The Foundling Hospital, Guildford Street

 

This hospital, founded by Captain Thomas Coram "for the relief of exposed and deserted children", was built in the early 1740s on land purchased from the Earl of Salisbury. Babies were taken in (on a ballot system, as many babies had to be refused on account of the Hospital's almost immediate success in attracting unwanted infants), and young children educated. The Hospital continues (as the Thomas Coram Foundation for children), although in the early twentieth century it moved to Berkhamstead.