3-043-744 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Princess of Wales laying the foundation-stone of the Hospital for Sick Children, 1872. 'The Princess of Wales, accompanied by the Prince, on Thursday week laid the foundation-stone of the new building in Great Ormond-street, Bloomsbury [in London]...During the twenty years of the hospital's existence it has afforded relief to upwards of 10,000 in-patients and 200,000 out-patients. When the new buildings are complete the hospital will accommodate upwards of 200 patients...In the space before the pavilion were congregated 400 children from the Foundling Hospital and the parochial schools, the girls dressed in their white caps and kerchiefs...The Bishop of Winchester having offered some appropriate prayers, the president of the hospital, the Earl of Shaftesbury, advanced, and, addressing the Princess of Wales, read a statement of the progress and condition of the hospital, thanking her Royal Highness for this act of grace on its behalf...the Foundling School children...sang a hymn...The architect of the new building, Mr. Edward Barry, R.A., then handed a silver trowel to the Princess of Wales...[who] went through the usual formal performance of spreading the mortar with her silver trowel, and testing the level of the stone when laid'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.