This church being destroyed by the dreadful fire of London in 1666, and not rebuilt, the parish was by act of parliament united to the church of St. Mary Aldermary, which is become the place of public worship for both, whereby the incumbent’s profits are considerably increased.
St. Thomas of Acars, or Acons, an hospital formerly situated where Mercers chapel now stands in Cheapside. This hospital was under this name dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket archbishop of Canterbury, probably upon the following occasion: when the city of Acars or Acon in the Holy Land was besieged by the Christians, an Englishman, chaplain to Radulphus de Diceto, dean of London, going to Jerusalem, bound himself by a vow that if he should prosperously enter Acon he would build a chapel to St. Thomas the Martyr at his own charge, and also procure a church-yard to be consecrated there to the honour of that supposed Martyr; this he actually performed, when many resorting to his chapel, he took the character of prior, and employed himself sometimes in fighting as a soldier, and at others, in burying the bodies of such as died either naturally or were slain by the enemy. Maitland.
Matthew Paris however says that the order of St. Thomas was instituted by Richard surnamed Cœur de Lyon, after the surprisal of Acars, in honour of Thomas a Becket; that they held the rule of St. Augustine, and wore a white habit, and a full red cross, charged in the middle with a white scallop, and that Peter de Rupibus, bishop of Winchester, being in the Holy Land, caused the patriarch of Jerusalem to direct that the brethren of this church should be under the order of the Templars. M. Paris in vita Hen. III.
S. Wale delin. Elliot. sculp.
St. Thomas’s Hospital.
However it is evident, that as the Templars and other orders, formed societies in England in imitation of those founded in Palestine, so this in Cheapside was founded in imitation of that at Acon, and therefore had the same name.
The revenue of this hospital, when it was surrendered to Henry VIII. amounted to 277l. 3s. 4d. per annum. The edifice was soon after purchased by the Mercer’s company. The image of Thomas a Becket however stood over the gate, till the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when somebody threw it down, broke it, and stuck up a writing on the church door, reflecting on those who placed it there. See the article Mercers.
Thomas court, 1. Benjamin street: 2. Tackle Block court, Wapping.
St. Thomas’s Hospital, on the east side of the street called the Borough in Southwark, is a very noble and extensive charity, for the reception of the necessitous sick and wounded.
As to the origin of this hospital, it is to be observed, that the priory of St. Mary Overies being destroyed by fire in the year 1207, the canons erected at a small distance an occasional edifice to answer the same purpose, till their monastery could be rebuilt; which being accomplished, Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, for the greater convenience of air and water, pulled it down in 1215, and erected it in a place where the prior of Bermondsey had two years before built an almonry, or almshouse, for the reception of indigent children, and necessitous proselytes; and having dedicated the new structure to St. Thomas the Apostle, he endowed it with land to the value of 343l. a year: from which time it was held of the abbot of Bermondsey, and ever since an hospital has continued in the same place.