foundling hospital

Du Bousquier was depicted as a species of celibate Pere Gigogne, a monster, who for the last fifteen years had kept the Foundling Hospital supplied.

Morven did some research about foundlings - children abandoned at homes called Foundling Hospitals from the 1700s until the 50s (although there was never one in Scotland).

Instead of foundling hospitals, we have the legal, bureaucratic, and interpersonal complexity of a child welfare system.

'Civic Fathers of the Poor' sets out a bleak picture of the imposition of the ideological stance of the better sorts who, through the implementation of the Poor Laws, Foundling Hospitals and charities, sifted the deserving poor mothers, fathers and children from their undeserving poor counterparts.

In many European cities, women--and not just aristocrats--often sent their babies and young children to be raised in foundling hospitals or by wet nurses in the country.

The judiciary "kept the public welfare continually before its eyes, and social stability was its unswerving goal." Simultaneously, ever more women abandoned their newborn babies on the doorstep of the father or at foundling hospitals. Abandonment was not without risk for the parents, for if identified, they could be held to provide support payments.