Thomas Coram

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas Coram, painting by William Hogarth, 1740

Thomas Coram (* 1668 in Lyme Regis , Dorset , United Kingdom , † March 29, 1751 in London ) was a British businessman and philanthropist .

Coram went to sea when he was twelve and later became a captain. Between 1694 and 1705 he operated a shipyard in Taunton , Massachusetts . In 1720 he returned to Great Britain from the United States, where he worked as a businessman. In 1732 he was one of the trustees of the Georgia colony founded by James Oglethorpe . In 1735 he financed a settlement for unemployed craftsmen in Nova Scotia .

On his return in 1720, Coram noticed that there were a very high number of orphaned children in London, for whose upkeep no one felt responsible. The view that handouts did not help the poor but, on the contrary, drove them further into poverty was widespread. Coram argued that the poor and the poorest children also needed an education, especially the girls who, if they became mothers, would be the role models for their own children: “giving girls a vertuous [sic] education is a vast advantage to their posterity as well as to the public ”(giving girls a virtuous education is a huge benefit for both their offspring and the general public).

The situation was so dire that Coram found himself unable to make a change on his own. He began a campaign for a royal charter to be the basis for the first hospital for foundlings . Coram won many prominent supporters for his cause, including seven duchesses, eight countesses and five baronesses. The struggle for protection by the king was to last almost 20 years - it was not until October 17, 1739 that King George II signed the founding charter of the Foundling Hospital "for the maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young children" and raising abandoned and abandoned young children).

From 1742 to 1745 the Foundling Hospital was built in Lamb's Conduit Fields in Bloomsbury. It was the world's first not-for-profit charitable foundation. One of the foundation's first governors was the artist William Hogarth , who was a friend of Coram and also painted him. Hogarth, together with other artistically active sponsors, also decorated the governor's room in the hospital. He donated paintings for the foundation, these were exhibited in the Foundling Hospital - the first freely accessible picture gallery in Great Britain, and the nucleus of the later Royal Academy of Arts . Georg Friedrich Handel donated the proceeds from performances of the Messiah in the hospital chapel.

The first two children admitted to the Foundling Hospital were baptized with the names Thomas and Eunice Coram, their godfather was Coram himself. He took over the godparenthood for about 20 other children, but was otherwise no longer involved in the daily routine of the hospital. In 1756 the mistake was made of making the hospital accessible to all children in the country - as a result, children were given in such numbers that it was impossible to look after them all. In the first four years thereafter, nearly 10,000 children died in the Foundling Hospital.

Hogarth's painting of Coram contains a detail that refers to Coram's work: a hat is leaning next to Coram's right foot. Coram had done the Hatter Society a favor but did not want to accept any reward. When the hatters pushed him, he said he'd like a hat. The society made sure that one of its members kept him receiving new hats for the rest of his life.

Coram died in relative poverty in 1751 and is buried in Saint Andrew Holborn Cemetery in London. In 1936, a park was created on the site of the now demolished Foundling Hospital; In honor of Coram this was named Coram's Fields .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Letter of March 2, 1737. In: Ruth McClure: Coram's Children . Yale 1981; quoted after Picard 2000, p. 176.
  2. ^ Ruth McClure: Coram's Children . Yale 1981; quoted after Picard 2000, p. 282.
  3. ↑ Liza Picard: Dr. Johnson's London . Weidenfels & Nicholson, London 2000, p. 259.
  4. ↑ Christopher Hibbert: The English. A Social History 1066-1945 . HarperCollins, London 1987, p. 396.
  5. ↑ Liza Picard: Dr. Johnson's London . Weidenfels & Nicholson, London 2000, p. 227.
personal data
SURNAME Coram, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British businessman and philanthropist
DATE OF BIRTH 1668
PLACE OF BIRTH Lyme Regis
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1751
Place of death London