Sabrina was born in May 1757.    Named Manima Butler at birth, she was found at the doors of the London Foundling Hospital at only a few months old, just one of the hundreds of poor, mostly illegitimate children who were abandoned daily.  The foundling hospital had been set up by Thomas Coram in response to the ever-growing numbers of babies being left to die on the streets of Georgian London.  There were no poor laws to support single mothers who were viewed as a flagrant challenge to social morality and as an economic burden.  Coram’s hospital allowed women to leave their babies anonymously so that both could survive.

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With her arrival at the hospital Manima was renamed Anne Kingston.    This would be the second of three names she would be given in the first 12 years of her life.  She was to be educated to understand that as a product of disgrace, she needed to be humble, deferential and subservient. it is from here that she was selected by Thomas Day for his social experiment on how to 'Create the Perfect Wife'.

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To read her full story