Foundling wheel
Original title: Roda dos Expostos
Account of the foundling wheels set up by the Funchal municipal council in 1820 and at Câmara de Lobos in 1823, and of the council's burden of abandoned children.
On 14 January 1820 the Funchal Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal do Funchal) resolved to have a foundlings’ turn (roda, revolving hatch in the convent wall) installed in the house of the official wet-nurse (ama geral), since there was none in this city. Three years later it had another made at Câmara de Lobos (‘seals’ den’), in a house adjoining the chapel of Espírito Santo (Holy Spirit).
So great was the number of foundlings in the Council’s care at the beginning of the 19th century that on 20 May 1812 it resolved that the councillor-magistrate (juiz-vereador) should keep ‘a police register’ recording all the prostitutes who were pregnant, so that they would account for their children and raise them.