One of London Metropolitan Archives's Most Popular Holdings to be Digitized

Coram, the UK’s oldest children’s charity, will have a major portion of its archive at the LMA digitized. Dating back to before 1739 when it was established as the Foundling Hospital, it was the first home for London’s abandoned babies.

Coram’s Foundling Hospital archive, fragile and vulnerable, consists of over 245 linear metres of records — general registers, inspection books, petitions and other documents revealing the details of the lives of children in its care from the 18th century.  Some 112,000 images over the period to 1900 will be digitized, a quarter of the archive which is unbroken to the present day.

The archive documents will be transcribed with the support of a global community of volunteers and will be made accessible to the general public at coramstory.org.uk along with stories and content from the projects created by care-experienced young people, and an online interactive timeline of care.

Digitization is made possible through a grant of £1.26 million from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

More at Coram to tell the story of care through digital project funded by £1.26m from the National Lottery.