[Picture: Bartholomew’s Hospital]
Which is in West Smithfield, and where all persons accidentally injured,
are admitted at any hour of the day or night, and carefully attended by
skilful surgeons, and proper nurses. This hospital has long remained a
monument of the piety of its founder, — Rahere, who was minstrel, or
jester, to King Henry the First. Grown weary of the gay offices of his
station, he reformed, founded a priory, and established this hospital for
the sick and maimed. It was granted by King Henry the Eighth, on certain
conditions, to the City of London, in the last year of his reign, for the
same purposes as those of its original foundation. The present building
was erected in the reign of George the Second, in 1730.