STATE OF PARISH CHILDREN--ANECDOTES OF VARIOUS DESCRIPTIONS
OF CHARITY EXERCISED IN LONDON, BETWEEN THE YEARS 1700 AND
1800.
There is something in the composition of the British atmosphere highly
congenial to human and animal life: the clouded air and frequent
humidity, and consequent coolness, prevent the violent perspirations
the natives of finer climates experience; hence the fluids remain in
full effect, and expand every part of the frame to its full proportion.
The habits and manner of living at various periods of our history had
great influence on the exteriors of our ancestors: when men were forced
into armies to repel invaders from Saxony and Denmark, the whole race
of Englishmen became either hardened into almost supernatural exertion
and strength, or were victims to those chronic diseases which deform
the body and destroy the regularity of features; then the youth of each
sex experienced privations incident to war, and the whole population
must have suffered in the gracefulness of their persons. It required
many years of quiet to restore the disorders of the body politic; and
those of individuals recovered in the same slow proportion. In the
reign of Edward III. Englishmen had again expanded into full military
vigour; they marched with the front of Hercules against their enemies,
and they maintained their strength and courage beyond the period of our
Henry V.
After that reign, I should imagine, their stature diminished, and their
countenances assumed a less pleasing form; and we find them bending
under the most profligate despotism through the reigns of Henry VII.
and VIII. Elizabeth, possessed of equal power, but inclined to use it
for the benefit of her subjects, as far as the confined ideas of the
time permitted, raised the people nearer to manhood; and her young
soldiers waited for the enemy on their coasts, not yet as _volunteers_,
but as defenders of their metropolis for a virtuous arbitrary Monarch.
The sentiments imbibed during this auspicious period, contributed
to render domestic life more cheerful than it had hitherto been;
the person was enlarged, and became more graceful; discontent fled
from the features; and the Londoner, still nearer perfection, at
last accomplished those two Revolutions which have for ever banished
Despotism, and secured his home--nay made it his _castle_. See the
consequences in the myriads of beautiful infants that smile on every
side of him, with the regular and placid lines that mark their faces,
and the strait and truly proportioned limbs that distinguish vast
numbers of all ranks of people of both sexes.
Still the deformed and pallid are numerous; but deformity and disease
in London generally proceed from causes which _may be prevented_; very
confined residences destroy the health of parents and their offspring;
the lowest class of inhabitants drink away their comforts, and suffer
their children to _crawl_ into manhood.
The highest classes sometimes trust infants to mercenaries; crooked
legs and injured spines are too often the consequence: yet we find
thousands of males and females, who appear to have been nursed by the
Graces, and as far surpass the celebrated statues of the Venus de
Medicis and the Apollo Belvidere, as the works of the Creator ever will
those of man. When a female of high rank emerges from the controul
of her governess, and receives the last polish, I pronounce her an
ornament to any Court in Europe.
Those favoured with an opportunity of seeing the 30,000 volunteers
assembled at Hyde-park in 1804, determined to fight for their homes,
must agree with me that no nation ever produced an equal number
together so finely proportioned and handsome.
In confirmation of my assertion that part of the deformity observable
in the lower class of people might be prevented, I shall insert a
Parliamentary report concerning their children, and show how numbers
taken from parents have been disposed of.
"Mr. Whitworth reported from the Committee appointed to inquire into
the state of the parish poor infants, under the age of 14 years, within
the bills of mortality, and to report their opinion to the House;
that the Committee had inquired accordingly, and had come to several
resolutions which they had directed him to report to the House. The
said Report was read, and is as follows:
"The Committee having examined the registers of the several parishes
referred to them by the House, have collected from them the state of
the parish infant poor; and find, that taking the children born in
workhouses or parish houses, or received of and under 12 months old in
the year 1763, and following the same into 1764 and 1765, _only seven
in one hundred_ appeared to have survived this short period.
"That having called for the registers of the years 1754, 1755, 1761,
1762, of the children placed out apprentices by the parishes within
the bills of mortality, it appears that there have been apprenticed
out the number of 1419; but, upon examining the ages at which the said
children so placed out were received in the seven years from 1741 till
they grew up to be placed out, it appears that only 19 of those born in
the workhouses, or received into them under 12 months old, compose any
part of the 1419; and even of those received as far as three years old,
only 36 appear to have survived in the hands of the said parishes to be
placed out apprentices. It appears that the children are kept in the
several workhouses in town, or in the hands of parish nurses in town,
only a small portion of them being sent into the country to be nursed,
and the price of 3_s._ and 2_s._ 6_d._ per week first paid, is often
reduced so low as 1_s._ 6_d._ and 1_s._ per week; that it cannot be
presumed to be equal to the necessary care of infants.
"Your Committee find the conduct of parish nurses was taken notice of
by Parliament in the year 1715; and upon examining also into the recent
facts above related, it doth not appear to your Committee that the
evil is or can be remedied, unless proper regulations are established
by legislative authority. It appears from the evidence of the parish
officers of St. Andrew, Holborn (called within the City liberties), and
also from Mr. Hutton, a principal inhabitant of that parish, that the
sum of 2_s._ 6_d._ a week for the article of nursing, is as little as
a child can be nursed at to have justice done it; but at the same time,
they being sensible of the good conduct and management of the Hospital
for the maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young
children, they have proposed to the governors and guardians thereof,
to receive their infant parish poor at a certain rate, which, by the
minutes of the general court of the said Hospital, dated Feb. 18, 1767,
which was produced to your Committee and read, the said governors and
guardians are ready to comply with, and likewise to forward any general
purpose the Legislature may think proper to direct, in relation to the
preservation of the infant parish poor within the bills of mortality.
"It appears upon the examination of Saunders Welch, esq. that great
inconveniences have been found from parish boys being placed out
apprentice so long as till the age of 24; and upon reading the clause
in the 43d of Elizabeth, cap. 2, intituled, 'An Act for the relief of
the Poor,' in the 5th section thereof it is said, 'Parish officers are
to bind their man child to the age of 24, but the woman child to the
age of 21, or time of marriage.' This, your Committee thinks, checks
marriage, and discourages industry. It appears to your Committee, that
the usual sum given by parishes with apprentices, has been generally
from 20 to 40_s._ only, which your Committee think inadequate to the
procuring good masters.
"It appears that the register directed to be made out by the Act of the
2d of His present Majesty, intituled, 'An Act for keeping a regular,
uniform, and annual register of all parish poor infants under a certain
age, within the bills of mortality,' is deficient, by not setting forth
how children are disposed of after the age of four years.
"Upon the whole, your Committee came to the following resolutions:
That it is the opinion of this Committee, that the parish infant poor,
within the bills of mortality, should be sent into the country to be
nursed, at a distance not less than a certain number of miles from any
part of the town: That it is the opinion of this Committee, that the
parish officers should allow and pay a certain sum for nursing each
child: That it is the opinion of this Committee, that a proper number
of principal inhabitants should be chosen in every parish respectively,
under the denomination of Guardians of the parish infant poor, to
inspect into the treatment of the said children nursed as above:
That it is the opinion of this Committee, that the parish officers,
governors, and directors of the poor, should have the alternative
of sending such children to the Hospital, for the maintenance and
education of exposed and deserted young children; and the governors
and guardians thereof be permitted to take them at a certain sum, and
to be paid by the said officers for nursing such children out of the
parish rates: That it is the opinion of this Committee, that parish
children should be placed out apprentice for a shorter time than is by
law prescribed: That it is the opinion of this Committee, that a proper
sum should be given as apprentice fees with the said parish children:
That it is the opinion of this Committee, that the register of infant
poor under four years of age, should be continued on till the children
are in the same manner disposed of in the world.
"These resolutions were agreed to by the House, and a bill ordered."
It appears from a return inserted in the Journals of the House of
Commons, 1778, that, in the preceding eleven years, the following was
the state of the reception and discharge of parish children in the
parishes mentioned, from which an accurate estimate may be formed for
the rest of London.
Children Died. Returned Apprenticed.
under 6 to their
years old. parents.
St. Giles in the
Fields, and St.
George Bloomsbury 1479 177 956 319
St. Margaret and St.
John, Westminster 1109 181 766 172
St. Anne, Westminster 324 100 152 76
St. James, Westminster 861 215 250 243
St. Clement Danes 257 113 84 89
St. Andrew, Holborn,
and St. George Martyr 756 137 308 207
Saffron Hill 231 30 82 95
St. James, Clerkenwell 701 104 456 116
St. Mary, Whitechapel 449 69 102 286
St. Saviour's, Southwark 539 105 205 187
St. Leonard, Shoreditch 586 99 178 185
St. John, Southwark 154 48 65 127
St. Luke, Old-street 421 103 103 234
St. Botolph, Aldgate 297 90 130 101
St. Martin in the Fields 1512 463 736 321
St. Paul, Covent-garden 51 8 27 36
---- ---- ---- ----
9727 2042 4600 2794
---- ---- ---- ----
Children, nursed as the above authentic documents prove they were,
cannot but have been checked in their growth; and perhaps many of them
are at this moment part of the miserable objects we daily see in the
streets. The exercise of a little humanity may prevent similar evils in
future.
There is an admirable example, which has long been established for
our imitation, where the offspring of vice and humble virtue, equally
innocent, are received and nurtured with the utmost care, and where
human nature is rescued from debasement, corporeal and mental. Let
the reader reflect on the thousands originally preserved, and their
descendants rendered happy, through the god-like benevolence of Captain
Coram; and he will immediately recollect the _Foundling Hospital_.
In consequence of that worthy man's petition, George II. granted a
Charter of incorporation, which authorised Charles duke of Richmond,
and several other eminent persons, to purchase lands, &c. in mortmain,
to the annual amount of 4000_l._ to be applied to the maintenance and
education of exposed and deserted infants.
The first quarterly general meeting of the Corporation was held
December 26, 1739, when subscription-books were ordered to be opened
at the Bank of England and various bankers, for inserting the names of
annual contributors. The governors and guardians then amounted to near
400, who unanimously determined to vote their thanks to Captain Coram;
but he declined them, and modestly requested they might be transferred
to those ladies whose subscriptions had enabled him to procure the
Charter. This proposal was acceded to, and the benevolent Captain
deputed to convey them.
Montague house, now the British Museum, had been thought by the
governors in 1740, an eligible receptacle for the objects of the
intended charity; but Messrs. Fazakerly, and the Attorney and Solicitor
Generals, to whom the matter was referred, gave it as their opinion
that the expence of obtaining those extensive premises would be too
great. The governors resolved, in consequence, to open subscriptions
for the purchase of land on which to erect an hospital, and in the mean
time to receive sixty children in a temporary receptacle.
They accomplished their wishes in the following December, by obtaining
56 acres North of Ormond-street, of the earl of Salisbury, for 7000_l._
the present site of the Foundling hospital, Guildford-street, &c. On
the 25th of March, 1741, 19 male and 11 female infants were received,
all of whom were less than two months old; their baptism took place the
ensuing Sunday, when two were honoured with the names of Thomas and
Eunice Coram; others of robust frames and apparently calculated for
future seamen, were called Drake, Blake, and Norris.
John Milner, esq. vice-president of the corporation, assisted by many
governors, laid the first stone of the new hospital in 1742, when a
copper plate, secured between two pieces of milled-lead, was deposited
in a cavity; the plate is thus inscribed: "The foundation of this
hospital for the relief of exposed and deserted young children, was
laid 16th September, 16 George II. 1742."
The Corporation, laudably attentive to the future happiness of the
orphans committed to their care, determined to have them inoculated for
the small-pox in 1744; a process then as much condemned as vaccination
is at present.
The first stone of the Chapel was deposited by ---- Jacobson, esq. and
contains the following inscription: "The foundation of this Chapel was
laid the 1st day of May, A. D. 1747, and in the 20th year of his most
sacred Majesty King George II." At the same time a successful attempt
to obtain farther pecuniary assistance was made, by a public breakfast
for ladies, at 2_s._ 6_d._ per ticket, when a collection for the Chapel
amounted to 596_l._ 13_s._ and another for the hospital produced
110_l._ 9_s._ 6_d._
The Prince and Princess of Wales honoured the governors with their
presence at the Chapel, Saturday, May 27, 1749, to hear one of Handel's
compositions performed for the benefit of the hospital; the audience is
said to have consisted of 1000 persons, who each paid 10_s._ 6_d._ for
their tickets. The King sent 2000_l._ and an unknown benefactor 50_l._
The worthy and veteran Coram died March 29, 1751, aged 83, and was
buried April 2d, in the vault beneath the chapel of _his_ hospital.
The honours due to this excellent philanthropist were paid by the
Corporation to the utmost extent; and the choirs of St. Paul's and
St. Peter's Westminster chaunted Dr. Boyce's funeral service over the
body, which was covered by a pall borne by many persons of distinction,
followed by the charter of the foundation carried on a velvet cushion;
and the infants preserved by his exertions closed the procession. The
present governors, fully sensible of the public debt of gratitude still
in arrears, have recently given his name to Great and Little Coram
streets, erected on the surplus ground belonging to the charity[13:A].
Frequent repetitions of Handel's music, and contributions of every
description, enabled the governors to receive 1240 children from 1742
to 1754. They, however, thought proper to petition the legislature for
assistance two years afterwards, and obtained 10,000_l._ to be applied
for the reception of infants under two months old. On the 2d June,
1756, 117 were admitted[13:B].
The governors found it necessary to publish the following notice on
this occasion: "The governors and guardians of this Hospital thinking
it incumbent on them to expose the falsity of what has been propagated
in several newspapers, that out of 10,000_l._ granted by Parliament to
this Corporation, 1200_l._ was deducted in several offices for fees;
do hereby assure the publick, that all fees whatsoever were charitably
remitted by all the noblemen and gentlemen through whose offices the
proper warrants pass, so that the clear sum of 10,000_l._ was paid into
the Bank of England on account of the Hospital. By order of the general
Committee,
_Sept. 7, 1757_.