This article first appeared in FMDG Inc. Newsletter No. 78, August 2026 examines the early history of London’s Foundling Hospital and its possible connection to Frederick Meredith, a First Fleet ancestor whose origins have long been uncertain.
Drawing on recent DNA research, digitised archival records and collaborative family-history investigation, it outlines Thomas Coram’s founding vision, the Hospital’s admission practices, and the unusual case of foundling number 16398—an infant admitted in 1764 as William Rowland Richards and renamed Frederick Meredith.
The article considers how the Hospital’s systems of anonymity, renaming and apprenticeship may have obscured identity, while raising the possibility that this foundling may be the Frederick Meredith sought by descendants more than 250 years later.
Wriiten by Alicia Brodersen (Descendant of Charlotte Meredith)
Feature images: A View of the Foundling Hospital Louis-Phillippe Boitard, 1753 London Museum
The Achievement of Arms Engraving by Thomas Cook, 1809, after William Hogarth, 1739 Welcome Collection