taken of her and They will pay all Charges in a little Time with a handsome acknowledgement for the same and have her Home again when they Get over a little Trouble they are in: She is not a bastard Child.” Foundlings are often perceived as unwanted children—abandoned on doorsteps by unknown and desperate mothers under cover of darkness. But the admission of babies and infants into the Foundling Hospital, established in London in 1739, was carefully regulated. Details of each entry were noted on registration forms of “billets”, which included “Marks and Cloathing of the Child”. Having survived for 250 years, the scraps of fabric or ribbon pinned to the billets of 5000 children (of 16 282 admitted between 1741 and 1760) form the largest collection of everyday 18th-century textiles. 60 textile tokens are currently displayed in Threads of Feeling, a poignant exhibition that illuminates the lives of individual children, as well as 18th-century social and medical history. These textile tokens were either left with the children by their mothers or cut from the children's clothes by hospital clerks, for future use in identifying the child should its mother wish to reclaim it, if and when her or the family's circumstances improved. Beseeching letters from mothers were sometimes pinned to children's hospital records too, as one mother wrote: “To prevent any mistake when the child is demanded a Yellow Ribbon is fix'd round him over his Right Shoulder and under his Left Arm, with Room to allow for his Growing it is Humbly desir'd he may always wear it.” Infant mortality was high in 18th-century London and two-thirds of children admitted between 1741 and 1760 died while in the hospital's care. Some lived for only a few days. Foundling number 12058, a girl admitted on March 18, 1759, identified by a piece of red woollen cloth over linen printed with red sprigs, died the next day. Others survived for some years, before dying of diseases. Foundling number 13789, a girl admitted on Aug 27, 1759, died of measles in July, 1765. Her token was Indian cotton printed with flowers, recorded as “flowered chince”. The most usual occupations of those who left the hospital at the age of 10 years were trade apprenticeships and domestic service. Foundling number 1109, a boy aged about 2 weeks when he was admitted on June 30, 1753, and identified by his baby's cap made from linen diaper, was apprenticed in August, 1764, to a farmer in Kent. The luckiest were the 152 foundlings, one in 100 of the total admission between 1741 and 1760, who were reclaimed by their mothers. The Foundling Hospital Governors were concerned with the children's health and few 18th-century children in London, whether from rich or poor families, received the high standard of medical care provided by the hospital. Babies were breastfed by wet nurses and wore loose clothes instead of being restricted by swaddling. Sick children were cared for in infirmaries, contaminated clothing was destroyed, rooms were aired, and there was an emphasis on general cleanliness and outdoor exercise. Children were inoculated against smallpox from 1744, when even specialised smallpox hospitals did not inoculate children who were younger than 6 years. The Foundling Hospital closed in 1953, but its charitable work continued as the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, now known simply as Coram. 21st-century textile work displayed in this exhibition includes remembrance corsages made from Bengali fabrics, buttons, and fringes with paper centres decorated with words reproduced from 18th-century billet books. There is also a tee-shirt for a baby boy, subsequently adopted by his carers, that was painted by his mother while she was imprisoned for drug-related offences. Like the historical textiles, this token shows the baby that his birth mother loves him dearly.