Foundlings at War

Discover the poignant and compelling stories of former Foundling Hospital pupils who served in the military across the globe.

The fascinating stories of how military action in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries affected the lives of children at the Foundling Hospital, were illuminated through a series of four displays at the Foundling Museum and have now been brought together in this book. The Foundling Hospital was established to protect children from destitution and create well-rounded citizens. To assist the children in their transition into adulthood, many foundling boys went directly from the Hospital into military service. Due to the musical heritage of the Hospital, the children were commonly enrolled into military bands and travelled with their respective regiments all over the world. Wartime also saw a rise in orphaned children and abandoned or widowed mothers, which in turn led to an influx of admission requests to the Hospital.

Four chapters explore these stories, along with audio clips of accounts from former pupils and historic photographs.