Old soldiers' home in the ranks before receiving a commission. The site for the Royal Hospital was an area of Chelsea which held an incomplete building "Chelsey College", a theological college James I founded in 1609. The Royal Hospital opened its doors to the Chelsea Pensioners in 1692 for "the relief and succour" of veterans. Some of the first soldiers admitted included those injured at the Battle of Sedgemoor. The hospital maintains a 'military-based culture which puts a premium on comradeship'. The in-pensioners are formed into three companies, each headed by a Captain of Invalids (an ex-Army officer responsible for the 'day to
South London Hospital for Women and Children opening of the specialist Marie Curie Hospital in Hampstead in 1929. The hospital buildings were enlarged when the imposing Wrennaissance Baroque style frontage building (designed by leading 20th-century architect Sir Edwin Cooper – architect of the Port of London HQ opposite the Tower of London and another grand hospital building in Greenwich which is of a very similar style) was opened in 1929. Only 3/4 of this building was completed leaving the southern end-pavilion missing creating an unsightly gap for the remainder of the 20th Century. Further extensions were completed in the 1950s. By the 1930s, however, the need for