In 1729, the Fishmongers' Company presented the school with "...a valuable and useful library, not only of the best editions of the Classics and Lexicographers, but also with some books of Antiquities, Chronology, and Geography, together with a suitable pair of globes". By the 18th century, references to fish were hard to find in the court minutes of the Fishmongers' Company, and the company's main business had become managing its extensive property and administering its charities and trusts, such as the school at Holt and St Peter's Hospital, an almshouse at Newington in Surrey.