The National Trust property Quebec House is collaborating with Coram to offer a special new tour this spring, exploring the unique story of the hundreds of children who were raised at the Foundling Hospital in Westerham, Kent. The tours, led by National Trust volunteers, run at midday every Friday from 7 March until 30 May 2025.
Visitors joining the tours will have opportunity to learn about the Foundling Hospital, established by Thomas Coram in 1739 as a home for babies whose mothers were unable to care for them, and which continues today as the charity Coram. The Hospital was the first example of children’s social care in the UK.
Almost 15,000 babies were brought to the Foundling Hospital between 1756 and 1760. A branch hospital was subsequently opened in Westerham, at what is now another local National Trust property, Chartwell, formerly known as Wellstreet, to cope with this ever-increasing demand for its services.
The tours will also explore the daily lives of the 469 children who were cared for and educated at the Westerham Branch Hospital between 1760 and 1769. This includes the fascinating story of Edmund Fitz-George, an apprentice blacksmith with possible links to King George III, whose life was traced in the Coram Foundling Hospital Archives by one of his descendants.
This is the second collaboration between Quebec House and Coram, with the National Trust property previously exhibiting ‘A Folded Reality’, a narrative blanket created by care-experienced young people as an artistic response to Coram’s history, with a series of talks on the Foundling Hospital in 2024 running alongside the display.
Later this year, Coram, which runs leading wellbeing education programmes in schools, will invite pupils at local schools to take part in a crafting activity to create tokens to represent the children who grew up at the Westerham Branch Hospital. Tokens were left by mothers who gave their children to the Foundling Hospital, as a means of identification and in case they may one day be able to reclaim their child.
Dr Carol Homden, CEO of Coram, said: “We are delighted to continue our collaboration with Quebec House, enabling more visitors to discover the little-known history of the Foundling Hospital in Westerham and gain insight into the lives of the children who grew up there. We’re also looking forward to working with schools in the area to explore the significance of the tokens left by mothers when they gave their children to the Hospital and seeing children’s creative interpretations of the tokens today.”
Hilary Cowdock, Quebec House Tour Guide, said: “As a tour guide, I find it very moving to speak to visitors about the Coram Foundling Hospital. Because even though Coram gave the youngsters in its care a new start in life it’s still so sad to think of the mothers who felt they had no choice but to give up their cherished children. And it’s especially touching to hear about the many tokens left by the mothers with their babies so that they could identify them later and ask about their welfare.”
Tickets for the tours cost £5 per person and can be booked at nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/kent/quebec-house/events.