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
Royal London Hospital currently housed at the medical school, but is not on public display. In the late 1890s, Edith Cavell, who later helped some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during the First World War, trained and worked as a nurse at the hospital. In the early part of the twentieth century the hospital sent out 160 nurses to work unsupervised in private houses. This earned £4,000 a year, a profit of £1,700. In 1990 the Queen visited the hospital and added "Royal" to the name, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of its founding. The present School of Nursing and Midwifery