Answer of the governors of the Foundling Hospital, to a memorial of the Lord Mayor ... citizens of Dublin, to the Lord Lieutenant, dated 3rd of May, 1816 ... together with other documents, explaining the proceedings of the governors, as connected with the Act of 54 Geo. III. C. 128, empowering them to suspend the admission of infants into the hospital, for a limited time in each year.

  • Foundling Hospital (Dublin, Ireland)
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Answer of the governors of the Foundling Hospital, to a memorial of the Lord Mayor ... citizens of Dublin, to the Lord Lieutenant, dated 3rd of May, 1816 ... together with other documents, explaining the proceedings of the governors, as connected with the Act of 54 Geo. III. C. 128, empowering them to suspend the admission of infants into the hospital, for a limited time in each year. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/100 (page 9)
    fl*om the period of enacting that Law until the 54th of his present Majesty, “ The Governors of the said Work- “ house and Foundling Hospital were to receive young ii Children at all seasons of the year indiscriminately, and without any Certificate or Document, the procuring of fi£ which must necessarily have led to the discovery of the “ Parent or Parents, and thereby defeat the beneficial “ operations of these Establishments It would seem from this passage, as if, in the judgment of the Corporation, the beneficial operations of such Estab- lishments consisted chiefly in concealing from public view the Fathers of illegitimate Children. The Parent who, from distress, reluctantly deposits his or her Child, whether legitimate or illegitimate, in such an Establishment, has, in general, no wish for concealment; they desire to register the name, that they may reclaim it in more favour- able circumstances. The concealment serves chiefly to protect from public censure those Fathers, who, though in ample circumstances, are deaf to the calls of moral obliga- tion, and are wholly indifferent as to the fate of their offspring. To check this abuse was one principal object of that clause of the 54th Geo. III. C. 128. Sect. 1. against the operation of which the Memorial is principally directed. The Memorial represents this clause as introducing a practice wholly new, so far as it enables the Governors to suspend admissions for a definite period in each yearn it certainly does so; but we beg leave to state, that the practice of requiring Certificates from the Minister and Church-Wardens prevailed long before, and was in use during the continuance of the former system, as appears by a Report of a Committee of the House of Commons of Ireland, appointed to inquire into the management and state of the Foundling Hospital, in the yent 1797