Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the number of dead or dying babies left by the wayside on the streets of London during
the gin craze. (At the time, 75 percent of London's children died before they were 5.)
All that remains of the original eighteenth-century buildings is the whitewashed loggia
which forms the border to
Coram's Fields
, an inner-city haven for children, with swings
and slides, plus a whole host of hens, goats, rabbits, ducks and a sheep. There's a
seasonal veggie
café
(March-Nov daily 10am-5pm), but adults are not allowed into
the grounds unless accompanied by a child.
Foundling Museum
40 Brunswick Square • Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm • £7.50 •
T
020 7841 3600,
W
foundlingmuseum.org.uk •
!
Russell Square
he
Foundling Museum
, north of Coram's Fields, tells the fascinating story of the
Foundling Hospital. As soon as it opened, it was besieged, and forced to introduce a
ballot system, with around a third of the applicants accepted. After 1801 only
illegitimate children were admitted, and even then only after the mother had given a
verbal statement confirming that “her good faith had been betrayed, that she had given
way to carnal passion only after a promise of marriage or against her will”. Among the
most tragic exhibits are the tokens left by the mothers in order to identify the children
should they ever be in a position to reclaim them: these range from a heart-rending
poem to a simple enamel pot label reading “ale”.
One of the hospital's governors - he even fostered two of the foundlings - was the
artist
William Hogarth
, who established London's first-ever public art gallery at the
hospital to give his friends somewhere to display their works and to attract potential
benefactors. As a result the museum boasts works by artists such as Gainsborough and
Reynolds, as well as Hogarth's splendid
March of the Guards to Finchley
. Upstairs, the
original Georgian
Court Room
, where the governors still hold their meetings, has been
faithfully reconstructed, with all its fine stuccowork. The fireplace features a wonderful
relief depicting the trades of navigation and agriculture, into which the foundling boys
were apprenticed at the age of ten before being sent out to the colonies. (The girls went
into service.) On the top floor, there's a room dedicated to
Georg Friedrich Handel
, who
gave annual charity performances of the
Messiah
, wrote an anthem for the hospital
(basically a rehash of the
Hallelujah Chorus
) and donated an organ for the chapel, the
keyboard of which survives. Today, the museum continues to put on regular concerts
and family events and puts on special exhibitions in the basement.
7
Charles Dickens Museum
48 Doughty St • Daily 10am-5pm • £8 •
T
020 7405 2127,
W
dickensmuseum.com •
!
Russell Square
Despite its plethora of blue plaques, Bloomsbury boasts just one literary museum, the
Charles Dickens Museum
,
the only one of the writer's fifteen London addresses to survive
intact. Doughty Street was a well-to-do gated Georgian street when Dickens - flushed
with the success of his first two published works - moved here in 1837 soon after his
marriage to Catherine Hogarth. The family lived in this light and airy house for two
years, during which time he wrote
Oliver Twist
and
Nicholas Nickleby
. Catherine gave
birth to two children in the bedroom here, and her younger sister died tragically in
Dickens' arms. Much of the house's furniture belonged, at one time or another, to
Dickens, and the house also owns the earliest known portrait of the writer (a miniature
painted by his aunt in 1830). The museum also owns the adjacent house, no. 49, where
they stage special exhibitions, house the bookshop and have a lovely café with free wi-fi.
London University
London only organized its own
University
in 1826, but it was the first in the country
to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender. The university started life
in Bloomsbury, but it wasn't until after World War I that it really began to take over the
