Finding A Foundling - Textiles of Identity

In a small corner of London lies one of the most evocative collection of textiles anywhere in the world. The fabrics – which are quite ordinary - are in the so-called billet books which recorded the identity and clothing of every baby accepted at the Foundling Hospital from the mid 1700s onwards. What makes these books so moving is that often the birth mother left a scrap of cloth or ribbon when she gave up her baby. She held onto the other half so that if her circumstances changed, she could return to the Foundling Hospital, match the two pieces of cloth and reclaim her child. The result, two hundred and fifty years later, is one of the best collections of textiles samples worn by ordinary people in Europe the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. It is hard to imagine today how we would feel if we had to place our own child in a foundling hospital, if this was part of our family history. One woman recently discovered that this is exactly what happened to her ancestor. She arrived at the Foundling Hospital in 1758 at just a few weeks old. But she lived to be 87 – an incredible age for that time – and became a mother and grandmother herself. Find out more in this episode. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to And if you would like to find out more about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link:

You can listen to Finding A Foundling - Textiles of Identity online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Finding A Foundling - Textiles of Identity is an episode from Haptic & Hue by Jo Andrews.

This episode is 40:53 long.

This episode was published on Mar 5, 2026.

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