Good morning welcome to Secret London with me mark Monroe and today we're in
Bloomsbury more specifically Marcmont street now when you're in a big city
it's always a good idea to look up because you're gonna see a lot of things
above your eyeline that are very interesting but here in Marchmont
Street it's a good idea to look down because the pavements around here telll a
very interesting and profound story
these objects that appear embedded in the pavement on Marchmont Street haven't
been trodden in here over the years by pedestrians they're actually part of the
piece of public art work by the artist John Aldus, and they tell a story a very
profound story, that being the unimaginable grief but a mother had to
endure when she was forced
behind me is a place in Bloomsbury called Coram fields, now up until the
1920s a hospital stood here it was called the foudling Hospital it was
founded by Thomas coram and had benefactors such as William Hogarth
George Frederick Handel and the Earl of Marchmont of which Marshman street is
named after where we've just come from. It was the first hospital in Britain for
abandoned children of imperiled women
the gates behind me were the original entrance to the foundling Hospital and
the foundling hospital was big it covered an area of over seven acres but
now like I said they're renamed Coram fields after Sir Thomas coram who
founded the hospital, Coram fields is a huge recreational park that is dedicated
to the happiness and welfare of children as you can see by the sign outside on
the front gate if you were growing up in London in the 1800's life was pretty
brutal especially if you were a child only one in five children made it to
their second birthday and if disease swept through a community the infant
mortality rate could rise to over 75% at one point in London more people were
dying than being baptized so back to the objects we saw embedded in the pavement
around the corner on Marchmont Street well their actually called tokens, when a
mother came to the foundling hospital and her child was accepted the child
would be given a unique number the child would then be baptized and then given a
new name it was then time to say goodbye
the mother was asked to leave a keepsake a memento a token with the child now
this could be anything sometimes it was something the mother
had on her at that moment a piece of fabric a thimble a playing card a note
with something written on it something that could magically connect her with
the child and it was essential that she remembered it in case she needed to come
back and reclaim the child at a later date so these tokens became a magical
connection between mother and child they were essentially symbols of love loss
and of course longing sadly less than 2% of mothers came back to reclaim their
child up to 1779 15,000 children had been admitted into the Foundling hospital
and tragically 70 percent of those had die,d and because of the sheer numbers
that were being admitted into the hospital a ballot system was introduced
to stem the flow of children arriving back on Marchmont street you might have
noticed one of the slabs had three different colored balls embedded in them
and this was a clue to how the ballot system worked
essentially the ballot system worked like this on entering the hospital the
mother would be escorted to a darkened room a room where the candles had been
snubbed out to protect her anonymity she would then put her hand in a bag and
draw out the ball if she drew out a white ball then her child would be
medically inspected it had passed the inspection then the child would be
allowed into the hospital if she drew out a red ball then she was put on a
white ball rejection list if however she drew out a black ball well she was
immediately escorted to the front door to a future of who knows what
just around the corner from Marchmont Street and Brunswick square is the Foundling
Museum it's dedicated to the history of the Foundling hospital and interestingly
if you do visit and it's well worth a visit you can see the actual tokens that
mother's left to reconnect themselves with their children
Thomas Coram understood that children should never have to suffer through dint
of birth an unfortunate circumstance society as a collective had an
obligation to protect their vulnerability and innocence and it's
because of this man behind me that we now have social support structures built
in our society that care for children most noticeably adoption agencies like
the one behind me Coram adoption moving into 2020 over three and a half thousand
children will be adopted by forever families this year and we thank those
families for their selfless sacrifice to commit their lives to bringing up and
giving a child a loving and caring and prosperous future thanks for watching
today's episode of secret London with me Mark Monroe if you enjoyed today's
episode leave any comments down below the good the bad and the ugly I read
them all hit that thumbs up button and if you really enjoyed it why not
subscribe until next time stay tuned