Thomas Coram, Gent: 1668-1751 - Couverture rigide

Wagner, Gillian

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1843830574 ISBN 13 : 9781843830573

Editeur : The Boydell Press, 2004

Synopsis

Unusual book

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Thomas Coram is forever identified with the foundling hospital he established in 1739. This, however, came near the end of his life: previous records seemed few and far between until Gillian Wagner began to look at the scarce but intriguing evidence for his earlier career. As a young man Coram went to Massachusetts, where he stayed for ten years building ships in Boston and Taunton, working to further the spread of Anglicanism. He returned to England disappointed and heavily in debt. Surviving this early setback, he slowly secured for himself a place within English society through his championing of further settlements to exploit America's natural resources, and his characteristic support for radical causes. A strong believer in women's rights and equal opportunities for girls, he believed that it was due to the unique support of a group of aristocratic women - twenty-one ladies of quality and distinction - that he was granted a royal charter for his foundling hospital. Within two years of the establishment of the hospital, Coram fell out with the governors and was ejected from the governing body. His last years were clouded by disagreements and poverty, but a pension, granted in 1749, finally signalled recognition of his achievements. He died in 1751 and was buried in the chapel of his hospital.

Revue de presse :

Offers a rich insight into the culture and mental world of Hanoverian England. Handel and Hogarth are among the luminaries who flit across its pages, personalities are given life in engaging pen-portraits, and the evocation of London is by turns charmingly vivid and unsparing in its harrowing detail.... It was partly through (Coram's) labours that charitable endeavour became formidably organised, endowed with formal status, and made, above all, fashionable, as an extension of politics and the arts. --English Historical Review

An account which is rigorously unsentimental, a measured biography which does much to flesh out Thomas Coram. --Times Literary Supplement

A much-needed biography of this early pioneer of children's charity. --Seventeenth-Century News

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: The Boydell Press
• Date d'édition: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1843830574
• ISBN 13: 9781843830573
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 228