MILLINGTON’S HOSPITAL,
founded in 1734, by Mr. James Millington of Shrewsbury, draper, and endowed with the greater part of his ample fortune. This charitable institution consists of a school-master and mistress, who have each a house and salary, and instruct twenty poor boys and as many girls, natives of Frankwell. These children are completely clothed twice in every year, and at the age of fourteen are clothed and apprenticed with a small premium, and at the expiration of their first year’s apprenticeship rewarded with a gratuity, upon their producing a certificate of good conduct. Twelve poor men or women selected from the single housekeepers of Frankwell, or the nearest part of St. Chad’s parish, reside in the Hospital, to each of whom are allotted two comfortable rooms and a small garden, with an allowance of £6 per annum, a gown or coat on St. Thomas’s day, and a load of coals on All Saints’ day. Gowns or Coats and forty shillings each are also dispensed every year to ten poor single housekeepers resident in Frankwell, the eldest of which pensioners in time, succeeds to a vacancy in the hospital. The hospitallers and out-pensioners receive likewise two twopenny loaves weekly. A chaplain daily attends and reads prayers.
Two exhibitions of £40 a year each are founded for students of Magdalen College, Cambridge, to which, scholars originally on the hospital foundation have the preference, or in default of such, two born in Frankwell, educated at the Free Schools, and having been one year in the upper form in the head school are most eligible.
The hospital is a plain brick building. The central portion surmounted by a pediment and clock turret comprises the chapel and school-room, and the houses of the master and mistress, and in the wings on each side are the apartments of the hospitallers. A lodge has recently been erected and the ground in front enclosed from the street by an iron railing. [176]
We now continue our walk along the undulating eminence, which rises abruptly from the Severn opposite the Quarry, until we arrive at