Tiny Traces: African & Asian Children at London’s Foundling Hospital
Margaret Woffington, 2017, by Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977). Wiley places his contemporary Black subjects in poses drawn from European art history and thus raises “questions about power, privilege and identity and the absence of peoples of the African diaspora in histories and representations”. This work draws on a portrait of celebrated eighteenth-century English actress Margaret “Peg” Woffington. Photograph: Birgitta Huse
““Tiny Traces is an important first step in a journey that we hope will involve many other voices and perspectives, and deepen our understanding of the Foundling Hospital in relation to Britain’s wider national story.” explains Caro Howell, MBE and Director of The Foundling Museum.”
“Hannah Dennett, the exhibition curator, does not shy away from pinpointing towards the contradiction that lies in the fact that the wealth of these governors originates in ‘the seizure and exploitation of territories and peoples across the globe [that] provided opportunities for individuals to make their fortunes through trade, political roles, ownership of plantations and investments, particularly in trading companies.’”
“Presented in a small space, this exhibition offers ample food for thought.”
Tiny Traces
African & Asian Children at London’s Foundling Hospital
★★★★★
WRITTEN BY DR BIRGITTA HUSE, 11.10.2022
“It is the wish of Miss Mackenzie, […], to take out Fanny Kenyon, the dark little girl aged about ten or eleven. She has long taken a fancy to the child, & it will be happy for the girl if the committee think proper to comply with Miss Mc Kenzies request.” wrote Matron Hannah Johnson. Having a look at the letters in the exhibition Tiny Traces: African & Asian Children at London’s Foundling Hospital at The Foundling Museum feels a bit like reading a private diary. We get insights into a certain situation, an individual’s point of view, special wishes and involved feelings. At the same time, we learn about societal circumstances and what was considered the standard of behaviour at the time of writing.
To show documents, objects and images in a gallery of a museum is nothing spectacular but it is the choice and arrangement of the objects which tell a particular story. The exhibition Tiny Traces does not only invite to have a look at the surface of the fabric of empire – but more so we can let ourselves be absorbed into the deeper tissues of this fabric, made to follow some of the threads which are connected to today’s everyday life.
Exhibition View, Photograph: Birgitta Huse
A short film at the start puts the exhibition theme into context by explaining where African and Asian people were seen in London and how they arrived at the centre of the Empire. The imperial trade network is crucial for understanding movements of goods and movements of people around the globe. It was goods and people that left England, and others who came to London in turn. In the exhibition booklet we read that “By the end of the eighteenth century there were an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Black individuals living in Britain, as well as a growing Indian population largely arriving with returning East India officials. Many were domestic servants, but others were sailors working the empire’s trading routes, or children of white colonists and African women, sent to be educated in Britain”. Hannah Dennett, the exhibition curator, states that the Foundling Museum was already aware of the presence of several African and Asian children who had been taken into the Foundling Hospital during the eighteenth century. She further explains: “The challenge was how to identify African and Asian children in the records. There was no official policy to record children’s ethnicities when they were taken into the Hospital, so I knew I would need to look for any mention of the places of origin of parents, or references of skin colour of children amongst other information relating to foundlings.” Dennett’s starting points for research were billets which are forms completed for each child on their admission and petitions from mothers to have their children admitted into the Hospital. The exhibition is the result of three years of research through all sorts of documents – not only at the Foundling Museum – and reveals thirteen children’s biographies in total. “Tiny Traces is an important first step in a journey that we hope will involve many other voices and perspectives, and deepen our understanding of the Foundling Hospital in relation to Britain’s wider national story.” explains Caro Howell, MBE and Director of The Foundling Museum.
The exhibition throws a light on three main groups of people who were involved in African and Asian children’s fate. Prints and paintings, historical and modern, speak to us throughout the exhibition and offer a range of perspectives. The first group that is presented are the parents. Children were born on ships somewhere between continents, the mothers in many cases being on their own. The etching “Kitchen Stuff” by Thomas Rowlandson from 1810, for example, depicts female and male servants who enjoy contacts with the opposite sex in a world that was set apart from what was going on in the upper floors of a wealthy town house. In contrast to that, the contemporary painting of a mother and child by Shanti Panchal gives an emphatic glimpse into the existing feelings between mothers and children who suffer difficult if not extreme circumstances.
“Kitchin Stuff”, etching by Thomas Rowlandson 1810, Victoria & Albert Museum.
The second group of people presented is the one of the Foundling Hospital Governors who were mainly wealthy, professional men who oversaw the running of the charity and contributed to it financially. Hannah Dennett, the exhibition curator, does not shy away from pinpointing towards the contradiction that lies in the fact that the wealth of these governors originates in “the seizure and exploitation of territories and peoples across the globe [that] provided opportunities for individuals to make their fortunes through trade, political roles, ownership of plantations and investments, particularly in trading companies.” Again, it is a contemporary artwork which mingles with the presented documents and follows the thread that spans from historic trade of enslaved people to today’s worldwide trade connections and reminds of the highly problematic trade with human beings, extending to continuing human trafficking.
According to the exhibition’s theme, the main part of the exhibition tackles the third group of individuals involved, namely several African and Asian children. The traces are unearthed which they left at the Foundling Hospital, and after. A mother-of-pearl token from 1757 serves as a proof of the Jamaican origin of a child called James and a little embroidered baby’s cap catches our attention as it provokes the imagination of the child wearing it. We learn about a child “a week old neatly dressed, a holland cap with a cambric border […] of a very tawny complexion”. The use of language in the billets under the heading of “Marks on the Body” is a theme in the exhibition and provided material. The use of expressions like “tawny”, “a negro” and “mulatto” is clearly marked as no longer used or acceptable.
Letter to The Foundling Hospital, 1759, Photograph: Birgitta Huse
A letter from a Lady addressed to The Foundling Hospital from the year 1759 sounds like a wish list for Christmas when saying “I […] don’t chuse any more [care children] at present, except it should be a Black Boy […]”. To have a “Black Boy” or a so called “Pageboy” was a means to show wealth and worldwide connectedness, a widespread intention until today – only by different means.
A final look which is directed at a newspaper report in the exhibition contrasts this review’s start in which I have also quoted a letter. Whereas the letter was originally addressed towards a limited number of people, the newspaper report titled “Dishonest Servants” was written for innumerable readers and thus had a considerable impact on public opinion. The report reads: “Fanny Kenyon, a young woman of colour, was charged with robbing her master, Mr Gaskill of Wick-street, Hackney. […] For the first fortnight or three weeks everything went on very well. […] but after that time she [Fanny] became morose and neglectful of her duty […] something in her conduct which exited suspicion of her honesty; and her master suggested the propriety of inspecting her trunks, before they were taken from his house. This was done, and unfortunately his suspicions were too true, for a great number of new silk purses, and other articles of the same kind […] were found concealed among her clothes.” This newspaper report provokes critical thoughts about today’s sensational headlines and somehow similar stories which are set in today’s everyday habits and circumstances.
Embroidered baby’s cap. Foundling Hospital Token. Silk, silver lace and silk ribbon. Photograph: Birgitta Huse
Altogether the exhibition Tiny Traces: African & Asian Children at London’s Foundling Hospital addresses a range of continuously important issues. Global connections and their abuse regarding human rights and equality are discussed. The backgrounds and motifs of involved people are investigated, and the use of language highlighted. The empathy for and understanding of mothers who give their children away is raised. The necessary amount of attention for the movement of people is claimed by interweaving historical and contemporary threads of a global economy. Presented in a small space, this exhibition offers ample food for thought.
Tiny Traces: African & Asian Children at London’s Foundling Hospital, The Foundling Museum, showing 30.09.2022 until 19.02.2023