Early Life
Coram was born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, UK. He spent much of his early life at sea and in the American colonies. From 1694 to 1705, he operated a ship building business at Taunton, Massachusetts. He afterwards became a successful quier in London. In 1717, he unsuccessfully promoted the idea of founding a colony called Georgia in what is today Maine as a philanthropic venture. In 1732, he became a trustee of James Oglethorpe’s Georgia colony. In 1735 he sponsored a colony in Nova Scotia for unemployed artisans.
As a philanthropist Coram was appalled by the many abandoned, homeless children living in the streets of London. On 17 October 1739 he obtained a Royal Charter granted by George II establishing a "hospital for the maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young children."
Read more about this topic: Thomas Coram
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man’s training begins, its probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“No life if it is properly realized is without its cosmic importance.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)