13/05/2026
This simple, unadorned hairpin was left with a baby boy at the Foundling Hospital in June 1756. A very common object, it nonetheless may have been incredibly precious—materially and symbolically—to the woman that left it with her child.
In the 19th century, the tokens were separated from their corresponding admission documents, or ‘billets’. We were able to match this hairpin with a foundling child through the unique imprint it left in the billet book.
This token was left with a baby called Joseph Millet, who was renamed Humphrey Joyce by the Hospital. Humphrey survived childhood, and in 1767 was apprenticed to a needle maker in the parish of St Giles Cripplegate, London.
At a time when material for new clothes was prohibitively expensive for many women, hair was a much more accessible way of keeping up with the latest fashions. Many hairstyles could be recreated with pins. No elaborate wigs required! There wasn’t much difference in the pins that poor women and better-off women wore, so the material value of the hairpin alone doesn’t tell us much about the woman who left this token.
Was it all she had on her? Did she pull it from her own hair at the Hospital’s door?
Learn more about what this token can tell us about women’s style and fashion in the 18th century with fashion historian Dr Serena Dyer in our Take This Token podcast, at the link in the comments.
💬 ‘Maybe she'd done her hair particularly well for that morning, for meeting the people at the Hospital. That's how I like to think of it, that she's reached up to one of her only options, reached up from her hair, pulled it out, maybe some of her hair has fallen down as she's done so. She's giving away one of her few very useful, very valuable possessions alongside that horrible act of having to give up her child as well.’
