GREENWICH HOSPITAL, formerly a home for superannuated sailors, was a royal foundation, erected by the munificence of William and Mary, under their letters patent of 1694. For many generations a royal palace had occupied the site, and had always been a favorite resort of the sovereign. The buildings were sufficiently completed by 1705 (at a cost of £50,000) to admit 100 disabled seamen. By July 1, 1708, 350 had been admitted; and the income derived from bequests, the original royal grant, and from contributions made under coercion by sailors, amounted to £12,000 a year, half of which was expended in maintaining the seamen, and the remainder in completion of the building. In the reign of George II., the forfeited estates of the earl of Dement water, who had been attainted of high treason, were granted to the hospital, were granted to the hospital, and were computed at £6,000 a year. Up to 1834 a compul sory contribution of 6d. a month was exacted from all seamen, whether of the navy or merchant service, towards the funds of the hospital; but in that year an annual grant of £20,000 from the consolidated fund was substituted.
The income from all sources afterwards reached nearly £150,000 a year, out of which the following officers and pensioners were maintained: 1 governor, £1500 per annum; lieutenant-governor, £800; 4 captains, 4 commanders, 8 lieutenants, 2 masters, 2 chap lains, a considerable staff of naval medical officers and nurses, and 1600 pensioners. The• pensioners were lodged, clothed, and fed at the expense of the hospital, and in addition had the following pecuniary allowance as tobacco and pocket-money: warrant-officers, Ss. a week; petty-officers, 4s.; seamen, 8s. The nurses were usually the widows of sailors who had lost their lives in the service.
The question had been frequently raised of late years, whether this superb charity was not, after all, it mistake, and whether the vast revenues would not be bestowed to better advantage in pensions to seamen, who might still find employment in aid of their subsistence, and who would have the happiness of passing the last days of their lives among their descendants and relatives. Under the old rules, the hospital was, so far as the pensioners were concerned, a monastery in which hundreds of men lived together, without any of the soul-sustaining inducements of monasticism. The old men were, on the whole, painful objects to contemplate, wrecks front whom no further good of any description was to be expected. Leading lives useless to themselves and to others, their
best occupation was to recount, with the garrulity of age and the boastfulness of self absorption, the exploits of long, ago. Many would have preferred to see them in happy country-homes, kept by pensions from absolute want, teaching their grandchildren to delight in the country's glory, and spreading throughout the land, instead of concen trating in one parish, a knowledge of how England can provide in their old age for those among her sous who serve her faithfully in their prime.
The authorities were convinced at last that this semi-monastic inclosed life was not good for the old salts, who much preferred being with their children and friends in country villages or at seaports. Accordingly, in 1165, by the 28 and 29 Viet. c. 89, the institution ceased to exist as an asylum for aged sailors. The funds were converted into out-pensions, providing for a larger number than were maintained in the hospital; the old men were relegated to their friends; and the truly noble buildings, after lying vacant for sonic five years, became a royal naval college for officers to acquire naval science.
Attached to the hospital is a school for the gratuitous education of 800 sons of sea men. This establishment is under the superintendence of the same commissioners as the hospital, and with regard to funds, is consolidated with it. The education given is Such as to fit the recipients for service in the royal or merchant navy; and the period during which boys are permitted to participate in its advantages extends to from three to four years.
. In addition to the in-pensioners alluded to above, about 12,000 old or disabled sea men were assisted in their old age by what was called the Greenwich out-pension. 'Phis, 'however, is now styled a naval pension. It varies from £3 to £57 a year. These men, distributed throughout the country, receive their pensions from the staff-officers of military pensioners, in their respective districts.
The buildings of Greenwich hospital and schools occupy the whole space, with the exception of a roadway, between the Thames and Greenwich park; and taken togeffitx, they constitute a magnificent series of buildings, those composing the hospital being among the finest in the whole kingdom.