It is Sunday, the final day of the week-long itinerary laid down by Mr Whittock in his Modern Picture of London.
Attend divine service in the morning, at the Foundling Hospital;
I have blogged about the founding of the Hospital here. Attending services at various charitable institutions was fashionable and was encouraged by the patrons as a means of attracting financial support. The children would be trained as a choir to enhance the experience and the high-point of the year was the performance of Handel’s Messiah which he had donated to the Hospital. The print from The Microcosm of London (c. 1810) shows a service in the magnificent chapel.
then ride in the omnibus to the Edgware Road.
I am not clear why Mr Whittock suggests this. It would be a long walk to reach Hyde Park and the Edgware Road would hold no sights of any interest.
Promenade in Hyde Park.
On a fine day this would have been a very respectable activity for the Sabbath. Families would be out strolling or driving over the very considerable expanse of parkland or beside the Serpentine or the Long Water in the adjacent Kensington Gardens. This print of 1804 shows ‘The Entrance to Hyde Park on a Sunday’ and gives an impression of just how popular it would have been, although I suspect that behaviour by the 1830s would have been more sedate.
Dine at home
in the evening, attend divine service at the Magdalen Hospital.
The Magdalen Hospital for the Reception of Penitent Prostitutes, to give it its full title, was established in 1758 to reform women below the age of thirty who had become sex workers. They were given religious education and taught laundry work and needlework. It moved to purpose-built premises on Great Surrey Street (now Blackfriars Road) in Southwark in 1772. This was quite close to the other philanthropic institutions our tourists visited on Monday.
Its octagonal chapel became a fashionable place of worship. Unlike the Foundling Hospital where the children in their uniforms were very visible, the inmates’ choir was hidden behind a screen, which cannot have done much for their self-esteem. Perhaps the intention was to prevent male visitors from preying on the young women.
In the 1860s the establishment moved to Streatham, eventually becoming an Approved School in 1934. Incredibly the phrase “for the reception of Penitent Prostitutes” was not removed from its official name until 1938.
The week has now terminated, and the stranger that has visited all the places, in the order laid down for him, will have seen every part of the metropolis, and all the principal objects. He will find that ample time has been allowed for a cursory view of most of the curiosities.
I hope you have enjoyed exploring Georgian London as it teetered on the edge of the Victorian age, even if, as Mr Whittock says, we have only had time for a ‘cursory view’ of many of the sights.
Jane Austen's London 