Queen Mary and Westfield College London University PhD Thesis ...

Nicholson, Jewson and others, have emphasised the importance of politics, the patronage sy'ttem
and the interest of particular elite groups, in the recruitment and careers of medical staff, little
has been said about such influences on the election of the inferior staff of London hospitals42.
Farringdon was a notorious Tory stronghold, and, as such, a likely source of supply of staff for
Bridewell/Bethiem (and St. Barts). Although there were only two candidates for the Steward-
ship in 1734, the assessment of The London Evening Post that 'both are of the same honest
Principles so that it is expected the Struggle will be very hard', was a clear message to (Tory)
readers that both were of the right political persuasion and is indicative to the historian of how
restricted hospital elections were becoming. The elections of both superior and inferior officers
could raise considerable passions and dissensions in the ranks of the voting Governors. Several
governors had refused to accept the result in the ekction of 1734, demanding that a poll be
conducted, before Birch was indeed confirmed as the victor43. In order to prevent such 'heats
and misunderstandings. ..amongst the Governors', the method of balloting was reformed and aid
down in painstakingly detail, in the 1730s and 40s, and single ballots instituted for every election
where there was more than one candidate44 . Plainly, however, the results of such elections were
often a foregone conclusion to those in the know. The LEP forecast Birch's victory weeks before
he was actually elected. half a century later, the diary of Richard Clark, Treasurer of Beth em
1781-1831 and Lord Mayor of London (1784-5) recorded two meetings with the President and
Auditor General of the hospital 'to consider of a successor to Mr [henry] White late Steward of
Bethiern', prior to the vacancy even being declared at a General Court sessions45.
By mid-century, candidates for offices at Bethiern and other London hospitals were placing
adverts in the press lobbying governors for their support. Both Hodges and Cooke published ads
in 1748, detailing their credentials and integrity 46 . According to his ad, hodges had not merely
42 Adrian Wilson, 'The politics of medical improvement in early Hanoverian London', in Andrew Cunninghnm
& Roger French (edt), The Medical Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Centery (Cambridge, CUP, 1990), 4-39;
Malcolm Nicholson, 'The metastatic theory of pahogenesis and the professional interests oF the eighteenthcentury
physician', in Medical History (1988), 32, 277-300, & N. D. Jewson, 'Medical knowledge and the patronage
system in eighteenth-century England', in Sociology (1974), 8, 369-85.
The loser was Christopher Blackett, possibly related to Sir Walter Blackett, Tory M.P. for Newcastle upon
Tyne from 1734 to 1777. For Sir Walter, see Colley, In Defiance of Oligarchy, 129-30, 172, 224, 273, 292.
See esp. BCGM, 4 May & 23 June 1737, & 27 Nov. 1741, fols 435, 439 & 120.
Gsildhall M.S.358.5, part ii, 31 Aug & 5, 6, 15 & 23 Sept. 1785.
46 Hodges's ad was half a page in length and even notified the governors of the date, time and place of he
oncoming election. Like Cooke, Charles Cotton begged the Board's 'Vote and Interest' by advertisement for the
Bridewell Stewardship, in 1752, detailing how he had 'been more than Twenty Years a Governor', but lost out to
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