The Foundling Museum will later this month open a new exhibition looking at the way in which Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather helped bring the history of the Foundling Hospital to life. 

On display from the 26th May, Picturing Hetty Feather is a family-friendly exhibition that will explore the way in which curators, writers, directors and designers have used historical evidence and factual gaps to bring the nineteenth-century Foundling Hospital to life.

Since Dame Jacqueline Wilson’s first Hetty Feather book was published in 2008, each new book that features the heroine Hetty Feather has sold millions of copies. It has also been turned into Olivier Award-nominated stage show and BAFTA-nominated CBBC television series.

For her Foundling Fellowship at the Museum, Wilson researched the history of the Foundling Hospital, using it to help create the character Hetty a girl who uses imaginative storytelling or, as she calls it, ‘picturing’ to deal with life’s challenges.

This display will feature props and original costumes from the CBBC Hetty Feather television programme as well as unseen treasures from the Foundling Hospital Collection and archive. Those who visit the exhibition will have the opportunity to try on costumes made for the CBBC production as well as taking part in numerous activities.

Picturing Hetty Feather will transport visitors to the Foundling Hospital, inviting them to us their own ‘picturing’ abilities in relation to the history of the hospital and imagine what life would have been like for Hetty and the real-life foundling children.

Picturing Hetty Feather will be on display at the Foundling Museum from the 26th May until the 3rd September. For more information visit: http://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/events/picturing-hetty-feather/