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How 18th and 19th century London supported its unmarried mothers and illegitimate children – essentially establishing an earlier version of today’s Child Support Agency – is the subject of newly-published research by a Cambridge historian.

Amid ongoing welfare cuts, researchers argue that investment in health and social care have been integral to British economic success since 1600.

Historians have long recognised that the family were the chief carers of the mentally ill. A new study will investigate the emotional and economic consequences of what care in the community meant to 18th-century families.