Background Info
A little more information about the times and the places featured in my novels.
Amy, The Story of a Coram Foundling
Thomas Coram, a wealthy philanthropist, founded the Foundling Hospital in 1739 at its first site in Hatton Garden until it moved to a permanent building in Bloomsbury in 1745.
It was set to to receive all children whose parents were unable to care for them and at first all babies were admitted but the Hospital's funds soon ran out and admitance rules were introduced. Parents had to meet strict criteria or produce a large donation to the Hospital.
Amy was admitted into the Foundling Hospital in 1784 together with a cheque for £100, as money had started to be accpeted from parents due to lack of funds.
She spent the first five years of her life with a foster family in Stockwell, which was then a small village about three miles away from London, before returning to the Foundling Hospital in 1789.
The Foundling Hospital in the 1750's
The Foundling uniform that Amy would have worn
A the age of 14 Amy is sent to work at Lady Bessborough's house at No.2 Cavendish Square, to the north of the present day Portland Place off of Oxford Circus.
She becomes the personal maid of Lady Caroline Ponsonby, who marries William Lamb and is best known to history as Lady Caroline Lamb.
Stockwell, depicted in the mid 1700's
Cavendish Square in the 1820's
Harriet, Lady Bessborough and her sister Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire are both Whig society hostesses and hold lavish salons and dinner parties where all the notable members of the Whig supporting aristocracy attend.
Amy encounters Lady Bessborough's sons John, Lord Duncannon and Freddy Ponsonby and eventually ends up as a housekeeper to the poet Lord Byron at the Albany in Piccadilly.
Lady Bessborough with her sons John and Freddy Ponsonby
After a stint nursing Freddy Ponsonby, who was severely wounded at the Battle of Waterloo, Amy returns as Lord Byron's housekeeper where she witnesses the breakdown of his marriage and ends up living with Lady Byron's solicitor Henry Branham in Brook Street before finding true love with Lord Belmont, a friend of Freddy Ponsonby's and they live together at Grosvenor Square.
Lord Byron
The mentally unstable Lady Caroline Lamb
Swallow Street in the early 1800's. It would soon be demolished to make way for Regents Street. Amy made her dismal journey from Melbourne House back to Cavendish Square along here.
Newton Valence parish church where Amy and Freddy Ponsonby met the disapproving eyes of the villagers.
Melbourne House, Whitehall. Amy lived here as Lady Caroline Lamb's personal maid
The Albany, Piccadilly. Amy lived here as Byron's housekeeper just before his marriage in 1813. Byron's appartments were on the 1st floor to the left.
Grosvenor Square in the 1810's. Amy would live here with Lord Belmont from the 1820's onwards.
Freddy Ponsonby, after he had recovered from the horrific injuries he had received at the Battle of Waterloo. He was Amy's lover for many years.
Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. The Duke of Devonshire's stately home and scene of Amy's seduction by Lord Duncannon.