LONDON.- Since the first book was published in 2008, Dame Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather series has delighted young audiences with the adventures of its eponymous heroine, the spirited Victorian foundling Hetty Feather. A new family-friendly exhibition, Picturing Hetty Feather, explores how this much-loved character has brought to life the history of London’s Foundling Hospital, on page, stage and screen. Visitors can discover the world of Hetty Feather through television props, rarely-seen archival items and hands-on activities.

In 2008, Dame Jacqueline Wilson became one of the Museum’s first Foundling Fellows. For her Fellowship, Wilson researched the Hospital’s history and developed her character Hetty Feather, a girl who uses imaginative storytelling or, as she calls it, ‘picturing’ to deal with life’s challenges. Immensely popular with her young audience, Hetty has gone on to feature in five books which have sold millions of copies, the first two of which feature the Foundling Hospital. The popularity of the Hetty Feather books has led to an Olivier Award-nominated stage show and BAFTA- nominated CBBC television series.

Picturing Hetty Feather explores the ways in which curators, writers, directors and designers have used historical evidence and factual gaps to bring the nineteenth-century Foundling Hospital to life. On display for the first time are key elements of the CBBC’s Hetty Feather television set, including props and original costumes, alongside treasures from the Foundling Hospital Collection and archive, some of which have not been seen before by the public. Visitors will be able to try on costumes made for the CBBC production, and try their hand at script writing by creating their own Foundling Hospital character as part of a selection of hands-on activities.

This immersive exhibition will transport visitors to the Foundling Hospital, inviting them to discover their own ‘picturing’ abilities in relation to the Foundling Hospital story, and imagine what life was like for Hetty and the real-life foundling children.

Dame Jacqueline Wilson said: ‘I was proud to be made a Fellow of the Foundling Museum, one of my favourite places in London. The Museum asked me if I’d ever thought of writing a novel about a foundling child. I absolutely loved this idea and almost immediately Hetty Feather sprang to life inside my head. There have been five Hetty Feather books so far (watch out for another soon!), a long-running stage play and three television series too. It’s wonderful that Hetty now has her own special exhibition in the very museum that inspired her story.’

Director of the Foundling Museum, Caro Howell, said: ‘History and storytelling are inextricably linked and with Hetty Feather, Jacqueline Wilson brought the nineteenth-century Foundling Hospital to life in a way that is vivid and relatable. By exploring the ways in which curators, writers and art directors tell stories using history’s facts and gaps, we hope to inspire children to do the same.’