The Thomas Coram Foundation for Children is a large children's charity in London operating under the name Coram. It was founded by eighteenth century philanthropist Captain Thomas Coram who campaigned to establish a charity that would care for the high numbers of abandoned babies in London, setting up the Foundling Hospital in 1739 at Lamb's Conduit Fields in Bloomsbury. By the 1950s social change had led to the closure of the hospital and the charity adopted the broader name Thomas Coram Foundation for Children in 1954.
The charity acts as an adoption agency in addition to a wide range of educational and advisory services for children. It retains part of its original site in London but moved its heritage collections into the care of The Foundling Museum in 1998.
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Main article: Foundling Hospital |
The Foundling Hospital was begun by the philanthropic sea captain Thomas Coram, who was appalled to see abandoned babies and children starving and dying in the streets of London.[1] In 1742–1745 a building was erected north of Lamb's Conduit Street in Bloomsbury. Boys were housed in the West Wing of the new home. The East Wing was built in 1752 to house girls.
The artist William Hogarth was a governor of the Foundling Hospital and donated some of their work to the foundation as well as designing its coat of arms.[1] The art collection also contains works by Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds, including a full-length portrait of Thomas Coram, along with musical scores by Handel including one of three fair copies of Messiah.[1]
In 1926, the Governors of the hospital decided to relocate it out of the city, initially to Redhill, Surrey and then to Berkhamsted[2] in 1935. It then closed as a children's home in the 1950s, the buildings becoming Ashlyns School, a local authority school not related to the charity.[3]
The Foundling Hospital was re-named the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children in 1954.[4]
Coram's headquarters are at Brunswick Square in London.[5] It operates as a registered voluntary adoption agency and fostering service and in November 2021 Ofsted rated it as "outstanding".[6]
Coram Adoption is an independent adoption service working in London, the East Midlands, and Cambridgeshire.[7] They also work in partnership with local authorities.[8] Their partnership with the London Borough of Harrow was the first use of the model.[9][10] Coram were also one of the pioneers of 'concurrent planning' (also known as 'foster to adopt'), and received government funding to become a 'National Centre of Excellence in Early Years Permanence' in 2012.[11][12] In 2015 the British Association for Adoption and Fostering went into administration. Coram took over many of the services in England, offering a total of £40,000 and taking on 50 of the 135 employees. The membership, training and research organisation became CoramBAAF. The Independent Review Mechanism (England) was taken over by Coram Children's Legal Centre. The National Adoption Register for England is now run by First4Adoption (jointly run by Coram and Adoption UK).[13][14]
Coram Life Education runs programmes in schools to educate children about health, wellbeing, and drugs. It was formed in 2009 as an amalgamation between Coram and Life Education.[15]
In 2011 the Children's Legal Centre and Coram were amalgamated into Coram Children's Legal Centre.[16] In 2013 the charity Voice merged with Coram to form Coram Voice.[17]
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Main article: Foundling Museum |
The historic collections of the Foundling Hospital were moved in the 1920s to Brunswick Square, London, where a museum was established. In 1998 the building and collections were formally constituted as a separate charity, the Foundling Museum.[18]
