📜 In 1582 the City of London: ‘devised to be taken out of the streets all the lame and aged people such as had not any place to go into. And they should all be conveyed to the Hospital of St. Thomas in Southwark where they should have meat, drink and lodging, Surgeons, other officers to attend upon them… they also devised yet more that all the decayed poor Citizens should have weekly a pension according to his necessity.’

🏥 More famous as a teaching hospital and for Florence Nightingale, St Thomas had a notable role to play in the early history of old age pensions, as local authorities struggled to find ways to support the aged poor between the dissolution of the monasteries and the establishment of the Poor Laws at the end of the 16th Century.

🗺️ The site of old St Thomas, which had been serving the old and needy since at least the 11th century, is located by London Bridge station. Nothing much remains today except the 17th century chapel and slightly forlorn looking plaque.

St Thomas’ hospital now exists by Waterloo bridge. It was the place my child was born and where it was thought I had died this time last year. But it is not the site that David point us to. Here is the context of that plaque! Falafel dispensary.

Here is the 17th century chapel to make the story complete. Health, food and the rudimentary pension backed by a protestant religion that has seen over everything since the sixteenth century.

Finally an etching of what the original St Thomas looked like, (thanks David) , a reminder how deep the mutuality of welfare goes.

David is too polite to make the connection to the mutual he works for and the pension it will provide (once we get them by default). But I will not hold back, looking at the roots of pensions and healthcare in London reminds me of the roots of our welfare – our wealth.