| Administrative history | The site of the main Hospital building at Whitechapel, the Mount and Mount Field, originally belonged to the Manor of Stepney and was part of Mile End Green. It was leased by the City of London to the Governors of the London Hospital to erect a new hospital. Building began in 1752. The site was leased from the City of London until 1927, when the Corporation agreed to sell the freehold. A further piece of land was leased by the City of London to the Hospital in 1914.
The main part of the Hospital estate was formerly the Red Lyon Farm, originally belonging to Arthur Bailey. At his death his daughters, Ann and Katherine, each inherited one half. Ann, in turn, divided her share between her aunts, Sarah Kent, and Hannah Brown. These shares were bought by Thomas Heath, who mortgaged them to Edmund Heath. He, in turn, left them to his niece, Frances, who married Henry Knight, who sold the Estate to the Trustees for the Hospital in 1755. The other half share passed to Katherine Bailey's son, Bailey Heath, and was sold to the Hospital by Heath's Executor in 1772.
The Governors of the Hospital pursued an active policy of developing the Hospital Estate from the late 1780s onwards. Between 1783 and 1849 the estate was divided up into building plots and entirely built over. |
| Arrangement of the records | The subfonds takes the following arrangement:
RLHLH/D/1 - Title Deeds, 1713-1942
RLHLH/D/2 - Miscellaneous agreements relating to the Hospital Estate, 1809-1958
RLHLH/D/3 - Leases of the Hospital Estate, 1809-1950
RLHLH/D/4 - Endowments, Trusts, Investments, etc, 1805 - 1974 |