Victorian Women, Unwed Mothers and the London Foundling Hospital

Jessica Sheetz-Nguyen is Director of the History Education Program at the University of Central Oklahoma, USA.

• Introduction; 1. 'Ornament of the Metropolis' - the London Foundling Hospital; 2. 'Charity Injures the Providence of the Giver'; 3. 'To Hear the True State of the Mother's Case'; 4. 'When First Acquainted with Father I Was'; 5. 'If You Will Kindly Take Her from Me, You Will Save My Character'; 6. 'Dear Mr Brownlow'; 7. 'Received - A Blank Child'; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

This is a fascinating and exhaustive study of unmarried mothers who applied to the London Foundling Hospital in the Victorian period. Sheetz-Nguyen has mined applications for admission in order to draw a detailed picture of the ‘calculus of respectability’ employed by members of the Foundling Hospital’s Board of Governors and Committee to assess petitioners’ claims ... Sheetz-Nguyen combines comprehensive quantitative analysis of these issues with qualitative evidence drawn from the rich biographies of individual petitioners assembled from the petition packets.