[title]
‘Fighting Talk: One Boy’s Journey from Abandonment to Trafalgar’ tells the story of George King, who was abandoned in London in the 1780s and taken in by the Foundling Hospital. In an eventful life, which King recorded in a memoir, he was press-ganged into the Royal Navy in 1804 and fought in naval battles of the Napoleonic Wars, including Trafalgar in 1805. He was aboard HMS Polyphemus, which took 200 French prisoners and towed HMS Victory, carrying Lord Nelson’s body to Gibraltar. King eventually died in Greenwich in 1857.
The exhibition tells the story of King’s life and the fates of many other former foundlings of the period, who went into industry and the armed forces after being saved by the Foundling Hospital. It will feature artefacts, a wealth of visual material from the era and more.