Benevolent Institutions - Law Commission - Ministry of Justice

Reference Extent of repeal or revocation
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48 Geo.3 c.lxxvii (1808) The whole Act.
(Hospital for Poor French Protestants Act)
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Hospital for Poor French Protestants Act of 1808
1. This note proposes the repeal of an obsolete 1808 Act relating to a home
established in London for poor French Protestants.
Background
2. The French persecution of Protestants from the mid-16 th century resulted in
large numbers of Protestant refugees (later known as Huguenots) seeking shelter in
England. In 1708 one Jacques de Gastigny left £1000 in his will to benefit the
refugees living in the London parish of St Giles Cripplegate. This enabled the
opening in 1718 of the Hospital for Poor French Protestants in Bath Street in the
parish of St Luke’s, Finsbury. 34
3. Also in 1718 George I granted a Royal Charter incorporating The Governor and
Directors of the Hospital for Poor French Protestants and their Descendants, residing
in Great Britain and empowering this newly-formed corporation to buy, hold and take
on lease land with an annual value not exceeding £500. 35
4. The French Hospital, also known as La Providence, was an immediate success
and had provided a home for 125 residents by 1723. It moved from Bath Street in
1865 to Victoria Park in nearby Hackney, moving again after the Second World War
to Horsham. Since 1960 the French Hospital has been settled in Rochester (Kent)
and today provides 60 self-contained sheltered flats for people of French Protestant
descent.
Hospital for Poor French Protestants Act of 1808
5. According to its long title, the purpose of this 1808 Act (“the 1808 Act”) wasfor
enabling the Governors and Directors of the Hospital for Poor French
Protestants, and their Descendants, residing in Great Britain, to grant such
Part of the Site of the Buildings, and the Lands belonging to the said Hospital,
or such Part thereof, as they shall think proper, upon building Leases.
34 Bath Street today is near the junction of Old Street and City Road, a little to the north of the City of
London. The term “hospital” is used in the ancient sense of meaning a charitable institution for the
housing and maintenance of the needy, aged or infirm.
35 This 1718 Charter was varied by a supplemental Charter in 1953.
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