of the rents and profits which shall arise yearly from the lands so purchased to be yearly disposed, and distributed unto poor young people, beginners, and freemen of the city, and to poor maid servants that are engaged to be married, that have faithfully served one master or mistress three years in one place, that is to say, to the young men £10 a piece, and the next year to poor maid servants, and poor decayed housekeepers, to each of them £5 a piece, and for want of poor maids that are to be married within the year, then to poor housekeepers, freemen or not freemen, inhabiting in the city or suburbs of Gloucester, that have children, or are poor by sickness, or infirm by age, £5 a piece. With the sum bequeathed were purchased some estates at Awre and Blakeney, but since the institution of this excellent charity, the income of those estates has been very much raised, and no doubt, as they are enabled, the trustees have extended the sphere of their beneficence. With part of the surplus has been erected a very handsome house on the same site, and applicable to the same purposes. On the front is the

following inscription:

BLUE COAT HOSPITAL, FOUNDED BY SIR. THOMAS RICH, *KNT. A.D. 1666. REBUILT IN 1807.

In addition to the noble bequest of Sir Thomas Rich, the following benefactions have been given or applied to it. Lady Napier gave £50 to the city in 1715.

Mr. Amity Clutterbuck, who had been brought up in the school, gave £1000 to it in 1722.

Mr. Alderman Thomas Brown gave £4001.

Mr. Richard Elly, by his will in 1755, gave £500. On the anniversary day the boys, immediately before dinner, produce specimens of their abilities in writing, and

It ought to have been Bart. for he was created Baronet in 1660.

sing a hymn in the general praise of charity, and 'particularly of the founder, in the presence of the Mayor and Corporation. After which they receive an ample share of the dinner, and the remains are distributed among the poor people of the town, who attend for that purpose.

The foundation of this hospital is generally attributed to William Myparty, a Burgess of Gloucester, in the reign of Hen. II. According to Leland, it owed its original to one of the Bishops of Worcester; some think to Basil, the second Bishop of that see, in 680, but there are no authorities to support it. Henry III. was the most probable founder. From an inquisition taken 30 Edw. III. before William the Prior of Lanthony, and William de Chiltenham, it appears, that when Nicholas Walred, Clerk, began to build the West Bridge, in the reign of Hen. II. William Myparty gave him

a piece of land, and after having built a house upon it for the convenience of Walred and the workmen, he retired to it, with several other persons of both sexes, where they all lived together under the government of a priest, in hermitical habit. At this time they had no established revenues, but Hen. III. on the 26th of June, 1229, gave them the church of St. Nicholas; and from that time the house was called the Hospital of St. Bartholomew the Apostle. Soon after, the same king, upon their petition, granted them liberty to choose a Prior; and in 1265, allowed them to take sixteen ells of land in length, and five in breadth, for the enlargement of their chantel. Hence as by the kindness of the king, they became an established body of religious persons, he may not improperly have the credit of their foundation. After they had received the grant of St. Nicholas's church, the Bishop of Worcester claimed a right of visiting it. In 1283, Ed. I. granted them licence to retain to the value of 100s, also to build a water mill on the banks of the Severn. In the reign of Ed. II. they had licence to purchase eight acres in King's Barton, and three in Elbrugge from Rich. Apple. Thomas, second Lord Berkeley, gave them Tands in Coaley, and released all the rents and services he had from their lands there. In 1344, William de Bohun, by licence of the King, appropriated the advowson of Newnham to this hospital. In the reign of Ed. III. the state of the hospital was surveyed, and Rich. II. issued a commission for visiting it and on 19th of November, 1408, Hen, IV. granted the Prior and brethren a new charter; the original is now in the custody of the Corporation,

A chantry in Newent church-yard, dedicated to St. James and St. Anne, belonged to this hospital.

In 1499, the revenues were valued at £23. 7s. 6d.

The hospital, consisted of a master or prior, and three

fellows, besides the poor people. Andrew Whitmay, the master, John Henbury, John Harsfield, and Henry Francumb, subscribed to the King's supremacy, Sept. 4, 1534.

From the certificate of the commissioners of Henry VIII. in 1547, it appears that the hospital was founded for a master, with a salary of £20 5s. 5d.; for five priests, with a salary of £29; for thirty-two poor people, with £30 Os. 3d. and 14s. 6d. for finding a lamp and two tapers in St. Nicholas church. Besides these, £6 15s. 2d. for out rents; £4 8s. 8d. for tenths; 1 9s. 8d. for synodals and pentecostals, for the churches belonging to it; and £2 13s. 4d. for fees. The value of the ornaments, plate, goods, &c. £20 6s. 2d.

In 1547, the certified value was £25 11s. 2d. and the several possessions of the poor people belonging to the hospital 257. 4s. 5d. The full income of the lands, when granted from the crown, was £78. 1s. 2d. This grant was made by Elizabeth, July 14, 1564, including the patronage of all the offices belonging thereto, on condition that a pension of £9. 2s. paid by the crown should be released. This grant has since been confirmed by act of parliament, in which it is provided that the Bishop of Gloucester shall freely visit the hospital every third year, to see that the statutes be ob served, which, as it is said, were drawn up by Archbishop Laud, about 1636. In consequence of the power thus granted, the Bishops of Gloucester have frequently visited the hospital, and occasionally confirmed, altered, or renewed the ordinances originally settled for its government. Bishop Benson in particular exercised this privilege in 1765, and enjoined some new rules for the better government of the hospital. Among others his Lordship extended the operation of the 24th ordinance against the election of any person into this or either of the other hospitals, who had kept any

victualling or tipling house whatsoever. After stating the great increase of the number of such houses, and the great increase of mischief occasioned by them, and particularly by the sale of spirituous liquors, and therefore the greater necessity of discouraging the setting up of such houses, which are the bane of trade, the corrupters of children, apprentices, and, servants, harbourers of the idle and immoral, and subsisting only by the vices and ruin of those who fre quent them, and destructive as well to those who keep them as those who resort to them, his Lordship strictly enjoins, that no person having, or who has heretofore kept any victualling, tipling, or gaming house, or any shop wherein is sold wine, cyder, ale, brandy, punch, gin, or any spirituous or other liquors, be ever elected into either of the said hospitals, but that those places be as they ought, a retreat and refuge for the sober, virtuous, and religious, the industrious and laborious, and those who have employed themselves, in honest and useful callings, when by age or misfortune. they are brought to want such encouragement and support; and that these, qualifications only, and not any private interest or partial favour, as the serving at any time any particular end or view, be the means for gaining ad mission;, as all abuses of this sort are not only a great piece of injustice in themselves, and a gross misapplication of this particular charity, but do harm to charity itself, by bring, ing all donations of this kind in general into disrepute and discredit.b

At the time of the dissolution, the government of the hospital was in a prior. or master, five priests and thirty-two peoples but by letters patent of Queen Elizabeth, the whole was granted to the. Mayor, and Burgesses, and the revenue of it, for the maintenance of a minister, a physician, a sur, goon, and forty poor people...