Orders. Lastly, as we have seen, it was destroyed.
After the Hospital had been destroyed, a scheme for the management of
the revenues was suggested to Lord Elden, then Lord Chancellor, and
afterwards approved by Lord Lyndhurst. The question before the
Chancellor was, one would think, the following: 'Here is an annual
revenue of L5,000 and more, released by the destruction of the
Hospital. How can it be best applied for the general good or for the
benefit of the crowded city around the site of the old Hospital?'
That, however, was not the view of the Lord Chancellor. He said,
practically:
'Here is a large property which has hitherto been devoted to the use
of maintaining in idleness, and not as a reward or pension for good
work done, a Master, three Brothers, three Sisters, and ten poor
women. The ecclesiastical purposes for which the property was
originally got together have long since utterly vanished. The church
in which service used to be held is abolished, and the place where it
stood is turned into a dock. We will build a new church where none is
wanted, we will perpetuate the waste of all this money; the stipends
of the Brothers and Sisters shall be raised; to the Brothers shall be
assigned, nominally, the service in the chapel, but they shall have a
chaplain or reader, to prevent this duty from becoming onerous; the
Sisters shall have nothing at all to do; the Bedeswomen shall be
deprived of their houses and shall receive no advance in their pay,
but they shall be doubled in number. Twenty Bedesmen shall also be
added with the same pay, viz., L10 a year, or 4s. a week.[NOTE: Note
that in 1545 each Bedeswomen received 10d, a week, and each Sister
3s., so that the proportion of Bedeswoman's pay to Sister's pay was
then as 1:3'6. But Lord Lyndhurst takes away the houses from the poor
women and gives them no more pay, so that, without _counting the loss
of their houses_, the Bedeswoman's pay under Victoria is to the
Sister's pay as 1:19. The Victorian Bedeswoman was therefore
relatively reduced in proportion to the Sister six-fold compared with
her Tudor predecessor.] The Master shall have a beautiful house with a
garden, conservancy, stabling for seven horses, and L1,200 a year,
besides comfortable perquisites. He shall have no duties except the
presidency of the chapter. And in order that the thing may not seem
perfectly and profoundly ridiculous there shall be a school of
twenty-four boys and twelve girls.'
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