Thomas Coram, Gent., 1668 – 1751

In the April issue of the Webmag we published a pre-publication article about this book and the issues it raises. [click here]

It is a fascinating book, about a fascinating man. In some ways Thomas Coram was a man of his time, making a living through business activities in the expanding British Empire as North America was being developed and its natural wealth exploited. Although poorly educated and without inherited wealth, he set himself up as a ship-builder, and later developed a career in London, trading and advising on the creation of new colonies. It was a time for making fortunes and expanding British interests, and Thomas Coram played a significant role.

However, he was also most unusual, standing out against the tide of current opinions in his views about the way women were treated, but his name would have been forgotten if he had not also taken note of the plight of foundlings, babies left to die because they were born out of wedlock and were an embarrassment to their parents, either socially or financially. Thomas Coram viewed the plight of these children with compassion, but he also saw that the country needed its children to contribute to the expanding economy.

He petitioned for approval from the King, George II, for the establishment of a hospital for foundlings, and his campaign took twenty years, floundering until he obtained the support of a group of twenty-one titled ladies.

Even with the King’s support, the project came in for criticism, since caring for foundlings was seen as an encouragement to loose sexual morals, and it was argued that it was necessary to maintain the shame attached to illicit births. The backwash of this type of thinking continued to affect the children, limiting the quality of care they received and the scope of the education and vocational training available to the foundlings. It was as if the children were guilty of the sins of their parents.

Thomas Coram was a man of considerable drive, forthright and outspoken. Throughout his life, he did not mince his words when he disapproved of a person, and he upset influential people in the process. Once the project was under way, Thomas Coram was elbowed out by the other Governors, even though the Foundlings’ Hospital had been his idea. Although the surviving evidence is fairly circumstantial, it seems likely that there was scandalous misconduct on the part of one or two other Governors, and that Thomas Coram, as usual, did not keep silent, but embarrassed the Board by denouncing the culprits. It was only in his last few years that he once more had contact, visiting the children.

When he died, there was a grand funeral, and he was buried beneath the altar of the chapel at the Foundlings’ Hospital. His monument described him as a “Man eminent in that most eminent Virtue, the Love of Mankind. Little attentive to his Private Fortune…” He was not only a man of his time, but was also an exception in his refusal to compromise his personal standards.

Gillian Wagner has researched this book well. Although an outstanding man, well ahead of his time, Thomas Coram had never had a full biography written about him. It was a gap which needed to be filled, not only to tell his life story, but to throw light on life in those days – the way businesses were set up and run, the establishment of the North American colonies, the religious arguments, the networks of power and influence, the sexual mores and the attitudes of society to children in need. It was a time of great activity and growth, but also one in which there were many casualties, not least the foundlings whose case Thomas Coram took up.

Gillian Wagner uncovered new sources of material, in particular correspondence with people in North America in which Thomas Coram recounted aspects of his earlier life. Without these new sources, the account would have been thinner and less accurate. For example, although often styled Captain Coram by others, he did not see himself as a Captain but as a Gentleman, as the book explains. The book is well annotated and soundly based in fact, but it is the character of Thomas Coram that makes it so fascinating – dynamic, forceful, upright, critical and concerned for the rights of women and children, a man ahead of his times and a true Gentleman.

The publication of this book happily coincides with the re-opening of the Thomas Coram Foundation Museum, which contains relics of the Hospital (demolished long ago). These include the keepsakes which mothers left with the children – all sorts of small objects, half of which was left with the child and half kept by the mother in case there was a later chance that they might be reunited. They are poignant reminders of the personal grief of the mothers, of the trials faced by foundlings then and of the impact of Thomas Coram’s personal vision and drive.

Click here for the Web Site of
Thomas Coram Foundation Museum
40 Brunswick Square, London WC1

Thomas Coram, Gent., by Dame Gillian Wagner, obtainable from Boydell and Brewer Ltd., PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF. Tel. UK (0)1394 - 610600 Email trading@boydell.co.uk. ISBN 1 84383 057 4.