Annual Lecture 2006: Foundlings in Russia

The lecture was held on Monday 26 June 2006 at the Foundling Museum in London.

The event marked the launch of the paperback of Kate Adie’s book “Nobody’s Child”, which looks at the plight of abandoned children around the world. Kate Adie takes a particular interest in this subject as she was herself adopted at birth. The author kindly signed copies of her book after the lecture.

The Foundling Museum commemorates the Foundling Hospital set up on the same site by Captain Coram in 1739. Coram’s supporters included Handel, who left a manuscript of The Messiah to the institution and played an annual concert there to raise funds. Hogarth, another supporter, persuaded his artist friends to donate paintings to the Hospital, which thus came to house the first public art gallery in England. Paintings by Hogarth, Gainsborough and others now hang in the gallery where the lecture took place.

Guests for the lecture were able to visit the Museum beforehand, and there was a reception for guests after the lecture in the Museum's reception hall.