A thing of shreds and patches

[shewhomust]

It's not just in stories, apparently, that foundlings abandoned at birth are identified, years later, by a token or a piece of cloth left with them by their mother. Yesterday's Guardian carries a charming article by Kathryn Hughes, previewing an exhibition that's about to open at London's Foundling Museum.

The Foundling Hospital, it seems, required absolute anonymity for the children in its care; yet it knew that sometimes family fortunes improved, and mothers might be able to resume looking after their own children. So a notice at the door of the hospital encouraged mothers to leave some identifiable token, such as a scrap of fabric, by which the child might be identified. Only a minority of mothers did so, but that minority added up to 5000 tokens carefully archived against the mother's eventual return.

What I find irresistible about this, I think, is the intersection of the subjective, each little sample of fabric the surviving evidence of a personal history, and the historical overview, the sum total of the collection being, according to curator John Styles, "the largest collection in Britain of everyday textiles from the eighteenth century."

The Museum's web site has some more pictures.

Comments

[sovay]

So a notice at the door of the hospital encouraged mothers to leave some identifiable token, such as a scrap of fabric, by which the child might be identified. Only a minority of mothers did so, but that minority added up to 5000 tokens carefully archived against the mother's eventual return.

Okay; that's amazing. Thank you for linking.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I hope I shall be able to see this...