(bright upbeat music) - This year's Hinckley Lecture focuses on the challenges faced by foundlings in Britain's past.

Joining us with insight is Nadja Durbach, Professor of History at the University of Utah.

Nadja, thank you so much for being here.

- Thanks for having me.

- This is such an interesting topic.

I was telling you earlier, I went to the Foundling Museum for the first time a few years ago, and this is a new topic for me.

- That's an amazing museum.

And I will be talking a little bit about the Foundling Hospital.

- [Laura] Yeah.

- That is it's ancestor, during the talk.

- Okay, so tell us what do people need to know about the foundlings?

- So foundlings are abandoned children, and the key thing about them is that nothing is known about their parentage.

So they pose this really important problem because there's no information actually about their birth, because they've been found sort of on the side of the road, usually, they can't be registered with the state and they can't have a birth certificate because of that.

- Wow, this is so interesting 'cause this lecture series is focused on Britain's past.

And tell us why is this, these foundlings and the stories that they hold, why is this so important right now?

Why does it matter?

- Yeah, it matters a lot because as you probably know, we're in a moment in which there's a lot of undocumented people both in this country, also in Britain, because of refugee crises.

And this talk helps to kind of provide a longer history and to understand why it's so important to have documentation, which is something that helps you to prove your identity and helps you to access certain government services, but also helps you to prove your nationality, and thus your right to stay in the country.

And because foundlings were just sort of abandoned children, they couldn't actually prove that they were British nationals.

And so this has had quite a legacy for them.

- So who will be interested in coming to this lecture?

- Well, I hope that the people interested in British studies in general, in Britain's history, there's a lot of people who live in the state of Utah who can trace their history to Britain, so we hope that population will come.

We also hope that people will come who are interested in the history of childhood.

This is a great topic for them.

- Oh, wonderful.

Well, thank you.

This is a fascinating topic.

Thank you for being here to give us a heads-up about it.

- Thank you for having me.

- If you'd like to learn more about this lecture, the Gordon B. Hinckley Lecture in British Studies, "The Fate of the Foundling, or Being Undocumented in Twentieth-century Britain," it's happening January 29th, from 2:00 to 3:30 PM at the Alumni House in Ballroom A. Learn more at british-studies.utah.edu.

That's british-studies.utah.edu.

(gentle music) I'm Laura Durham and thank you for watching "Contact."

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