“Food, glorious food. While we’re in the mood, cold jelly and custard,” sang the workhouse boys at the opening of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! Yet most workhouse children of the era would never have seen a sausage, let alone jelly, or tasted the miraculous condiment. A little more fortunate were those children abandoned at birth and left on the steps of the Foundling Hospital in Bloomsbury, now in central London — although only on special occasions. The Foundling Hospital was set up in 1739 by the philanthropist Thomas…

Source: The Times November 11, 2016 00:04 UTC