The Story of London

by Henry B. Wheatley

The first physician of St. Bartholomew’s was Dr. Roderigo Lopus, a Portuguese Jew, who was appointed about 1567.

St. Thomas’s Hospital.—This hospital is almost of as great antiquity as St. Bartholomew’s. The original hospital belonged to the canons of the Priory of St. Mary Overy, and was situated on the west side of the road running south from London Bridge. In 1207 the hospital was destroyed in the fire which devastated the borough of Southwark, but a temporary building was erected on the old site (now occupied by the Bridge House Hotel and the London and Westminster Bank). Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, projected a new hospital on a more suitable site on the east side of the road, and appealed for funds for this purpose by means of a charter of indulgence, 1228: ‘Behold at Southwark an ancient hospital built of old to entertain the poor, has been entirely reduced to cinders and ashes by a lamentable fire; moreover, the place wherein the old hospital has been founded was less appropriate for entertainment and habitation, both by reason of the straitness of the place and by reason of the lack of water and many other conveniences; according to the advice of us, and of wise men, it is transferred and transplanted to another more commodious site, where the air is more pure and calm, and the supply of water more plentiful.’

The new hospital was dedicated to St. Thomas (à Becket) the Martyr, and became independent of St. Mary’s Priory. It was frequently referred to as Becket’s Spital.

The third building was erected about 1507, and in 1535, a short time before the dissolution of the religious houses, the custos or master, the brethren and the three lay sisters, had the charge of forty beds for poor and infirm people, who were to be supplied with food and firing.

The hospital was refounded in 1553 by Edward VI., and endowed with 4000 marks a year. It was dedicated to St. Thomas the Apostle, but was often called, in honour of Edward, the King’s Hospital. The parish of St. Thomas Apostle, Southwark, contained within its limits the two hospitals of St. Thomas and Guy’s, and was often called the parish of St. Thomas’s Hospital. Thus the old name remained, but the dedication was changed from that of the famous saint of the Middle Ages to that of the Apostle St. Thomas.

Dr. Payne, who wrote an essay ‘On some old Physicians of St. Thomas’s Hospital,’ says that in old times the staff was exclusively surgical. Dr. Eliazer Hodson, who was appointed about 1620, was the first named that Dr. Payne could find, but he does not think that Hodson was the first physician.

The building having fallen into disrepair was entirely rebuilt in 1701-1706, and the hospital remained on the same spot from 1228 until 1862, when the property was sold to the South Eastern Railway Company, and a new hospital was opened on the Albert Embankment at the southern end of Westminster Bridge.

Lepers.—There were other mediæval hospitals in London besides those now described, which were the two chief ones. Many smaller buildings in the suburbs were devoted to the reception of lepers.

Dr. Creighton writes: ‘The remarkable Ordinance of Edward III. in 1346 for the expulsion of lepers from London seems to have been the occasion of the founding of two so-called Lazar-houses, one in Kent Street, Southwark, called “the Loke,” and the other at Hackney or Kingsland. These are the only two mentioned in the subsequent orders to the porters of the city gates in 1375, and as late as the reign of Henry VI.