Tom Riddle's mother gave birth to him at Wood Orphanage. Had this happened at the end of the eighteenth century, she would most likely have been sent somewhere like the Foundling Hospital. Many women, for one reason or another, had no choice but to give birth there. Quite a few of them, like Merope, died soon after delivering their children; some lingered on the brink of death, but even more simply left their children at the Foundling Hospital to fend for themselves.
Not every child qualified for admission to the Foundling Hospital. Its rules stipulated that a child had to be under two months old and in good health. Once they met those requirements, details such as the infant's birthmarks and scars were recorded, and a lead "tag" was hung around their neck as identification.
They were then sent to wet nurses in London's outskirts. The Foundling Hospital provided those families with subsidies, and once the children reached a certain age, they had to start learning to work. Before the Industrial Revolution, boys could rarely escape a fate of manual labor or going to sea, while girls were destined to manage the household.
The original Foundling Hospital was located at Sailors' Home, a hospital open to sailors. Many of these children also became sailors.
The Bow Street Runners had been established far earlier than the Thames River Police. The Thames River Police had originally been founded to catch "night plunderers," usually gangs of children who sneaked aboard ships on the River Thames, diverted the vessels, then tipped the cargo into the river so they could collect it at low tide. In 1796 alone, this form of theft involved as much as 500,000 Pound sterling. Later, the Thames River Police's duties became "protecting commercial property from 'unprecedented plunder' and helping maritime