The superstructure of this hospital has three floors besides the garrets, and the same construction runs through the whole building, which is so extensive as to contain twelve wards, in which are four hundred and thirty-five beds; and in short the whole has a plainness that becomes the nature of the institution, and at the same time a regularity that does some honour to the builder, the whole being disposed for the mutual accommodation of the sick, and of those who attend them.
Soon after Mr. Guy’s decease, his executors, pursuant to his last will, applied to parliament to get themselves, and fifty-one other gentlemen nominated by the founder, to be incorporated Governors of the intended hospital; upon which all these gentlemen were constituted a body politic and corporate, by the name of the President and Governors of this hospital: they were to have perpetual succession and a common seal, with the power of possessing the real and personal estates of the late Thomas Guy, Esq; for the purposes of the will, and to purchase in perpetuity, or for any term of years, any other estate whatsoever, not exceeding 12,000l. a year.
This corporation was no sooner established by parliament, than the President and Governors set heartily about the work, by finishing and furnishing the hospital, chusing their officers and servants, and taking in patients, whose number at first amounted to 402. For the more effectual preventing inferior servants preying upon poor patients, or their friends, they resolved to give them handsome salaries, and the following were appointed and are still given.
| The Treasurer | 00 0 0 |
| His Clerk | 40 0 0 |
| Steward | 80 0 0 |
| Chaplain | 80 0 0 |
| Two Physicians, 40l. each | 80 0 0 |
| Apothecary | 80 0 0 |
| Apothecary’s two servants | 78 0 0 |
| Surgeryman | 30 0 0 |
| Butler, with his horse | 67 2 8 |
| Cook and her servant | 32 0 0 |
| Porter | 35 0 0 |
| Beadle | 30 0 0 |
| Matron | 50 0 0 |
| Eleven sisters, 25l. each | 275 0 0 |
| Eight nurses, 16l. each | 128 0 0 |
| Twelve watch-women, 10l. 8s. each | 124 16 0 |
| One brother belonging to the lunatics | 35 0 0 |
| One sister belonging to the lunatics | 25 0 0 |
| Sum total, | 1349 18 8 |
These officers and servants are chosen by the sixty Governors, who have carried on this noble charity in such a manner as to restore ease and health to many thousands of their fellow subjects.
Besides which the out-patients who receive medicines gratis, frequently amount to about 1600 in a year.
Before we conclude this article, it may be proper to mention some other particulars relating to Mr. Guy, in order to do justice to the character of that great benefactor to the public, by which the reader will see the little foundation there is for the general opinion of his being remarkable for nothing more than his parsimony and avarice. He was a patron of liberty and of the rights of his fellow subjects, which, to his great honour, he strenuously asserted in several parliaments, whereof he was a member for the borough of Tamworth in Staffordshire, the place of his birth. To this town he was a general benefactor; and early in his life he not only contributed towards the relief of private families in distress, but erected an almshouse, with a library, in that borough, for the reception of fourteen poor men and women, to whom he allowed a certain pension during his life, and at his death he bequeathed the annual sum of 125l. towards their future support, and for putting out children apprentices, &c.
In the year 1701 Mr. Guy built and furnished at his own expence, three wards on the north side of the outer court of St. Thomas’s hospital, and gave to those wards 100l. a year, for eleven years immediately preceding the foundation of his hospital. Some time before his death, he removed the frontispiece of St. Thomas’s hospital, which stood over the gateway in the Borough, and erected it in the place where it now stands, fronting the street: he also enlarged the gateway; rebuilt the two large houses on its sides, and erected the fine iron gate between them, all at the expence of 3000l. To many of his relations he gave while living, a settled allowance of 10 or 20l. a year; and to others money to advance them in the world. At his death, he left to his poor aged relations the sum of 870l. a year during their life; and among his younger relations, who were very numerous, and his executors, he left the sum of 75,589l. He left the Governors of Christ’s hospital a perpetual annuity of 400l. for taking in four children annually, at the nomination of the Governors; and bequeathed 1000l. for discharging poor prisoners within the city of London, and the counties of Middlesex and Surry, who could be released for the sum of 5l. by which sum, and the good management of his executors, there were above 600 poor persons set at liberty, from the several prisons within the bills of mortality. Maitland.
Guy’s yard. Vinegar yard, Drury lane.†
