Foundling Museum

The museum: A terraced house with a bright red door. The museum: A terraced house with a bright red door.
Photo by me.

Formerly the Foundling Hospital - set up in 1739 by Thomas Coram to house children who often had to be abandoned due to extreme poverty.

The museum tells that story and also has a large collection of artworks - the hospital raised funds by becoming the city’s first public art gallery.

£12.75 - Under 21s free

foundlingmuseum.org.uk

Exhibitions

Foundling Voices

Learn about five individuals grappling with their identities, uncovering their pasts, and understanding themselves through personal histories.

Included in entry

Until

Social History

Self-Made: Reshaping Identities

An exhibition featuring ceramic works by four artists examining the fluid nature of identity through the transformative properties of clay.

Included in entry

Until

Modern Art

Talks

Panel Discussion: Clay & Identity

Artists explore how the properties of clay relate to personal identity and the shaping of the self.

Included in entry

Related Attractions

Photo of a musical instrument with a landscape oil painting behind it against a grey panelled wall. Photo of a musical instrument with a landscape oil painting behind it against a grey panelled wall.
Photo by me. Handel clearly liked grey.

Handel Hendrix House

Located in Mayfair

Handel, enormously famous in his day, was a key benefactor of the Foundling Hospital and there’s a gallery dedicated to some of his works on the museum’s top floor.

His house in Mayfair is also a museum and has more in common with the Foundling Museum than you’d expect, both can reveal stories of everyday life in Georgian London for the richest and the poorest. Make sure you talk to the volunteers though! There’s not much to read.