After chapel the old gentlemen are at liberty to do what they like until dinner is served at three, an hour in itself the survival of a custom long passed away. The hall, with its carved woodwork, is a most interesting spot. Wearing their gowns, the brothers file in and take their seats at the mahogany tables. Above the fireplace the Sutton arms are blazoned, and from his frame on the wall the picture of the good merchant himself smiles down upon the recipients of his bounty.
After dinner, in the summer weather, the brothers usually chat or doze in the pleasant shade of the buildings in the largest court. There are few of them that have not something out of the common about their faces, and none of them but have a hard story to tell, if they chose. They are of all ranks, but mainly drawn from the classes described in the old regulations as "poor gentlemen, old soldiers, merchants decayed by piracy or shipwreck, and household servants of the sovereign." "We get a lot of literary men here now," said an attendant, looking knowingly at me; but I did not pursue the conversation.
Evening service is at six, and at eleven the gates are shut for the night.
With the institution known as St. Katharine's Hospital the queens of England have always been closely connected. It was founded as long ago as 1148 by Matilda, wife of King Stephen; but to Queen Eleanor the hospital owed its first charter. By it the English queens were always to be considered perpetual patronesses, and the institution was to be part of their dower. Eleanor added further revenues "for the health of the soul of her late husband and of the souls of the preceding and succeeding kings and queens."
WILLIAM THE FOURTH'S NAVAL ASYLUM, PENGE.
(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)
Henry VIII. seems to have intended at one time to quietly appropriate the revenues, but Anne Boleyn, the reigning favourite, prevented this iniquitous deed. From the Stuarts to 1824 there is little of importance to recount; the handful of royal pensioners lived in comfort, and a school for poor children was also maintained. Quiet garments were the rule, though the strict order passed by the queen of Edward III. against "striped clothes" as "tending to dissoluteness" had long been abolished. In 1824, however, came the proposal to dig out a huge dock on the ground whereon the hospital stood. After great debate Parliament granted the necessary powers. St. Katharine's Docks were begun, and at the same time the walls of a new St. Katharine's Hospital commenced to rise in Regent's Park. The present buildings can scarcely be called beautiful, the chapel being a poor imitation of the one at King's College, Cambridge. The offices of master and brethren are now practically sinecures of considerable value presented by the Crown; a large number of non-resident "bedesmen and bedeswomen" are also supported out of the funds. The Queen Victoria Jubilee Nurses' Fund has of late years been connected with the Hospital.
In the year 1847 Adelaide, Queen Dowager of England, determined to found and endow an asylum for widows and orphan daughters of the officers of the Royal Navy. Penge was the spot selected, and there twelve pretty little houses were built and called "King William the Fourth's Naval Asylum." It was a graceful act of the queen, for far too little had been previously done for the destitute relatives of those to whom the country owed nine-tenths of its power and security. From its foundation the governors and trustees have all been in some way connected with the Navy, and can be relied upon to appreciate the position and look after the interests of the pensioners.
