Royal Hospital Chelsea

The Royal Hospital Chelsea is a retirement home and nursing home for British soldiers who are unfit for further duty due to injury or old age, located in the Chelsea region of central London. There are just over 300 soldiers (310, as of June 10, 2004) resident in the Royal Hospital, referred to as "in-pensioners" (or more colloquially, as Chelsea pensioners).

History

The Royal Hospital was founded by King Charles II, who issued a Royal Warrant authorising the building of the Hospital on December 22, 1681, in order to make provision for old or injured soldiers. Many of these soldiers, who were no longer fit for service, had been kept on regimental rolls so that they could continue to receive payment, because there was an inadequate provision of pensions for them.

Related Topics:
King Charles II - December 22 - 1681 - Regiment - Pension

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Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to design and erect the building. His design was based on the Hôpital des Invalides in Paris.

Related Topics:
Sir Christopher Wren - Hôpital des Invalides - Paris

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The site for the Hospital was an area of Chelsea which held an incomplete building - "Chelsey Colledge", a theological college founded by James I in 1610. The area had been donated by Charles II to the Royal Society in 1667, but since the Society had been unable to find a suitable use for the site, it was repurchased by the King in February 1682 to provide the site for the Hospital.

Related Topics:
Chelsea - James I - 1610 - Royal Society - 1667 - February - 1682

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Construction took place at a rapid pace and by the time of Charles II's death, in 1685, the main hall and chapel of the Hospital had already been completed. In 1686, Wren expanded his original design to add two additional quadrangles to the east and west of the central court.

Related Topics:
1685 - 1686

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Work was completed in 1692, and the first in-pensioners were admitted in February 1692. By the end of March that year, the full capacity of 476 former soldiers were in residence.

Related Topics:
1692 - February - March

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In 1694 a Royal Charter was established for a direct naval equivalent to the Royal Hospital Chelsea. Building began in 1696 on the Greenwich Hospital, and it opened in 1705.

Related Topics:
1694 - 1696 - Greenwich Hospital - 1705

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In 1809, Sir John Soane designed and constructed a new infirmary building, with space for 80 patients, located to the west of the Hospital building on the site of the current National Army Museum. The infirmary was damaged by bombing in the Second World War and later demolished.

Related Topics:
1809 - Sir John Soane - Patient - National Army Museum - Second World War

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The first televised church service in the United Kingdom was broadcast from the Hospital Chapel in 1949.

Related Topics:
Televised - Church - United Kingdom - Chapel

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In 2002, the Sovereign's Mace was presented to the Hospital - up until then, the Hospital had had no colours or distinctive device - the Mace is now carried at all the ceremonial events at the Hospital.

Related Topics:
2002 - Mace

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