Orphan newspaper items

This page relates to the article Orphans

Lower Orphan School, Calcutta

Source: Bombay Courier, Volume 15 - 29 March 1806 - Issue 706 from the subscription website Eighteenth Century Journals, Newspapers and Periodicals c 1685-1815

We have great pleasure in laying before the public, the following Report on the health of the Children in the Orphan School at Calcutta. It deserves to be known to the credit of the Managers of that Institution.

FEBRUARY 28, 1806.
Weekly Report of the Sick in the Hospital of the Lower Orphan School.
BOYS.
Thomas Clarke, Eruptions. Wm. Jones, Ulcer,-Lip.
John Jones,- - - Ditto. Rob. Wilson, Do,-Leg.
George Walker, - Ditto. John Knowles, Boils.
Robert Mason, - - Boils. Clement Jones, Fever.
GIRLS.
Mary Morris, Ulcer,-Leg. Hannah Hipstone, Dysentery.
Anne Williams, Do.-Toe. Catherine Jenkins, Fever.
Boys, 8.
Girls, 4.
Total Sick, 12.

I cannot omit the present opportunity of remarking the extraordinary diminution of mortality among the children at the Lower Orphan School, within this last year.

In the period of 4 years immediately subsequent to the 1st January 1793, the average number of children belonging to the Institution, appears from the Records, to have been 448, and the proportion of annual deaths 19 [? per year] in the succeeding 4 years, the number of children 452, that of deaths 16, and, in the last 4 years, terminating on the 31st December 1804; the number of children 544, and that of deaths 12. The great mortality during the first of the above periods, is partly to be ascribed to the temporary prevalence of epidemic small-pox : but, during neither of the two latter, does it appear, that any of the casualties were produced by that disease.

From the 15th February 1805 to the present date (the 17th February 1806), the number of children in the School, has never, I believe, been less than 660, and, during that time, only 2 have died. Of those two, one had been affected with illness for several years; and the other fell a victim to a hereditary malady.

According to the Tables of Mortality, the average number of deaths among children, from the age of 4 to that of 16 (under which description nearly all those at the Orphan School may be included) is, in London, about 1 in 43 1/2 annually ; in the country parishes of Brandenburg, 1 in 61; and, in the districts of Vaud in Switzerland (where the bills of mortality are represented as lower than in any other part of the world), 1 in 92 1/2. As the mean between these several proportions must be nearly equal to the general average of human mortality, within the ages abovementioned, it would of course be vain to expect, that the annual number of deaths in the Lower Orphan School, should continue, for any considerable length of time, so low as 1 in 330. Such an exception, however, to the usual estimate, in a country supposed to be comparatively unhealthy, is sufficiently remarkable, though exemplified in the casualties of only a single year.

I derive much satisfaction from the belief, that the unusual exemption from all epidemics, which we have this season enjoyed, is, in a great measure, to be attributed to the general and increasing attention, that has been paid to the comfort of the children, in every department ; and particularly to the introduction of warm clothing, the effects of which we have now, for the first time, had a full opportunity of experiencing.

JOHN FULLARTON, Assistant Surgeon.
ORPHAN HOUSE,
17th February 1806.

Madras Military Female Orphan Asylum

Source: Bombay Times & Journal of Commerce, 2nd April 1851. Transcribed by Sylvia Murphy.

The Madras Military Female Orphan Asylum is in future to contain, we are told, 352 girls, who are to consist of the daughters of European officers and soldiers killed in battle, and the orphans of those who may die otherwise than in action, provided they are left destitute; the orphans of European and East Indian medical warrant officers and soldiers, and the daughters of those of these grades who pensions may be so small as to prevent them from bringing up their families in respectability. Since the establishment of the charity in 1787, the total number of girls admitted into the school as boarders was 188, on the foundation 2321, at nurse 165, boarded out 4. Of these, 318 died, 20 were expelled for bad conduct and of the remainder, 587 when of age were either provided with service or married, 1145 were allowed to return to their parents or guardians, 5 emigrated to N.S.Wales, and 15 absented themselves. We wish the Institution the benefits derived from which must be immense, every success.