page_title: London Charterhouse
section_title: Almshouse and school
hierarchical_section_title: London Charterhouse / History / Almshouse and school
caption_attribution_description: English: "A View of the Charter House taken from the Green," etching and aquatint, by the British printmaker Robert Havell I (after T. Ward). 354 mm x 446 mm. Courtesy of the British Museum, London.
context_page_description: The London Charterhouse is a historic complex of buildings in Smithfield, London, dating back to the 14th century. It occupies land to the north of Charterhouse Square, and lies within the London Borough of Islington. Originally constructed as a Carthusian priory, on the site of a burial ground, at the Dissolution of the Monasteries it became one of the greatest palaces of Tudor London. In 1611, the property was bought by Thomas Sutton, a businessman and "the wealthiest commoner in England", who established a school for the young and an almshouse for the old. The almshouse remains today, although the school was re-established as Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey in 1872.
  The Charterhouse began as a Carthusian priory, founded in 1371 and dissolved in 1537. Substantial fragments remain from this monastic period, but the site was largely rebuilt after 1545 as a large courtyard house. Thus, today it "conveys a vivid impression of the type of large rambling 16th century mansion that once existed all round London".
context_section_description: In May 1611 it came into the hands of Thomas Sutton (1532–1611) of Knaith, Lincolnshire. He was appointed Master of Ordnance in Northern Parts, and acquired a fortune by the discovery of coal on two estates which he had leased near Newcastle upon Tyne, and later, upon moving to London, he carried on a commercial career. Before he died on 12 December of that year, he endowed a hospital on the site of the Charterhouse, calling it the Hospital of King James; and in his will he bequeathed money to maintain a chapel, hospital (almshouse) and school.
  In the Case of Sutton's Hospital, his will was hotly contested but upheld in court, meaning the foundation was constituted to afford a home for eighty male pensioners ("gentlemen by descent and in poverty, soldiers that have borne arms by sea or land, merchants decayed by piracy or shipwreck, or servants in household to the King or Queens Majesty"), and to educate forty boys.
  Charterhouse early established a reputation for excellence in hospital care and treatment, thanks in part to Henry Levett, M.D., an Oxford graduate who joined the school as physician in 1712. Levett was widely esteemed for his medical writings, including an early tract on the treatment of smallpox. He was buried in Charterhouse Chapel, and his widow married Andrew Tooke, the master of Charterhouse. 
  The school, Charterhouse School, developed beyond the original intentions of its founder, to become a well-regarded public school. In 1872, under the headmastership of Rev. William Haig Brown, the school moved to new buildings in the parish of Godalming in Surrey, opening on 18 June.
caption: A View of the Charter House taken from the Green, 1813
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