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

Bridewell'31.
Inferior officers fared little better (Figs 5a). Economising priorities meant that, in the
seventeenth century, officers were standardly, in their conditions of service, forbidden to request
any increase in their salaries' 32 . The Bethiem Matron was unsalaried for almost the entirety
of the period 1635-93, only sharing in her husband's wages. The Porter's own wages (like the
servants') remained unchanged for 130 years. In 1725, the Porter of Guy's was being paid more
than three times as much as the Bethlem Porter, while Guy's Matron received five times as
much as the Matron of Bethiem. The Bridewehl Matron was receiving more than three times
the salary of her counterpart at Bethiem, at the turn of the eighteenth century. From 1736, the
difference was fourfold.
The disparity began to be redressed only in the 1760s and 70s, with the curtailment of
visiting, when basketmen's wages were raised to £10 p/a and maid servants' wages to £8 p/a,
and four years later, to £20 and £14 p/a respectively. Likewise, the Matron's salary was, for
the first time, raised above that of the Porter's (whose role as supervisor of visitors and of the
hospital doors was being steadily reduced), to £24 in 1765 and to £40 in 1769. The generality of
society seems to have experienced a rise in incomes, from the 1760s or 70s, which was sustained
until the 1790s, following on from a period of sixty years of stagnation'. By the 1770's, salaries
for Bethiem nursing staff had (if only in individual terms) substantially surpassed those available
to the nurses of general hospitals. The sisters of St. Barts had to wait until 1782 before their
wages were increased again to 5/ p/w (i.e £13 p/a), barely half that received contemporaneously
by Bethiem maid servants, and just over a quarter of the wages of Bethhern basketmen.
it is, however, somewhat misleading to compare wages at such large and wealthy establish-
ments, or wages at general hospitals at all, with wages at Bethiem, the smallest, most speciahised
and least affluent of the great London hospitals. Even a comparison with Guy's lunatic-house,
131 In 1710, e.g., Bridewell beadle, received more than 3 times the salary of Beihicin basketmen/beadles; twice
their gratuities; an additional 17/ or 18/ in 'watch money'; 30/ each in lieu of 'summoning money' formerly
charged for summoning prosecutors, & a few more shillings in 'Court fees'. BCCM, 24 Nov. 1709 & 26 May
1710, foIs 521 & 546.
132 See e.g. article, of Hclkiah Crooke & Richard Langley; Ailderidge, Management & Mismanagement, 157,
& BCGM, 13 April 1619 & 4 Nov. 1635, fola 66-7 & 110.
133 See BCGM, 2 July 1636 & 25 March 1736, & Fig. 5a.
134 See e.g. John B. Owen, The EighteentA Cenftiry (London, Thomas Nelson, 1974), 316-7. Wrigley &
SchofIeld, in their revised version of Phelps, Brown & Hopkins's real-wage serie, for building craftsmen in southern
England, show a 50% rise in wages over the period 1773-96, compared with a rise of under 10% during 1710-73;
Popidation History, 640.
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