The occupational distribution of foundling apprentices during the English Industrial Revolution

Abstract

This article presents a new analysis of the distribution of apprenticeships brokered by the London Foundling Hospital, England’s pre-eminent charitable foundation in the eighteenth century for orphaned and abandoned children. It explores the similarities and differences between charity apprenticeship and parish apprenticeship systems in supplying pauper children’s labour during the critical first phase of the English Industrial Revolution, within a wider European context. The results of this analysis illustrate that foundling children were set to work in agriculture, mainly in northern England, and in a variety of small manufacturing and retailing industries in the London area. For a short time, foundling girls were sent in batches to work in textile factories in the North and Midlands, but this practice was soon ended over concerns for children’s welfare. The extensive patronage networks of Foundling Hospital Governors and inspectors, the location of provincial branch hospitals set up to cope with the high volume of so-called ‘General Reception’ children, and gendered expectations of the life courses of the labouring poor were the most significant factors in determining where foundling children were sent as apprentices, and how they were employed.