View across Eagle Pond to Snaresbrook Crown Court

For the middle classes, life in Victorian England was a much different proposition to that of today. There was no welfare state (the very poor were looked after by the workhouses), so those who fell on hard times generally had to rely on charity, be it from friends and relatives or from organisations such as the Infant Orphan Asylum at Wanstead, founded by the Revd. Andrew Reed in 1843.

Reed was an influential figure with numerous friends and connections in the upper echelons of Victorian society, including politicians and royalty. He had already founded the “East London Orphan Asylum” in 1813 with the aim of helping to educate and care for “fatherless children who are respectably descended but without means for their adequate support”. The success of this first school (which catered for children over seven)
encouraged Reed to seek support for the creation of another orphange, for younger children.

In 1840, after a good deal of effort and the help of his friend the Duke of Wellington, Reed gained the support of Queen Victoria and was given a piece of Crown land on the edge of Epping Forest near Wanstead on which to build the new asylum. George Gilbert Scott was
charged with designing the new building (Scott also later designed the celebrated hotel at St. Pancras Station).

Building started in 1841, with the foundation stone being laid by Prince Albert. Eveyone who was anyone in Victorian society at that time attended the ceremony. The orphange was opened on 27th June, 1843 by Leopold, King of the Belgians and provided a accomodation and schooling for 600 children, making it one of the biggest charities in England. Queen Victoria was the first in a long line of monarchs to become Patron of what later became The Royal Infant Orphanage and then The Royal Wanstead School.

Orphan Elections

“An Infant Orphan Election at the London Tavern”, George Elgar Hicks (1865)

The above painting by George Elgar Hicks depicts a scene from The London Tavern in which orphans are being put forward in an election to gain places at The Infant Orphan Asylum in Wanstead. This was one of the more unfortunate consequences of Victorian childrens charities. Subscribers to the Asylum were entitled to one vote for a 10s 6d annual subscription, or two votes for a guinea. Five guineas bought you life membership with one vote per year. Supporters of the children would try to beg or buy votes from members, even bringing placards along daubed with slogans such as “Vote for Harriet Langdon; a case of great disfigurement” or Annie Lisle ‘Daughter of a Physician’. Members would be more inclined to vote for children they saw as deserving than educate poor children who they saw as getting above their station.

The School Today

After the Second World War, the school found it increasingly hard to survive with spiralling costs and diminishing support from the local education authorities on which it now depended. It struggled on for many years but finally closed in 1971 and was subsequently acquired by the Crown for it’s present use, a judicial court.