Hand-book for visitors to Chelsea Hospital.

  • Royal Hospital (Chelsea, London, England)
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hand-book for visitors to Chelsea Hospital. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/70 (page 12)
    sioners, 538 in number, are formed into six companies, one under each Captain, and are made up of— 6 Colour-Sergeants. 24 Company Sergeants. 24 Corporals. 6 Drummers. 50 Privates, 1st Class. 50 ,, 2nd Class. 378 „ 3rd Class. A few out-pensioners are employed in the Hospital on duties, such as constables, beyond the capacities of the in¬ pensioners. All offices and appointments here mentioned are conferred as military rewards, with one or two obvious exceptions. IV.—Lands and Buildings. The lands of Chelsea Hospital, including the portions covered by buildings, comprise an estate of about 66 acres, situated between the river and the King’s Road in one direction, and between Tite Street and the Chelsea Bridge Road in the other, with the addition of the plots outlying the last-mentioned road now covered b}^ the buildings of the Industrial Dwellings Company, and the studio adjoining. The whole of the lands have been purchased from the funds of the Hospital, and are owned in fee by the Commissioners, in trust for the pensioners. The site of the Hospital was in an open country, the lands were purchased from time to time in patches as opportunity arose, but the time for such purchases or extensions has long since passed away, and the open country has disap¬ peared. The inhabitants of Chelsea and the surrounding districts may be thankful that the Hospital has saved to them the considerable space within its boundary as breathing room. The Hospital is locally known as Chelsea College, which may have arisen from the circumstance that a divinity college had existed on the same site for many years on a foundation of King James I. The device R.C.I. on the buttons of the pensioners’ coats, which represents either Royal College of Invalids or Royal Company of Invalids, may, however, show that the name Royal College had been designedly applied to the Hospital, but, from whatever cause, the name has so well survived that the drivers of hackney carriages to this day