This
hospital, designed for the comforts of English seamen "who by age,
wounds, or other accidents, should be disabled from further service
at sea; and for the relief of widows and children of such as should
fall in battle" was built on the south side of the Thames at Greenwich
from the time of Charles II.
In
the Regency period the hospital catered for two thousand old or disabled
mariners, besides one hundred boys, the sons of seamen, who were instructed
in navigation and bred up to the service of the royal navy. There were
no out-pensioners, such as at Chelsea
Hospital.
Each
mariner had a weekly allowance of seven sixteen ounce loaves of bread,
a pint of pease, a pound and a quarter of cheese, three pounds of beef,
two of mutton, two ounces of butter, fourteen quarts of beer and one
shilling for tobacco money. They also received once every one or two
years a suit of blue, a hat, three pairs of stockings, two pairs of
shoes, five neckcloths, three shirts and two nightcaps.
For
the better support of this hospital, every seaman in the royal navy,
as well merchant seamen, paid sixpence per month.
