Beloved children’s author

Dame Jacqueline Wilson, DBE, FRSL (b.1945) is an award-winning children’s author and former Children’s Laureate. In 2008, Wilson became one of the Museum’s first Foundling Fellows. [link to this page] For her Fellowship, Wilson wrote her first historical novel, Hetty Feather, about a nineteenth-century foundling girl growing up in the Foundling Hospital. Now a series of eight books, a stage show, and a major CBBC TV production, Hetty has brought the Hospital’s historic story to life for generations of children.

About the artist

Saied Dai trained at the Royal Academy of Arts. Born in Tehran, at age six he came unaccompanied to England and was raised by foster parents. Collections containing portraits by Dai include the National Portrait Gallery and Balliol College, Oxford.