London places

The only good thing - and it's not nearly good enough, mutter mutter - about Daughter 2's living in London is that, when we visit her, we're working our way through the slightly less flying-visit-type things to see in London. Last month we went to the Geffrye Museum, which is a museum of the home and how people live. It's based in former almshouses and comprises a series of rooms furnished in period items from the seventeenth century through to modern times. It's very nicely done and definitely worth a visit, should you be in London and at a loose end.

I don't know why this photo is the only one I took.

The other place we went was the Foundling Museum. As their website says:

"The Foundling Hospital, which continues today as the children’s charity Coram, was established in 1739 by the philanthropist Thomas Coram to care for babies at risk of abandonment. Instrumental in helping Coram realise his vision were the artist William Hogarth and the composer George Frideric Handel. Their creative generosity set the template for the ways in which the arts can support philanthropy.

The Foundling Museum is a history and art museum, which through a dynamic programme of exhibitions and events, celebrates the ways in which artists of all disciplines have helped improve children’s lives for over 275 years. If you’re looking for unique things to do around King's Cross, or places to take children, this hidden London gem offers a wealth of activities."

I would also recommend this. Again, it's very interesting and beautifully laid out, though also extremely heart-wrenching. Thomas Coram returned from living in America, was shocked by the numbers of abandoned children he saw in London and was determined to do something about it, but it took him 17 years to raise the money needed to set up the Hospital.

Parents who brought their babies to be looked after were asked to bring a token by which their children could be reclaimed if circumstances altered. Some of these tokens are on display and feature on the front of the booklet, below. They range from coins, keys, scraps of material, cheap rings and chains through to, in many cases, playing cards cut in half. They're absolutely fascinating but, oh dear, so sad. Some parents did come back for their children (though sometimes found that their little ones had died) but these are tokens of unclaimed children.