during the tough years from 1739 to the 1920s, many babies were abandoned in the marchmont street area in west london, the foundling hospital nearby, set up by the pioneer in child welfar named thomas coram, would take care of those little children. each child that was accepted at the hospital was given a new name but the parent, usually the mother, would leave a token to be kept to help identify their child if they were ever in a position to return & collect them. the tokens were never given to the children & were kept wrapped in a piece of paper with the admittance information & filed by date order. almost a hundred years later, twenty replicas of these tokens were placed on marchmont street as a permanent public art installation entitled “tokens” by john aldus, reminding us the importance of being grateful to what we have