The Story of London

by Henry B. Wheatley

The writer of the Preface says that the slanderers ought to repent and praise both the deed and the doers so as to wipe away the slander: ‘But forasmuch as it is doubtful whether thei wil do as thei maie, and of conscience are bounden, and the slaundre is so wide spred, that a narowe remedy cannot amend it: It is thought good to the Lord Mayour of thys Citie of London, as chief patrone and governour of this Hospitall, in the name of the Citie, to publishe at this present the officiers and ordres by hym appoincted, and tyme to tyme practysed and used by twelve of the citizeins the moste aunciente in their courses, as at large in the processe shal appiar, partly for the staye and redresse of such slaundre, and partly for that it myght be an open witnesse and knowledge unto all men howe thynges are administered there and by whom. Wherein if any man judge more to be set forth in woorde, than in diede is folowed there be meanes to resolve him.’

The case in abstract is as follows: For the relief of the sore and sick of the City of London Henry VIII. was pleased to erect a hospital in West Smithfield for a hundred sore and diseased. He endowed it with 500 marks a year, on condition that the citizens found another 500 marks. The citizens soon discovered that the King’s endowment was far under what at first they had hoped. The 500 marks rent was to come from houses in great decay, and some ‘rotten ruinous,’ so that to make them again worth the wonted revenue was no small charge, and after paying certain pensions, etc., there only remained towards succouring the hundred poor sufficient for the charge of three or four harlots then lying in childbed. The citizens therefore, to relieve their own poor and others coming daily out of all quarters of the realm, spent above their covenant of 500 marks yearly not much less than £1000, which enabled them to receive the number agreed upon. In spite of this, certain busy bodies more ready to espy occasion to blame others than skilful to redress things blameworthy indeed, rounded into the ears of the preachers their tender consciences. These preachers took upon them to make known these slanders, so that the good citizens for their five years’ loathsome work done for Christ’s sake received only open detraction and the poor a greater hindrance.

During these five years (1547-1552) 800 sick folk were healed in the hospital and 92 died. The Preface writer ends by saying that if any man spieth aught in the Ordre worthy to be reformed he will find those at the hospital glad and willing to reform it, and the city wish, if by any means it is possible, to raise the number of those receiving the benefits of the hospital from 100 to 1000.

The number of distinct paid officers is given as seven, in this order—(1) The Hospitaller, (2) the Renter Clerk, (3) the Butlers, (4) the Porter, (5) the Matron, (6) the Sisters (twelve), (7) the Beadles (eight). ‘There are also as in a kynde by themselves iii. chirurgeons in the wages of the Hospitall, gevyng daily attendaunce upon the cures of the poore.’

The charges in this little book of orders are of great interest, and will well repay careful perusal. The surgeons are charged to the uttermost of their knowledge to help cure the diseases of the poor without favouring those with good friends; they are not to admit the incurables, so as to keep out those who are curable; when they dress any diseased person they are to advise him to sin no more and be thankful unto God; they are to receive no gift from anyone, and never to burden the house with any sick person, for the curing of which person they have received any money. In conclusion, they are to report any wrongdoing to the almoners.

The nurses of the present day would be surprised at the stringency of the instructions in the charge to the sisters. Mr. Morrant Baker specially refers to one command: ‘And so muche as in you shall lie, ye shall avoyde and shonne the conversacion and company of all men,’ and adds, ‘An order which, I have no doubt, was as implicitly obeyed then as any similar command would be now.’

At the end of the charges is ‘A daily service for the poore,’ and ‘A thankesgeving unto Almyghtie God to be said by the poore that are cured in the hospital, at ye time of their delivery from thence, upon their knies in the hall before the hospitaler, and twoo masters of this house, at the least. And this the hospitaler shal charge them to learne without the booke, before they be delivered.’

Thomas Vicary, serjeant surgeon to the King, and the foremost surgeon of his time, was first appointed Governor of St. Bartholomew’s on the 29th of September 1548, and in January 1552 he was made governor for life. He was the first medical officer of the hospital. Dr. Norman Moore describes his position as ‘intermediate between that of the master of older times and that of the surgeons subsequently appointed. For some years he seems to have had both medical and general charge of the hospital.’[157]

At this time he had long held a distinguished position, although not originally a trained surgeon, and at first in small practice at Maidstone. In 1525 he was junior of the three wardens of the Barber Surgeons’ Company. In 1528 he was upper warden and one of the surgeons to Henry VIII. On 29th April 1530 he was granted the office of serjeant surgeon to the King ‘as soon as Marcellus de la More shall die, or resign or forfeit his post,’ and in the same year he became master of the Barber Surgeons’ Company. La More died, or disappeared from England at some time after Easter 1535, when he received his last payment. Vicary received his first quarter’s salary as serjeant surgeon on the 20th September 1535, and filled this distinguished office under Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth. The serjeant surgeons were originally military surgeons, whose first duty was to attend the King upon the battlefield. John Ranby was the last to perform this duty when he attended George II. at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743.[158]

In 1541 Vicary was appointed first master of the Amalgamated Company of Barbers and Surgeons, and in 1548 he is said to have published for the first time his Anatomie of Man’s Body. This work was reprinted in 1577 by the four surgeons of St. Bartholomew’s of that time—William Clowes, Wil. Beton, Richard Story and Edward Bayly, who dedicated it to the president and governors. The book is one of great interest, but Dr. Payne has lately proved that it is not an original work, but merely a rechauffé of an anatomical treatise of the fourteenth century, from which the greater portion has been transcribed word for word.[159]