No one today remembers the names of more than 16,000 infants taken in by London's famous Foundlings Hospital during the mid-1700s.
But that doesn't mean there's no way to tell their anonymous but poignant stories.
Scrupulously recorded by the hospital's clerks, more than 800 feet of ledgers and entry books survive in the charity's archives, each one filled with detailed physical descriptions of the forsaken children who were registered not by name but by number.
Pinned to some 5,000 entries are silent but emotion-filled scraps of fabric preserved as both tokens of the child's identity and the affection of parents who dearly hoped to but rarely succeeded in reclaiming their abandoned babies.
Small cloth hearts, strips of ribbon and painfully scrawled notes rank as the most plaintive of these symbols, 59 of which are on view at Colonial Williamsburg's DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum in the only American showing of "Threads of Feeling: The London Foundling Hospital's Textile Tokens, 1740-1770."
Despite their mute plainness, they've left more than a few gallery goers weeping.
"It's such a moving exhibit," says Colonial Williamsburg textiles and costumes curator Linda Baumgarten, who spent two years negotiating the show's transatlantic journey.
"We've had people leave the gallery in tears."
Founded by wealthy English sea captain Thomas Coram in 1741, the Foundlings Hospital was dedicated to the "education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children."
But because of what Coram himself saw as the shockingly large numbers of children abandoned by the poor of London during the time, the hospital was overwhelmed from the beginning.
Few applicants older than 12 months were accepted — and then only if the parent drew a white ball from a bag filled with the black balls of rejection.
Then the babies were stripped of their names and registered on a pre-printed ledger sheet as a number accompanied by a long list of physical descriptions.
"The process of giving over a baby to the Foundling Hospital was anonymous," explains exhibition curator John Styles in a book accompanying the exhibit.
"It was a form of adoption. The Foundling Hospital became the infant's parent and its previous identity was erased."
In order to avoid any threat of disclosure — and the shame that might lead some mothers to dump their babies in the streets or even kill them — the hospital's clerks were strictly forbidden to record the mothers' name until the 1760s.
But because the mother retained the right to reclaim her child if her circumstances improved, each one was encouraged to leave a token that could be used as an identifying mark in the future.
Notes and letters were a common response from the literate. But because so many of London's poor could not read or write, many more mothers left scraps of fabric cut from their clothes or the garments worn by their infants.
"Some of them appear to have been cut on the spot," Baumgarten said.
"But no matter what form they took, each piece of fabric tells a story. We have the date of admission. We know the social level of the child. We have a whole window that tells us who they were."
In practice, fewer than a third of the infants taken in during the mid-1700s were accompanied by such tokens of hope.
Some came from circumstances so desperate and destitute that their mothers handed them over in rags.
In 1757, one little boy was described as "Clothed with Rags Swarming with Vermin."
Another admitted two months later was "A Mear Skiliton Covered with Rags with a Hole in the Roofe of the Mouth."
"Many Foundling babies were simply dumped at the Hospital, uncared for and unloved," Styles writes.
"(But) the presence of the unwanted among the Foundling babies is hardly surprising. The Hospital was set up specifically to care for them."
Still, alongside so many cases of heartless desertion numerous examples of maternal love, yearning and remorse can be found in scribbled notes, decorated ribbons and names, initials and birth dates sewn onto pieces of fabric.
Foundling No. 453, for example, was admitted on Oct. 7, 1748, with a neat yellow ribbon tied around his wrist.
"My name is Andrews," the carefully lettered inscription says.
Foundling No. 8959, similarly, was admitted on June 19, 1758, with a scrap of fabric printed with dots and red flowers as well as the following barely literate plea:
"Florella Burney Born june the 19: 1758: In The Parish off St. Anns SoHo. Not Baptize'd, pray Let partiuclare Care be Taken'en off this Child. As it will be call'd for Again…"
Foundling No. 704 arrived with a still more touching note of identification.
"My name is Robert Cutler," it stated. "I was christened 10 Feb. 1750 and my mother was buried at the same time."
Despite such obvious expressions of affection, fewer than 1 percent of the children taken in by the hospital were reclaimed by their mothers.
But that dismal figure merely makes the lone example illustrated in the show all the more powerful, Baumgarten said.
When Foundling No. 16516 was admitted on Feb. 11, 1767, he was accompanied by a piece of patchwork on which his mother had stitched and then cut in half a heart sewn with bright red thread.
Eight years later, Sarah Bender returned to the hospital with her half of the heart — and she and her son Charles were finally reunited.
"These stories pack powerful, emotional punches sure to resonate with parents," said Colonial Williamsburg chief curator and Vice President Ronald Hurst.
Erickson can be reached at 757-247-4783. Find his visual arts and museum stories at dailypress.com/entertainment/arts.
Want to go?
"Threads of Feeling: The London Foundling Hospital's Textile Tokens, 1740-1770."
Where: DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, inside the Public Hospital of 1773, Francis and Henry streets, Williamsburg
When: Through May 26
Cost: $11.95 adults, $5.95 children 6-12 or by Colonial Williamsburg ticket
Information: 757-229-1000 or http://www.history.org
Online: Go to dailypress.com/threadsoffeeling to see a gallery of images from the show.