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St Edmund's College was originally founded in Douai, in 1568, by Cardinal William Allen. Originally intended as a seminary to prepare priests to work in England, it soon also became a boys' school for Catholics, debarred from having such institutions in their own country. During the French Revolution, the College transferred to England to the 'Old Hall Academy' in Hertfordshire, 1793. The Academy was then renamed St Edmund's College. The era of Vicars Apostolic ended in 1850 with the restoration of the Hierarchy. In 1869 the Archbishop of Westminster, Henry Edward Manning, set up a seminary in
Hammersmith, and so for the first time St Edmund's ceased to be a theological
college. In 1874, during the Presidency of Monsignor James Patterson, the junior boys were separated from the rest of the College into Saint Hugh's Preparatory School, in a house originally built by Pugin for the Oxford convert WG Ward. In 1893, his son, Bernard Ward, was appointed President of the College and he started a scheme of rebuilding and improvements.

The College continued as a boys' school and seminary until 1975, around the same time as girls from the adjacent Poles Convent were first admitted into the Sixth Form. The College became fully co-educational in 1986.

The Foundation was established by Charity Commissioners' Scheme in 1867 to use the income from the parish charities of St Dunstan in the East to maintain a school to be known as St Dunstan's College, Catford. The chairman of Sir John Cass's Foundation, Sir Owen Roberts, was also chairman of St Dunstan's Educational Foundation 1895-1915 and W H Davison was clerk to both Foundations. In 1901 the office of St Dunstan's moved from 10 Idol Lane to the new Sir John Cass's Foundation headquarters in Jewry Street.

The club was a social club for inhabitants of the parish of St Dunstan in the West, the Liberty of the Rolls and the precinct of Whitefriars. The club was revived in 1851 at which time no meetings had been held for many years.

Celebrating its first Eucharist in 1866, Saint Cyprian's Church was a result of the dedication and perseverance by Father Charles Gutch to build a new church in the parish of Saint Marylebone, in order to help provide more access for the growing congregation. It was dedicated to Saint Cyprian of Carthage, a martyr, due to the Saint's reputation for kindness, goodness and aiding of the poor. However the choice of name was not without controversy and at first was objected to by the Bishop of London who saw it as out of keeping with the traditional naming regulations. In time the district was approved by the Queen and Saint Cyprian's became a distinct 'Parochial Charge', administered to by Father Gutch. However, it was not until after Father Gutch's death in 1896, that a permanent church was built. The church was designed by Ninian Comper, and is believed to have been the making of his successful career and architectural reputation. The Bishop of Kensington blessed the corner stone and it was laid on July 7th 1902 by Lady Wilfreda Biddulph, with construction finishing in 1903.

The original buildings were erected in 1848 - 1849 as a workhouse for the Board of Guardians of the City of London Union. In 1874 it was converted into an infirmary for the same Union. With the reconstruction of Homerton Workhouse in 1909, Bow was superfluous to the Union's needs and was closed, but in 1912 it was re-opened as Bow Institution to treat the chronic sick. London County Council took over the hospital in 1930 when the Board of Guardians was abolished; the number of beds was increased to 786. In 1933 a mental observation unit was opened. St. Clement's (so named from 1936) was badly damaged by bombs in August 1944.

On the introduction of the National Health Service, the Hospital was taken over by the Bow (No. 8) Hospital Management Committee (itself replaced in 1963 by the Thames Group Hospital Management Committee). In 1959, it became exclusively psychiatric. Control of the Hospital passed to the Governors of the London Hospital in 1968, and its designation was altered to The London Hospital (St. Clement's). In 1974 it became part of the Tower Hamlets Health District. The hospital formed part of The Royal London Hospital and Associated Community Services NHS Trust in 1991 and was known as The Royal London Hospital (St Clement's) from 1990. Upon closure of the hospital in 2005 services were transferred to a new Adult Mental Health Facility at Mile End Hospital.

The origins of the name "Saint Clement Danes" remains unclear; any connection with Danish peoples is uncertain although an account by John Stow suggests that "Harold [Harefoot], a Danish king and other Danes were buried here". Another tradition holds that it became the church of the Danish community in the ninth century who had been expelled from the City of London - the church stands at the entrance to the City at the end of Fleet Street. Between 1170 and 1312 it was in the care of the Knights Templar. The church survived the Great Fire but shortly afterwards it became so decayed that rebuilding became essential. A new church by Sir Christopher Wren was completed by 1682, with a steeple added by James Gibbs in 1719.

In 1941, extensive bomb damage gutted the church. It was restored between 1953 and 1958 by WAS Lloyd, paid for with contributions from the Royal Air Force and Allied Forces. It became the Central Church of the Royal Air Force. Inside the church there are many items relating to the air-force including Remembrance Books, colours and standards, and the names of 19,000 American airmen based here during the war, commemorated in a special shrine.

Saint Clements Danes is one of the churches referred to in the popular nursery-rhyme 'Oranges and Lemons'.

Information from The London Encyclopaedia, eds. Weinreb and Hibbert (LMA Library Reference 67.2 WEI).

The Saint Bride Foundation Institute was formed in 1891. It provided technical classes in letterpress printing and lithography, and an extensive library on the subject of printing and book making. The classes were moved to the London College of Printing, but the library is still situated off Fleet Street.

No further information at present.

No further information available.

The charity was established in 1909 to pay apprenticeships of children of the parish and was administered by Sir John Cass's Foundation.

The parish charity school of St Botolph Aldgate was often said to be the first Protestant charity school in England. Zachary Crofton (the minister of St Botolph during the Protectorate) founded a school on Little Tower Hill, East Smithfield circa 1665. This school was endowed by Sir Samuel Starling in 1673 and later amalgamated with the St Botolph Aldgate Parochial School which was established by subscription at an unknown date. St Botolph Aldgate Parochial School amalgamated with Billingsgate and Tower Wards School in 1905 to form the Sir John Cass Junior School.

The Bishop of London was held to exercise responsibility for Anglican churches overseas where no other bishop had been appointed. He retained responsibility for churches in northern and central Europe until 1980, but his jurisdiction in southern Europe ceased in 1842 on the creation of the diocese of Gibraltar. In 1980, the Bishop of London divested himself of all overseas jurisdiction and a new diocese of 'Gibraltar in Europe' was established.

The Anglican community in Antwerp acquired the use of the Chapelle des Tanneurs by a Royal Decree of 1821. The Chapelle served as the Anglican church until the consecration of St Boniface in 1910.

Hanwell was the first pauper lunatic asylum for the county of Middlesex. Its official name was the Middlesex County Asylum, Norwood, but the institution was commonly known as Hanwell Asylum.

It opened in June 1831, originally to take 500 patients, but the building was enlarged in 1831, 1837, 1857 and 1879 to cope with the increasing demand for beds. In 1888 the Asylum had 1891 patients. Hanwell achieved great prominence in the field of psychiatric nursing due to the work of two of its first Medical Superintendents. Dr (later Sir) William Ellis, the first Medical Superintendent at Hanwell (1831-1838) introduced his idea of "Therapy of Employment", which encouraged patients to use the skills and trades which they had acquired before entering the Asylum, to occupy themselves, for the benefit of the Asylum and as an aid in their treatment by restoring their self respect and by reviving an aspect of their lives from before their illness. This was the forerunner of occupational therapy and industrial therapy. In time the system was somewhat abused and patient labour was used to provide some of the essential services of the Asylum, so reducing its running costs.

Dr John Conolly, the third Medical Superintendent at Hanwell and later its Visiting Physician (1839-1852) abolished all use of mechanical restraints to control patients at the Asylum. Although he was not the first to use more humane methods of treating the insane, the abolition of mechanical restraints at Hanwell was the first time that the idea had been applied on such a large scale and on so many different types of patients. It was a huge success and attracted visitors from all over England and encouraged the abolition of mechanical restraints in other Asylums. By using Ellis's system of employment for therapy, and with padded rooms and periods of seclusion or solitary confinement, and some sedatives, Conolly was able to control even the most violent patients without resorting to mechanical restraints. Protective clothing was sometimes used to prevent patients tearing their clothing or breaking crockery etc, but these never restricted their movements. No mechanical restraints were used at Hanwell between 1840 and 1890.

Hanwell's full title was the Middlesex County Asylum at Hanwell. In 1889 the Asylum was taken over by the newly formed London County Council and became the London County Asylum, Hanwell. In 1918 it became a County Mental Hospital. In 1937 its name was changed to Saint Bernard's Hospital. From 1948 to 1974 it was part of the North West Metropolitan Region with its own hospital management committee. In 1974 it became part of North West Thames Regional Health Authority and was within Ealing Health District. In 1980 it was absorbed into Ealing Hospital and is now known as the Psychiatric Unit, Saint Bernard's Wing, Ealing Hospital. It had 950 beds and functioned as a psychiatric and psycho-geriatric hospital for long stay patients. The hospital fell under the Ealing NHS Trust in the late eighties and then the North West London Mental Health NHS Trust in 2001.

The Bishop of London was held to exercise responsibility for Anglican churches overseas where no other bishop had been appointed. He retained responsibility for churches in northern and central Europe until 1980, but his jurisdiction in southern Europe ceased in 1842 on the creation of the diocese of Gibraltar. In 1980, the Bishop of London divested himself of all overseas jurisdiction and a new diocese of 'Gibraltar in Europe' was established.

William Faber gave land in Dinard, France, for an Anglican church to be built in memory of his mother and building began in 1869. The church was completed in 1870. Between 1871 and June 1940 there was a resident chaplain ministering to the British and Americans in Dinard. In 1926 the Association of the Anglican Church of Dinard was formed to maintain and improve the church and to ensure Church of England services were held there. After the Second World War the British-American community dwindled and it was no longer possible to maintain a full time chaplain.

The first record of medical students working within St Bartholomew's Hospital occurs in 1662, when the Governors gave orders that "young gentlemen or doctors or practitioners" should seek permission if they wished to be in attendance when the Hospital's Physicians were prescribing. The Surgeons also had pupils, and the first students often bound themselves to their teachers by means of an apprenticeship agreement. They received most of their education by attending in the wards and following Surgeons at their work, a practice which later became known as "walking the wards" of the Hospital. Physicians at that time would usually have learned their craft by means of a university degree, but with less opportunity for practical work. In 1734 the Governors for the first time gave consent for any of the Surgeons or Assistant Surgeons "to read lectures in anatomy in the dissecting-room of the Hospital", although permission was withdrawn in 1735. Hospital staff offered lectures to pupils privately before this time, often in their own homes, and continued to do so until the 1780s. In 1767 the Physicians and Surgeons again approached the Governors, who agreed to allow the reading of lectures in a room adjoining the operating theatre in the newly-built East Wing.

In 1791 the Governors agreed to the request of the surgeon John Abernethy for a purpose-built lecture theatre to be constructed within the Hospital. A theatre was built between Long Row and what was then Windmill Court, behind the West Wing, to the design of George Dance. It was variously known as the "Surgeons' Theatre", the "Medical Theatre" and the "Anatomical Theatre", and lectures were given there by Abernethy (on anatomy, physiology and surgery), John Latham (on medicine), Richard Powell (on chemistry) and others. The theatre was rebuilt, on the same site but with an enlarged capacity, in 1822. The efforts of Abernethy also persuaded the Governors to pass a resolution giving formal support to the provision of medical education within the Hospital. This recognition by the Governors and the rebuilding of the lecture theatre are generally regarded as marking the foundation of the Medical School in 1822. Further accommodation in Long Row was acquired by the School in the course of the nineteenth century. A theatre for chemical lectures was built at the southern end of Long Row, and in the 1830s a new museum and library were constructed, with a further theatre for lectures on materia medica and botany.

In Abernethy's time, and for some years afterwards, a student decided his own curriculum, attending lectures as he wished, besides walking the wards. If he preferred, he could choose to attend lectures at several different hospitals or private medical schools. At Bart's, as elsewhere, students paid no lecture fees to the Hospital, but could purchase admission tickets to as many individual courses as they wished to attend. Each lecturer sold tickets for his own courses. At the end of a course a certificate of attendance might be granted to those who had completed it. Certificates of "hospital practice" were also issued, to students who had attended regularly in the wards. After Abernethy's death in 1831 the School began to decline, as no member of the medical staff was prepared to take responsibility for administering it, or for offering guidance to the students in the development of their studies.

Until 1843 students had to arrange their own accommodation, but in that year the Governors founded a residential college to allow the students residence within the walls of the Hospital. The residential quarters occupied a row of houses on the west side of Duke Street (now called Little Britain). The first Warden of the College was James Paget, who had already distinguished himself by his discovery of the parasitic worm trichinella spiralis while still a student at the age of 21. As Warden, Paget soon found himself directing the studies not only of the residents, but also of those students who lived outside. Paget's dedication to this task quickly re-established the prestige of the School, and the Wardens became in effect the administrators of the School and the keepers of its accounts. In 1850 Paget was largely responsible for the welcome which Bart's extended to Elizabeth Blackwell, who had just become the first qualified female medical practitioner. From May 1850 until July 1851 she was the first, and only, female student in the Medical School at St Bartholomew's. After her departure, however, a more conservative outlook prevailed and for many years any suggestion that female students should be admitted to Bart's was met with strenuous resistance. Women students continued to be prohibited until 1947.

Until 1892 the regulations of the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Surgeons required four years' study for a professional qualification, of which only thirty months had to be spent at a hospital medical school. After 1892 five years' study became the norm. By 1900 the winter sessions at St Bartholomew's offered lectures, classes and demonstrations in the different branches of medicine, surgery, anatomy and physiology, biology, chemistry, pathology and bacteriology. The summer session provided tuition in forensic, ophthalmic and psychological medicine, materia medica and pharmacology, midwifery and public health. The fee for five years of study was 150 guineas, if paid in one sum on entrance, or 160 guineas if paid in four annual instalments. As early as 1839 the teaching at the Medical School had been recognised by the University of London in admitting candidates for medical degrees. In 1900 the School became one of the constituent colleges of the University, but it remained a voluntary association of teachers in the hospital with no legal status of its own until after the First World War. A new post of Dean was created in 1904. In 1919 Medical and Surgical Professorial Units were established, in anticipation of a formal alteration to the status of the School. The Units aimed to bridge the gap between training, practical medicine and surgery, and the academic world of scientific research. It was a condition of University recognition that the Units were provided with their own research laboratories. The School and the Hospital were formally separated in 1921, when the School was incorporated with a new title, the Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital in the City of London.

In 1933-1934 the Medical College purchased the site of the former Merchant Taylors' School in Charterhouse Square. This acquisition enabled it to re-house the pre-clinical departments, which were previously in cramped quarters on the west side of Giltspur Street. In the Second World War, however, the college suffered badly. Most of the buildings on the Charterhouse Square site were damaged or destroyed, and on the Smithfield site the buildings in Long Row were also wrecked. At the outbreak of war pre-clinical students were evacuated to Queen's College, Cambridge, while clinical teaching was divided between St Bartholomew's and its two evacuation sites, Hill End Hospital at St Alban's and Friern Hospital, New Southgate. The pre-clinical school returned to London in 1946, but the rebuilding of the Charterhouse Square site was not completed until 1963. The Robin Brook Centre for Medical Education was opened in June 1980. In the 1960s the College acquired its first regular peacetime teaching facilities outside Bart's when seventy general medical beds were made available to it at St Leonard's Hospital. After the establishment of the City and Hackney Health District in 1974 it became possible for all students to receive part of their training at several other hospitals within the District.

Following the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Medical Education in 1968, a close association with the London Hospital Medical College was developed, and a number of joint academic departments were established. At the same time, a link with Queen Mary College (later Queen Mary and Westfield) was begun, with the aim that eventually students would take their two-year pre-clinical course at Queen Mary College before going on to study at St Bartholomew's or the Royal London. In 1989 the pre-clinical teaching of the London Hospital Medical College merged with that of St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School as the Central and East London Confederation (CELC). It was re-sited at the Basic Medical Sciences Building at Queen Mary & Westfield College, Mile End, and the first intake of students entered the new pre-clinical school in 1990. Following the recommendations of the Tomlinson Report (1992) and the governmental response to it (Making London Better, 1993), the medical colleges of the Royal London Hospital and St Bartholomew's Hospital were united with Queen Mary & Westfield College in December 1995. The medical school is now known as Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, and is part of Queen Mary, University of London.

St Bartholomew's Hospital was founded, with the Priory of St Bartholomew, in 1123 by Rahere, a former courtier of Henry I. A vow made while sick on a pilgrimage to Rome, and a vision of St Bartholomew, inspired Rahere to found a priory and a hospital for the sick poor at Smithfield in London. Rahere was the first Prior of the Priory of Austin Canons in Smithfield and supervised the Hospital House. In 1170 a layman Adam the Mercer was given charge of the Hospital as the first Proctor and a certain amount of independence from the Priory was achieved. After 1170 grants were received by the Hospital, which attracted valuable endowments of property.

However, relations with the Priory remained problematic throughout the medieval period. There were conflicts over several issues, including the admittance of brethren, lay-brethren and sisters who cared for the sick in the early medieval period. Gradually the Hospital became independent, and was using a distinctive seal from about 1200. By 1300 the title of Proctor used for the head of the Hospital was dropped in favour of Master. By 1420 the two institutions had become entirely separate. As well as caring for patients from the City of London and the country the brethren looked after small children and babies from Newgate Prison, and orphans. By the 15th century a school had been formed with a latin master, and a night shelter for pilgrims and travellers was provided.

The Priory of St Bartholomew was closed during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in 1539, and although the Hospital was allowed to continue, its future was uncertain as it had no income. The citizens of London, concerned about the disappearance of provision for the sick poor and the possibility of plague, petitioned the King in 1538 for the grant of four hospitals in the City including St Bartholomew's. In 1546-1547 St Bartholomew's Hospital was refounded as a secular institution and a Master and Vice-Master, Curate, Hospitaller and Visitor of Newgate Prison were appointed. Henry issued a signed agreement dated December 1546 granting the Hospital to the City of London, and Letters Patent of January 1547 endowing it with properties and income, comprising most of its medieval property. Along with Bethlem, Bridewell and St Thomas', St Bartholomew's became one of four Royal Hospitals administered by the City.

In 1546 four Aldermen and eight Common Councillors of the City of London became the first Governors of the Hospital. They administered the Hospital and appointed paid officials, including a Renter-Clerk, Steward, Porter and eight Beadles. The Board of Governors also divided work amongst themselves. Four were Almoners with responsibility for admitting and discharging patients, ordering stock and checking bills. They worked closely with the Treasurer, responsible for Hospital finances. The weekly meetings of the Treasurer and Almoners developed into an executive committee in the 19th century, reporting to General Courts of the Governors, and became the Executive and Finance Committee in 1948. Other Governors were Surveyors of the Hospital buildings and property. The first professional Surveyor was appointed in 1748. Some Governors had responsibility for inspecting financial statements, and worked closely with the Treasurer and Almoners. Their meetings developed into the House Committee in the 18th century, dealing with leases, appointments and reports of the Hospital Surveyor. The House Committee met frequently and eventually came to manage the routine running of the Hospital. The General Courts of Governors were held two or three times a year. The basic constitution of the Hospital remained the same until the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. The Medical Council was formed in 1842 to give expert advice to the Governors, and comprised all physicians and surgeons serving the Hospital.

The nursing staff on the Hospital's re-foundation consisted of a Matron and twelve Sisters, and there were also three Surgeons who had to attend the poor daily. Nurses, or "Sisters' helpers", were first recorded in 1647. Although a Physician had been provided for in the Agreement of 1546, the first Physician was not appointed until 1562. A Medical School was gradually established from the end of the 18th century, but its foundation is generally attributed to the efforts of the surgeon and lecturer John Abernethy, who in 1822 persuaded the Hospital Governors to pass a resolution giving formal recognition to the School. Bart's was one of the first hospitals in the 19th century to encourage the use of anaesthetics, making a great many more kinds of operation possible. Understanding of infection and the importance of antiseptic procedures in surgery were only gradually accepted at Bart's, but once adopted did a great deal to reduce patient mortality. The development of medical science, particularly in pathology and bacteriology, led to an increased knowledge of disease. X-rays were first used in the Hospital in 1896 and by the end of the century the first specialised departments had been established. A School of Nursing at St Bartholomew's was founded in 1877. A notable early Matron was Ethel Gordon Manson, better known as Mrs Bedford Fenwick, who encouraged a high standard of training and campaigned for the state registration of nurses.

All the medieval hospital buildings were demolished during the 18th century rebuilding programme, carried out to the designs of architect James Gibbs. The staircase leading to the Great Hall in the North Wing is decorated with two huge paintings by the artist William Hogarth. Other buildings have continued to be added as the need has arisen, including Medical College buildings, nurses' accommodation and new ward blocks.

The Hospital remained open throughout the World Wars, although during World War Two many services were evacuated to Hertfordshire and Middlesex. In 1954 it became the first hospital in the country to offer mega-voltage radiotherapy for cancer patients. Cancer services remain a speciality today. Other notable medical specialities are endocrinology and immunology (particularly HIV/AIDS), while a Day Surgery Unit and state-of-the-art operating theatres were opened in 1991 and 1993.

In 1948 St Bartholomew's became part of the National Health Service, and following re-organisation in 1974 became the teaching hospital for the newly-formed City and Hackney Health District, which included several other hospitals. In the late 1980s, Bart's was planning to set up a self-governing hospital trust when its future was called into question by the publication in 1992 of the Tomlinson Report of the Inquiry into the London Health Service. Bart's was not regarded as a viable hospital and its closure was recommended. The Government's response to this report (Making London Better, 1993), laid out three possible options for Bart's: closure, retention as a small specialist hospital, or merger with the Royal London Hospital and the London Chest Hospital. This produced an intense public debate and a campaign to save the Hospital on its Smithfield site. The result was St Bartholomew's remained open, and joined with the Royal London and the London Chest to form the Royal Hospitals NHS Trust in 1994, which became Barts and The London NHS Trust in 1999. St Bartholomew's Hospital now provides specialist cardiac and cancer care. The Medical Colleges of St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Royal London Hospital merged with Queen Mary, University of London in 1989, to form the Central and East London Confederation (CELC). Following the recommendations of the Tomlinson Report (1992) and the governmental response to it (Making London Better, 1993), the colleges united with Queen Mary and Westfield College in December 1995, to become known as Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

St Bartholomew's Hospital was founded, with the Priory of St Bartholomew, in 1123 by Rahere, a former courtier of Henry I. A vow made while sick on a pilgrimage to Rome, and a vision of St Bartholomew, inspired Rahere to found a priory and a hospital for the sick poor at Smithfield in London. Rahere was the first Prior of the Priory of Austin Canons in Smithfield and supervised the Hospital House. In 1170 a layman Adam the Mercer was given charge of the Hospital as the first Proctor and a certain amount of independence from the Priory was achieved. After 1170 grants were received by the Hospital, which attracted valuable endowments of property. However, relations with the Priory remained problematic throughout the medieval period. There were conflicts over several issues, including the admittance of brethren, lay-brethren and sisters who cared for the sick in the early medieval period. Gradually the Hospital became independent, and was using a distinctive seal from about 1200. By 1300 the title of Proctor used for the head of the Hospital was dropped in favour of Master. By 1420 the two institutions had become entirely separate. As well as caring for patients from the City of London and the country the brethren looked after small children and babies from Newgate Prison, and orphans. By the 15th century a school had been formed with a latin master, and a night shelter for pilgrims and travellers was provided.

The Priory of St Bartholomew was closed during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in 1539, and although the Hospital was allowed to continue, its future was uncertain as it had no income. The citizens of London, concerned about the disappearance of provision for the sick poor and the possibility of plague, petitioned the King in 1538 for the grant of four hospitals in the City including St Bartholomew's. In 1546-1547 St Bartholomew's Hospital was refounded as a secular institution and a Master and Vice-Master, Curate, Hospitaller and Visitor of Newgate Prison were appointed. Henry issued a signed agreement dated December 1546 granting the Hospital to the City of London, and Letters Patent of January 1547 endowing it with properties and income, comprising most of its medieval property. Along with Bethlem, Bridewell and St Thomas', St Bartholomew's became one of four Royal Hospitals administered by the City.

In 1546 four Aldermen and eight Common Councillors of the City of London became the first Governors of the Hospital. They administered the Hospital and appointed paid officials, including a Renter-Clerk, Steward, Porter and eight Beadles. The Board of Governors also divided work amongst themselves. Four were Almoners with responsibility for admitting and discharging patients, ordering stock and checking bills. They worked closely with the Treasurer, responsible for Hospital finances. The weekly meetings of the Treasurer and Almoners developed into an executive committee in the 19th century, reporting to General Courts of the Governors, and became the Executive and Finance Committee in 1948. Other Governors were Surveyors of the Hospital buildings and property. The first professional Surveyor was appointed in 1748. Some Governors had responsibility for inspecting financial statements, and worked closely with the Treasurer and Almoners. Their meetings developed into the House Committee in the 18th century, dealing with leases, appointments and reports of the Hospital Surveyor. The House Committee met frequently and eventually came to manage the routine running of the Hospital. The General Courts of Governors were held two or three times a year. The basic constitution of the Hospital remained the same until the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948. The Medical Council was formed in 1842 to give expert advice to the Governors, and comprised all physicians and surgeons serving the Hospital.

The nursing staff on the Hospital's re-foundation consisted of a Matron and twelve Sisters, and there were also three Surgeons who had to attend the poor daily. Nurses, or "Sisters' helpers", were first recorded in 1647. Although a Physician had been provided for in the Agreement of 1546, the first Physician was not appointed until 1562. A Medical School was gradually established from the end of the 18th century, but its foundation is generally attributed to the efforts of the surgeon and lecturer John Abernethy, who in 1822 persuaded the Hospital Governors to pass a resolution giving formal recognition to the School. Bart's was one of the first hospitals in the 19th century to encourage the use of anaesthetics, making a great many more kinds of operation possible. Understanding of infection and the importance of antiseptic procedures in surgery were only gradually accepted at Bart's, but once adopted did a great deal to reduce patient mortality. The development of medical science, particularly in pathology and bacteriology, led to an increased knowledge of disease. X-rays were first used in the Hospital in 1896 and by the end of the century the first specialised departments had been established. A School of Nursing at St Bartholomew's was founded in 1877. A notable early Matron was Ethel Gordon Manson, better known as Mrs Bedford Fenwick, who encouraged a high standard of training and campaigned for the state registration of nurses.

All the medieval hospital buildings were demolished during the 18th century rebuilding programme, carried out to the designs of architect James Gibbs. The staircase leading to the Great Hall in the North Wing is decorated with two huge paintings by the artist William Hogarth. Other buildings have continued to be added as the need has arisen, including Medical College buildings, nurses' accommodation and new ward blocks.

The Hospital remained open throughout the World Wars, although during World War Two many services were evacuated to Hertfordshire and Middlesex. In 1954 it became the first hospital in the country to offer mega-voltage radiotherapy for cancer patients. Cancer services remain a speciality today. Other notable medical specialities are endocrinology and immunology (particularly HIV/AIDS), while a Day Surgery Unit and state-of-the-art operating theatres were opened in 1991 and 1993.

In 1948 St Bartholomew's became part of the National Health Service, and following re-organisation in 1974 became the teaching hospital for the newly-formed City and Hackney Health District, which included several other hospitals. In the late 1980s, Bart's was planning to set up a self-governing hospital trust when its future was called into question by the publication in 1992 of the Tomlinson Report of the Inquiry into the London Health Service. Bart's was not regarded as a viable hospital and its closure was recommended. The Government's response to this report (Making London Better, 1993), laid out three possible options for Bart's: closure, retention as a small specialist hospital, or merger with the Royal London Hospital and the London Chest Hospital. This produced an intense public debate and a campaign to save the Hospital on its Smithfield site. The result was St Bartholomew's remained open, and joined with the Royal London and the London Chest to form the Royal Hospitals NHS Trust in 1994, which became Barts and The London NHS Trust in 1999. St Bartholomew's Hospital now provides specialist cardiac and cancer care. The Medical Colleges of St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Royal London Hospital merged with Queen Mary, University of London in 1989, to form the Central and East London Confederation (CELC). Following the recommendations of the Tomlinson Report (1992) and the governmental response to it (Making London Better, 1993), the colleges united with Queen Mary & Westfield College in December 1995, to become known as Barts and The London School of Medicine & Dentistry.

Before the Reformation there appear to have been five chapels within St Bartholomew's Hospital, but only one survived the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. In the winter of 1546/7, when the Hospital was re-founded by royal charter, its precinct was established as the Anglican parish of St Bartholomew the Less and one of the medieval chapels became the parish church. The tower and part of the west wall of the church date from the fifteenth century and are the oldest structures which now survive within the Hospital precinct. The original parish boundary followed the line of the boundary of the Hospital in Henry VIII's day. However, since 1954, the parish boundary has extended to include land on which the Hospital has expanded to the south and east.

Bart's is now unique among English hospitals in being a parish in its own right. The parish has its own churchwardens and, since 1958, its own parochial church council, which functions independently of the Hospital authorities. The title of 'Anglican chaplain', found in practically every other hospital in England, does not exist at Bart's. The role is filled by the Vicar of St Bartholomew the Less, who is correctly known as the 'Vicar and Hospitaller'. In the sixteenth century, these were two separate offices: the Vicar of St Bartholomew the Less, who undertook pastoral care of the parishioners, and the Hospitaller to St Bartholomew's Hospital, who looked after the needs of the patients. However, in the time of William Orme, Vicar from 1670 to 1697, the two positions were combined and they have been held jointly by successive clergy down to the present day. In former times there were a number of tenanted houses in the Hospital precinct, but there are now no parishioners except resident Hospital staff, and the incumbent's main responsibility is for the spiritual welfare of the patients within the Hospital.

The medieval church remained largely intact until 1789-1791, when the roof and practically the whole of the interior were demolished and rebuilt to the design of George Dance junior, the Hospital Surveyor. Dance's structure, however, was rapidly attacked by dry rot, and the church was again rebuilt in 1823-1825. The architect of the second rebuilding was Thomas Hardwick and it is chiefly his work that is visible in the church today. Hardwick retained much of Dance's octagonal design for the interior of the church, but reconstructed it using more durable materials, and pulled down all that remained of the medieval building apart from the tower and the west end. Some of the monuments from the old building were preserved and reinstated, including memorials to Robert Balthrope, Queen Elizabeth I's sergeant surgeon (died 1591), and to Anne, wife of Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, whose London house stood within the Hospital precinct in the early seventeenth century. A curious feature of the church is the height of the floor, most of which is some seventy-five centimetres above ground level. The reason for this appears to be unknown. Two of the three bells in the tower are medieval, and are very probably as old as the tower itself. The stained glass windows depicting the Virgin and Child with St Luke, St Bartholomew and Rahere, and also the war memorial windows, were designed by Hugh Easton and dedicated in 1951. They replaced Victorian glass destroyed in the Second World War.

In earlier centuries, attendance at church was compulsory for the nursing staff of the Hospital. Patients were also expected to attend every Sunday, unless they were too weak to do so. Regular Sunday and weekday services are held throughout the year, and the church is frequently used by members of staff for weddings, for the baptisms of their children, and for memorial services. The Vicar and Hospitaller works in close co-operation with the chaplains of other denominations and advises and counsels staff and patients, their relatives and other visitors.

St Audoen alias St Ewin was a small church which stood at the north-west corner of Warwick Lane, Ludgate, and its existence is first recorded in about 1220. The church was demolished in about 1583, and the parish became part of Christ Church Greyfriars. The endowments of St Audoen were transferred to St Bartholomew's Hospital by a charter of Henry VIII. The parish of St Audoen was abolished in 1547 when the new parish of Christchurch Newgate Street was formed.

Founded in 1868 as the Poplar and Stepney Sick Asylum, as a result of the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 (30 and 31 Vic.c6), which gave authority to the Poor Law Board to order the combination of Unions and Parishes to provide asylums for the Sick Poor. Poplar and Stepney Unions formed one of six such Asylum Districts and administered the Asylum, built at Bromley-by-Bow along architectural lines favoured by Florence Nightingale, and opened in 1873. The Poplar and Stepney Sick Asylum District, whose minutes (1868 - 1925) are held at London Metropolitan Archives (ref: PSSA), administered the Asylum until the District was abolished in 1925.

The Asylum was renamed St. Andrew's Hospital in 1921 and was administered by the Metropolitan Asylums board from 1925 until 1933, at which time responsibility transferred to the London County Council. St. Andrew's became an N.H.S. Hospital in 1948 and was administered by the No. 8 Group, Bow Hospital Management Committee, until 1963, when the Group merged with the West Ham Group to form the Thames Group of Hospitals. From 1974 to 1982 the Hospital formed part of Newham Health District (though positioned in Tower Hamlets) under the City and East London Area Health Authority (Teaching) and since 1982 it was been administered by the Newham Health Authority.

The Hospital grew through 19th century extensions to over 650 beds. A School of Nursing was established in 1875 and nurses followed a three-year course for a certificate of training and sick cookery. By 1930 an optional maternity training course had been established and the nursing staff had expanded to over 200. The headquarters of Newham District School of Nursing transferred to St. Andrew's following the closure of Newham Maternity Hospital, Forest Gate, c.1985, and the School merged with in 1991 with the Princess Alexandra College of Nursing and Midwifery.

In 1990 the Hospital had 283 beds, but a systematic reduction of services had begun. Eighty-five percent of the Hospital buildings were considered to be in poor condition and below acceptable standards for clinical use. The Out-Patients Department closed, as well as some wards. Patients were transferred to Newham General Hospital. The Devons Road entrance to the Hospital was closed. The Intensive Treatment Unit closed in 1995, as well as the Accident & Emergency Department (but a Receiving Room was retained so that GPs could refer patients with medical or surgical problems; this closed in 1999).

The remaining services concentrated on rehabilitation and geriatric care.

The Pathology Laboratories closed in 2001. It had been intended that the site would be vacated by 2004, but St Andrew's remained open for patients until it closed in 2006.

The Bishop of London was held to exercise responsibility for Anglican churches overseas where no other bishop had been appointed. He retained responsibility for churches in northern and central Europe until 1980, but his jurisdiction in southern Europe ceased in 1842 on the creation of the diocese of Gibraltar. In 1980, the Bishop of London divested himself of all overseas jurisdiction and a new diocese of 'Gibraltar in Europe' was established.

In 1882 a church building fund was started in order to build a small Anglican church in Tangier. An iron church was erected in 1884 which could seat 100 people, and was opened the following year. However, it was found to have insufficient accommodation and was therefore sold to the Evangelical Mission in Tangier. The foundation stone of the present stone church was laid in 1894. The church was consecrated in 1905. A photocopy of the grant of land on which the church was built is in the diocesan filing [Guildhall Library Ms 20983/51].

Captain John Hay Brooks (d 1940) bequeathed a legacy for the benefit of the church and of indigent Moors. The trust was managed by three wardens, who formed themselves into a Societe d' Anonyme (limited liability company) in 1967 for the better administration of the trust. The company was called Brooks Bequest S.A.

The Bishop of London was held to exercise responsibility for Anglican churches overseas where no other bishop had been appointed. He retained responsibility for churches in northern and central Europe until 1980, but his jurisdiction in southern Europe ceased in 1842 on the creation of the diocese of Gibraltar. In 1980, the Bishop of London divested himself of all overseas jurisdiction and a new diocese of 'Gibraltar in Europe' was established.

Anglican services began in Bayonne in 1853 before moving to Biarritz in 1854. The church was opened in 1861, but had to be replaced with a more spacious building in 1878 as the popularity of the resort grew.

The St Alphage Society was formed in 1738 under the direction of the Reverend J. Broughton, secretary of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. A weekly evening lecture was supported from Society funds and in 1751 a school was opened to clothe and educate five (later increased to thirty) poor children. For many years the school was associated with the City of London First National Schools in White Street, Finsbury, but on the closure of these premises in 1879 an agreement was made for the education of 20 poor boys and 20 poor girls at the Aldersgate Ward School, then at 160 Aldersgate Street. The Society originally met in the vestry of St Alphage London Wall and subsequently at various locations across the City including (successively) Newgate Street, Cannon Street, Aldersgate Street and Little Britain. The Society disappears from trade directories in 1960.

The home was opened in 1938 as a replacement for St Agnes' Hostel For Girls, Croydon, London. It was closed in 1972 and the residents were moved to Harvey Goodwin House Home, Cambridge. In 1974 the building was reopened in as a holiday home for small groups of children in the care of The Children's Society. It was sold the following year.More information about St Agnes' Home, Pevensey Bay, Sussex, can be found on the Hidden Lives Revealed website: http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/homes/PEVEN01.html

SS TERRA NOVA was a relief vessel sent to DISCOVERY in the Antarctic. A P Jackson was Chief Officer.

The SS (Schutzstaffel) was founded in 1925 with the object of protecting the Nazi Perty leader, Adolf Hitler. By 1936, under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, the SS had assumed responsiblity for all police and security matters throughout the Third Reich.

Wolfram Sievers, who became the Reichsgeschäftsführer der Forschungsgemeinschaft Deutschen Ahnenerbe (the Director of the Society for Research into the Spiritual Roots of Germany's Ancestral Heritage), was born in 1905 the son of an evangelical church musician in Hildesheim. His Gymnasium schooling was aborted not, as he claimed on the witness stand at the Nuremberg Trials, because he had to find a practical occupation on account of the difficulties caused by the separation of his parents, but, as he states in his SS- Personalfragebogen, because of his desire to be more actively involved in the 'deutsch-völkisch' Schutz und Trutzbund. Thus demonstrating from early on his fascination for German ethnicity and pre-Christian culture.

Sievers was a witness at the first Nuremberg War Crimes Trial and was himself convicted of being a war criminal on account of his involvement in experimentation on concentration camp prisoners. He was executed on 2 June 1948.

The PARTHIA was one of the first passenger ships entering service for Cunard from their pos-war building programme, launched on 25 Feb 1947 and making her maiden voyage, from Liverpool to New York, on 10 Apr 1948. In Jul 1961, following the decline of sea-travel to the USA, she was sold to the New Zealand Shipping Co, a P and O subsidiary, and renamed the REMURA, in 1965 sold on to the Eastern Australian Steamship Co and renamed the ARAMAC, and sold finally in 1969 when it to Kaohsiung for scrap.

Hilda M L Squire, born in 1898, was the daughter of J Edward Squire (1855-1917) a wealthy doctor involved in public health and hygiene. Her aunt was Rose Elizabeth Squire (1861-1938) who had a distinguished career as a Factory Inspector at the Home Office. Their grandfather was William Squire (1825-1899) physician to Lord Cardigan. Hilda studied history and biology in 1915 at one of the Oxbridge colleges and in 1917 was educated at Francis Holland Church of England School, where she was Head of her school year. During 1918-1919 Hilda worked as a VAD, after which she studied for the examinations of the National Health Society. She was awarded diplomas in hygiene, physiology, child welfare and tuberculosis. Furthermore, she qualified under the Sanitary Inspectors Examination Board in 1920. Her career in health visiting started with her working at the Royal College of Saint Katherine in Poplar. She worked here for two years as an Infant Health Visitor. In 1926 Hilda was awarded a certificate in Social Science and Administration from the London School of Economics. She also gained a certificate from the Institute of Hospital Almoners. Following on from this, Hilda spent ten years working at Brompton Hospital, during the 1920-1930s, as a hospital almoner. At the same time, she was also a Tuberculosis Visitor and Secretary to the Tuberculosis Committee of the Chelsea Tuberculosis Dispensary. During [1949-1951] Hilda worked at the Maida Vale Hospital for Nervous Diseases as Lady Almoner. Whilst here she specialised in neurological illnesses, such as epilepsy. Hilda was involved with various organisations during her busy career. These included the National Association for Mental Health (1943-1953), the British Council for Rehabilitation (1947-1951), the National Association for the Paralysed (1950-1961 also a founder member), the British Epilepsy Association (1950-1951 also a founder member), the British Rheumatic Association (1953), the British Council for the Welfare of Spastics (1955) and the Queen Elizabeth Foundation for the Disabled from 1966. As a representative of the Institute of Almoners, Hilda served on the councils of the Chalfour Epileptic Colony (1948-1957), the Courtauld-Sargent concert club (1932-1936) and the Mobile Physiotherapy Service Association Limited (1956-1958). She died in 1991.

Rose Squire (1861-1938) was born in London, the daughter of William Squire, a surgeon, and his wife Martha Wilkinson. After being educated at home, she trained in 1893 as a lecturer in health and hygiene. She was the first woman to sit for the sanitary inspector's certificate, in 1894, and worked as a sanitary inspector of laundries and workshops. In 1895 she became a lady inspector of factories, working throughout the country. In 1903 she was appointed senior lady inspector, from 1908-1912 she was based in Manchester, returning to London in 1912. From 1906-1907 Squire was a special investigator to the royal commission on the poor laws. During the First World War she worked with the Ministry of Munitions, where she was involved in the promotion of good factory working conditions, and in 1918 was appointed director of their women's welfare department. She received an OBE in 1918. In 1920 she became the first woman to hold an administrative post in the Home Office. She retired in 1926 and died in 1938.

Caroline Spurgeon was born in India on 24 October 1869, the daughter of Christopher Spurgeon, a Captain in the 36th Foot, and Caroline Dunsmuir (according to the record of her baptism in the India Office births, marriages and deaths records, Vol. 130 folio 65). Her mother died giving birth to her (see letter of 1 May 1910 in PP7/1/2), and her father appears to have married again, but himself died in 1874. She was educated at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; Dresden, Germany; and King's College and University College, London; Quain Essayist and Morley Medallist, University College London, 1898; First Class Final Honours in English, Oxford University, 1899. For Michaelmas Term 1899, she acted as assistant to Miss Lee, Tutor and Lecturer to the Association for the Education of Women, but then for family reasons had to give up work for some months. From May 1900 she was lecturing in London: she was appointed Lecturer in English Literature under the London School Board, giving weekly lectures in the Evening Continuation Schools at South Hackney, and on Shakespeare in Welwyn, Hertfordshire. She was appointed to the staff of Bedford College, University of London, in 1901: Assistant Lecturer in English, 1901-1906, Lecturer in English Literature, 1906-1913, and Hildred Carlile Professor of English Literature (and Head of Department), 1913-1929. She was made Emeritus Professor of English Literature in 1929. In 1911 she was awarded a doctorate of the University of Paris for her thesis 'Chaucer devant la critique', and in 1929 she was made D. Lit. of the University of London for her '500 years of Chaucer criticism and allusion'. She was awarded a Research Fellowship by the Federation of University Women, 1912, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1916. She was a member of the British Educational Mission to America in 1918, on which she met Virginia Gildersleeve, Dean of Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, USA, with whom she lived during the summer vacations, either in England or in the USA, for the rest of her life. She was Visiting Professor at Columbia University, 1920-1921, first President of the International Federation of University Women, 1920-1924, and member of the Departmental Committee to inquire into the position of English in the Educational System of England, 1929-1931. She settled in 1936 in Tucson, Arizona, USA, in the hope of relieving her arthritis, and she died there on 24 October 1942. Publications include: 'The works of Dr. Samuel Johnson' (H.K.Lewis, London, 1898); 'Richard Brathwait's comments in 1665, upon Chaucer's Tales of the Miller and the Wife of Bath' (ed.) (London, 1901); preface to an edition of 'The Castle of Otranto' by Horace Walpole (Chatto & Windus, 1907); 'Chaucer devant la critique en Angleterre et en France depuis son temps jusqu'à nos jours' (Paris, 1911); 'William Law and the mystics' in the Cambridge History of English Literature (1912); 'Mysticism in English literature' (Cambridge University Press, 1913); 'The privilege of living in war-time: an inaugural address to King's College for Women' (University of London Press, London, 1914); 'Five hundred years of Chaucer criticism and allusion, 1357-1900' (Chaucer Society, 1914-1922, Cambridge University Press, 1925); 'The training of the combatant: an address delivered for the Fight for Right movement' (Dent and Sons, London, 1916); 'Poetry in the light of war' (English Association, London, 1917); 'The refashioning of English education: a lesson of the Great War' (Atlantic Monthly, Jan. 1922); Essay on Jane Austen in 'Essays by Divers Hands' (Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature) Vol VII (Humphrey Milford, London, 1928); 'Essays and studies by Members of the English Association' (ed.) (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1928); 'Keats's Shakespeare: a descriptive study based on new material' (Humphrey Milford, London, 1928); 'Imagery in the Sir Thomas More fragment' (Review of English Studies, Vol VI, No 23, July 1930); 'Leading motives in the imagery of Shakespeare's tragedies' (London, 1930); 'Shakespeare's iterative imagery, i, as undersong, ii, as touchstone, in his work' (London, [1931]); 'Shakespeare's imagery and what it tells us' (Cambridge University Press, 1935)

No information was discovered at the time of compilation. This work was published in 1836 by Longman.

Born, 1816; master in St Peter's School, York; botanical field work in the Pyrenees, 1845; botanical and geographical work in the Amazon basin, 1849-1864; returned to England, 1864; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1866-1893; died, 1893.

Botanical collection begun in Yorkshire c 1833; specialized in mosses and liverworts, an interest confirmed after a visit to Dr Thomas Glanville Taylor in Ireland in 1848. Came to the attention of Sir William Hooker in 1844 and sent to the Pyrenees on an expedition (1845-6) under the sponsorship of George Bentham. Hooker, Bentham and other botanists sent Spruce to South America in 1849. At the end of that year he travelled up the Amazon to Santarem where he met zoologist Alfred Russel Wallace and lepidopterist Henry Walter Bates. His exploration at this date included plants with medicinal properties, such as the datura and coca plants. He spent three years on the Orinoco and Negro rivers, then in 1854 ascended the Amazon by steamer to Nantua in Peru and then to the Andes, where he stayed two years and collected 250 species of ferns. In 1857 he came down the Amazon and went to Ecuador, later moving to Ambato which he made his headquarters and explored the Quintensian Andes. The India Office commissioned him to collect seeds and polants of the cinchona, the source of quinine, which were later sent to India. He published his report on this in 1861. In 1867 he finally returned to England and spent the remaining twenty seven years of life sorting his collections. These included notes on twenty one Amazonian languages, many hundreds of drawings, and notes and maps of three previously unexplored rivers.

Richard Spruce, born 10 September 1817; died 28 December 1893.

Richard Spruce was born on 10 September 1817 in the village of Ganthorpe, Yorkshire. Spruce's father (also named Richard) was the schoolmaster at Ganthorpe and his mother, Ann, was one of the Etty family, a relative of the painter William Etty. His mother died while he was young, and when he was about fourteen his father married again, and had a family of eight daughters, only two of whom survived their half-brother.

Spruce appears to have developed a love of nature from an early age and, at the age of sixteen, had drawn up an alphabetical list of all the plants (403 species) that he had found around Ganthorpe. Three years later he had drawn up a List of the Flora of the Malton District, containing 485 species of flowering plants. Several of Spruce's localities for the rarer plants are given in Baines's Flora of Yorkshire, published in 1840. It is clear that he also studied plants carefully and this is illustrated by the fact that in 1841 he discovered, and identified as a new British plant, the very rare sedge Carex paradoxa. He had also now begun the study of mosses, since in the same year he found a moss new to Britain, Leskea fulvinata, previously known only from Lapland.

Spruce was educated by his father who initially helped him to follow his own profession. He learnt Latin and Greek and appears to have had a natural aptitude for languages, since he not only taught himself to read and write French fairly well, but later learnt Portuguese and Spanish as well as gaining some knowledge of three different Indian languages - the Lingoa Geral, Barré, and Quichua. At 20, he left home to become tutor in a school at Haxby and, at the end of 1839, he obtained the post of mathematical master at the Collegiate School at York, which he retained until the school closed in 1844. During this time he suffered frequent bouts of the ill health from which he was to suffer for the rest of his life.

In 1841, a monthly magazine, The Phytologist, was started for British Botany, and Spruce contributed to it numerous accounts of his botanical excursions and notes on rare plants. His paper on the Musci and Hepaticae of Teesdale showed him to be one of the most observant discoverers of rare species. In Baines's Flora of Yorkshire (1840) only four mosses were recorded from Teesdale, though no doubt many more had been collected. Spruce at once raised the number to 167 mosses and 41 hepaticae, of which six mosses and one Jungermannia were new to Britain. In April 1845 he published in the London Journal of Botany descriptions of twenty-three new British mosses, of which about half were discovered by himself and the remainder by William Borrer and other botanists. In the same year he published, in The Phytologist, his List of the Musci and Hepaticae of Yorkshire, in which he recorded no less than 48 mosses new to the English Flora and 33 others new to that of Yorkshire.

In the latter part of 1844, with the loss of his teaching post, Spruce's future was very unsettled. A plant agency in London and the curatorship of a colonial botanical garden were rejected as either unsuitable or uncertain of attainment. Plant-collecting in Spain was suggested but, at that time, considered too dangerous. Eventually, in December 1844, an expedition to the Pyrenees was agreed and he set out in April 1845. He reached Pau early in May, and stayed there until the following March, collecting and studying the flowers and mosses of the region. He returned to England in April 1846, and spent the remainder of the year naming, arranging and distributing his Pyrenean collections.

Over the next two years, he worked on The Musci and Hepaticae of the Pyrenees, which was published in the Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh after his departure for South America. It gives the names of all the species carefully identified, describes fully all that were new or doubtful, and gives particulars of the local and geographical distribution of each. A general account of his whole excursion was published in the London Journal of Botany for 1846, under the title Notes on the Botany of the Pyrenees. When in London in September 1848, Spruce decided to undertake the botanical exploration of the Amazon valley and he sailed on June 7, 1849. George Bentham agreed to receive all his botanical collections, name and sort them, send them to the various subscribers in Great Britain, as well as in different parts of Europe, to collect the subscriptions and keep all accounts, in return for which invaluable services he was to receive the first (complete) set of the plants collected.

On July 12th 1849, Spruce's ship, The BRITANNIA, docked at Para and Spruce began his South American exploration which would last for fifteen years. From Para, Spruce sailed on 10th October up the Amazon to Santarem, a journey of 17 days. He remained here for almost a year, exploring and collecting in extremely adverse conditions. His journeys continued - in October 1850 he travelled to Manaos, then up the Rio Negro to Sao Gabriel on the Orinoco between November 1851 and March 1852 followed by a collecting expedition in the forest around the river Vaupes. In March 1853, he left for San Carlos in Venezuela where he remained for five months. In the small settlement of San Fernando, Spruce suffered from a long and serious bout of fever which left him exhausted and, on the way back to Manaos, he successfully foiled an attempt by his boatmen to murder him and steal his possessions. Once back in Manaos, he planned a trip to Peru, travelling up the Amazon and Huallaga rivers to Tarapoto in the Andes of Maynas where he remained from June 1855 to March 1857. During his time at Tarapoto, Spruce collected over 1000 specimens of flowering plants in addition to hundreds of specimens of mosses and hepaticae.

His next journey was to Banos in Ecuador, a journey of 100 days by river and on foot. He explored this volcanic area for six months and then moved on to make his base at Ambato for two and a half years. It was here, in April 1860, that he suffered a physical breakdown, suffering paralysis and pain in his back and legs. Nevertheless, he set out six weeks later to collect seed from Cinchona trees which became the foundation of the plantations in India and Ceylon which produced quinine, bringing relief to thousands of malaria sufferers. Spruce's last expedition in South America was to Payta in northern Peru. From here he was carried by litter to Piura where he remained from January 1863 to May 1864 when he embarked for Europe.

After his return from South America in June 1864, Spruce continued to be plagued by ill health which affected his ability to work, the cause of which was not discovered until four years after his return by which time a cure was impossible. Despite this, he succeeded in producing a great deal of botanical work, including the study of the Palms of the Amazon valley and of equatorial South America, which resulted in a paper in the Journal of the Linnean Society.

But his greatest work, which has established his reputation among the botanists of the world, is his massive volume on the Hepaticae of the Amazon and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador. This appeared in 1885, as a volume of the Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. It contains very full descriptions of more than 700 species and varieties distributed in 43 genera and a large number of new sub-genera, all precisely characterised and defined. Of these 700 species nearly 500 were collected by him and of these more than 400 were quite new to the science of botany.

The whole of Spruce's Mosses were placed in the hands of William Mitten for classification, description of new species and distribution; and were all included in this botanist's great work on South American Mosses, published by the Linnean Society in 1867. Spruce's work on the Hepaticae brought him a large correspondence from every part of the world, and for the remainder of his life he was sufficiently occupied with this, with the determination of specimens sent him, and with a few special papers, among which were the description of a new hepatic from Killarney in the Journal of Botany in 1887 and a paper in the Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical Club on a collection made in the Andes of Bolivia. After Spruce's work on the Hepaticae was published, he was occupied in the task of sorting out and preparing his immense collection of South American Hepaticae into sets of species for distribution which was completed and twenty five sets sent off before the end of 1892.

Richard Spruce died on 28 December 1893 after an attack of influenza. He was buried at Terrington beside his father and mother, in accordance with his own directions.

Springfield Hospital was originally opened in 1841 as the Surrey Pauper Lunatic Asylum. The Surrey Justices of the Peace had formed a Committee in 1835 to look into the 'state and expense of pauper lunatics belonging to Surrey'. A new committee reported in 1837 that it was desirable to build an asylum 'as a measure of wise economy and enlightened humanity'. It was hoped that this would reduce the burden on the parishes of Surrey to maintain the insane. The site purchased in 1838 from Henry Perkins consisted of a house and estate known as Springfield Park (a total of 97 acres). The asylum was designed by Mr W. Moseley, County Surveyor of Middlesex (who had constructed the Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell).

Two new wings were built onto the north and east and by 1855 the asylum could accommodate 430 male and 534 female patients. Additional land to the east of the estate was acquired in 1864. A Cottage Hospital was opened in 1872 to deal with infectious diseases. Following the formation of the London County Council and Middlesex County Council in 1889, the overall question of provision of asylums in London resulted in Springfield being allotted to Middlesex County Council.

In 1897, a separate 'Annex for Idiot Children' was opened to accommodate 20 children under the provisions of the Lunacy Act of 1890, which sought to separate the treatment of mentally handicapped children from the treatment of the mentally ill. An Infirmary Block for the physically ill was opened in 1931.

In 1948 the Hospital was transferred to the National Health Service. In 2001 the Hospital became part of South West London and Saint George's Mental Health NHS Trust.

Born, 1871; education: Market Harborough Grammar School; Wycliffe College, Stonehouse; Firth College, Sheffield; Guy's Hospital; University of Heidelberg. Physician St George's Hospital, 1904-1913; Dean of the Medical School; Physician to Victoria Hospital for Children; London Chest Hospital; Demonstrator of Physiology, Guy's Hospital, 1898-1904; Captain, Royal Army Medical Corps; left London for Scotland where he conducted Duff House, Banff clinic, 1913-1922; Honorary Medical Advisor to Ministry of Food, 1917-1918; Senior Physician, Ruthin Castle Clinic, 1922-1944; High Sheriff for County of Denbigh, 1945-1946; Consulting Physician; died, 1949.

Spratt entered the Navy in 1827, was made a lieutenant in 1841 and a commander in 1849, his ship then being the SPITFIRE, a survey vessel in the Mediterranean; he continued in command of her until the end of the Crimean War, becoming a captain in 1855. In 1856 he was appointed to the MEDINA and remained surveying in the Mediterranean until 1863. He was a Commissioner of Fisheries from 1866 to 1873 and was promoted to Rear-Admiral in 1872. In 1878 he became a Vice-Admiral and from 1879 was Acting Conservator of the Mersey Conservancy Board. Spratt published books and articles on the Mediterranean, chiefly on the history and antiquities of Crete.

Until May 1901 the Medical Officer of Health was Robert John Sprakeling (d.1901) MRCS. He was succeeded by Thomas William Naylor Barlow (fl. 1896-1945) MRCS, LRCP. By 1924 the MOH was Frank Thomas Herbert Wood (fl. 1902-78).

Born in 1952, Gillian Spraggs was brought up in Greater London before attending Girton College, Cambridge to read English. She completed a PhD in 1980 on rogues and vagabonds in Tudor and early Stuart literature and is an eminent scholar currently working at Loughborough University.

Gillian Spraggs also gained distinction as a campaigner for the right and equality of lesbians and gays, particularly within the education system. A teacher for many years, Ms. Spraggs began to take part in campaigns and discussions of gay and lesbian rights in 1986 when she became an active member of the Leicester Working Party and the National Union of Teachers. Through the Leicester Working Party she sought "to see a resolution in support of gay rights passed by the Union's [National Teaching Union] National Conference, and to press for such a policy, once adopted, to be translated into effective action". It was through this forum that the group worked to publish the book Outlaws in the Classroom, which was launched in 1987 at the National Conference and which grabbed the attention - both good and bad - of not only the unions, but also the national press and brought to their attention the plight of gay and lesbian teachers within the education system.

The Leicester Working Party, like many lesbian and gay action groups in the country, also involved themselves heavily in the campaign against the introduction of Clause 27 into the Local Government Bill 1988. The work of the Leicester Working Party can be seen as contributing to the condemnation of Clause 27 by the National Teaching Union and with it their support for the employment rights of lesbian and gay teachers.

Now an academic, Gillian Spraggs is the author of Outlaws and Highwaymen, The Cult of the Robber in England from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century as well having published numerous essays, poems and translations. She is also the editor of Love Shook My Senses: Lesbian Love Poems, an anthology of poetry which journalist Siân Hughes called "a book about women by those who know what they are talking about".

Sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/mar/07/bestbooks.fiction http://www.gillianspraggs.com/

Arthur Sporne (1890-1977) was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk 1890 as the youngest child of William Sporne, grocer, and Hannah Morley, five of whose eight children, including Arthur, went on to become teachers. From 1893 he attended a 'British' [and Foreign Schools Society] elementary school, where his brother was a pupil teacher, and then a 'Church' [of England] school, before moving to King's Lynn Grammar School. He trained as a teacher at Sheffield Training College c1908-1910. From 1911 he worked at the Joseph Lancester Elementary School in Ealing, as well as having short periods of experience at Fulham Reformatory and of war service during World War One. Following military service, Sporne returned to teaching at the Joseph Lancaster School until 1924 at which date the school was transferred to the Grange School, Ealing. The school was evacuated to Stoke Mandeville during the Second World War. After the War he taught at Selbourne School where he specialised in the teaching of mathematics. He retired in 1954 after which he wrote, and coached school phobics.

The Spitalfields Trust was established in 1978 with the aim of saving the remaining Georgian houses in Spitalfields, London, which were under threat of redevelopment as the city’s financial centre expanded eastwards. The Trust's intervention helped to save a number of eighteenth century roads including Fournier, Princelet, Wilkes, Elder and Folgate Streets. By 1993 the Trust's successes in the East End led it to branch-out to other areas of the country, notably restoring and repairing Allt-y-Bela in Usk, Monmouthshire, a late medieval farmhouse.

The Spitalfields Inventory was a project to detail the features of buildings in the Spitalfields area conducted by a group of researchers between 1990 and 1991. The area was divided into 8 blocks and surveys were conducted on a select number of buildings in that area recorded on a survey form and colour transparency of the building. No further information on the origins of the project is currently known.

Spitalfields Great Synagogue was situated on the corner of Brick Lane and Fournier Street in Spitalfields. The Synagogue occupied the site of a former church built by French speaking Huguenot refugees in 1843. The building was leased in 1809 to the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. In 1843 the French Church leased the building to a community of Methodists, it then became a Wesleyan Chapel and was known as Spitalfields Chapel. In 1898 the Trustees of the French Church leased the building to the London Hebrew Tamud Torah Classes who in turn sub-let it to the Jewish Machzikei Hadath community.

The Machzikei Hadath community were particularly concerned to preserve strict orthodox standards of religious worship and observance: the congregation was largely made up of newly arrived Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who found the established practices of the Anglo-Jewish community did not match their standards of orthodoxy. Spitalfields Great Synagogue was consciously modelled on synagogues found in Eastern Europe. The congregation flourished in the early twentieth century and became known as an important centre for the local Jewish community. As the community moved from the area however attendance declined and the synagogue was closed in 1952: a new Machzikei Hadath Synagogue was opened in Golders Green in the 1980s.

The building was sold in the 1970s to a community of Muslims from Bangladesh and converted to use as a mosque.

Henry and Brigitte Spiro were living in New York, 1984.

Bernard Henry Spilsbury was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire in 1877. He was educated locally and in London and Manchester before entering Magdalen College Oxford, from which he graduated in 1899. He then studied medicine in London, and after qualifying in 1905 earned his living as a forensic pathologist for the rest of his life, often working for the Home Office and as a medical lecturer. He became well known after testifying in several criminal cases, including the notorious Crippen trial (1910) and the 'brides in the bath' case (1915). He was knighted in 1923. Spilsbury's health declined considerably as he aged, particularly after 1940, and he committed suicide in his laboratory at University College London in December 1947.

The Bishop of London was held to exercise responsibility for Anglican churches overseas where no other bishop had been appointed. He retained responsibility for churches in northern and central Europe until 1980, but his jurisdiction in southern Europe ceased in 1842 on the creation of the diocese of Gibraltar. In 1980, the Bishop of London divested himself of all overseas jurisdiction and a new diocese of 'Gibraltar in Europe' was established.

A seasonal Anglican chaplaincy was established in the popular tourist destination of Spiez, Switzerland.

Dr. Käthe Spiegel was the daughter of the Professor of Public Law at the German University of Prague, and for many years senate member of the Parliament of Czechoslovakia, Dr. Ludwig Spiegel. She trained as a historian and librarian and worked as her father's secretary. She also worked for a number of other mostly student organisations in Prague. Letters of reference suggest that she probably emigrated to Great Britain in 1939.

Spicers of 346 Caledonian Road, began as undertakers, but later became funeral directors. These records contain a considerable amount of detail concerning funeral arrangements from the late Victorian era.

This was a chartered accountancy partnership established in 1902 between E.E. Spicer and E.C. Pegler. Their address was 60 Watling Street. The firm became influential in the training of young accountants and published many standard textbooks. Following amalgamations with other firms in the 1970s and 1980s, Spicer and Oppenheim (as the firm was then known) amalgamated with Touche Ross and Company in 1990. Touche Ross and Company became Deloitte and Touche in 1996.

James Milner left his estates in Tottenham to his grand-daughter Elizabeth who was married to Henry Sperling.

A manor in Tottenham known as the Rectory manor was held by Henry Piper Sperling from 1797.