ornament in a district that sorely needs "sweetness and light."

City magnates who desired to build and endow hospitals for the aged
nearly always showed their confidence in and affection for the Livery
Companies to which they belonged by placing in their care these
charitable foundations. Thus Sir Richard Whittington, of famous
memory, bequeathed to the Mercers' Company all his houses and
tenements in London, which were to be sold and the proceeds
distributed in various charitable works. With this sum they founded a
College of Priests, called Whittington College, which was suppressed
at the Reformation, and the almshouses adjoining the old church of St.
Michael Paternoster, for thirteen poor folk, of whom one should be
principal or tutor. The Great Fire destroyed the buildings; they were
rebuilt on the same site, but in 1835 they were fallen into decay, and
the company re-erected them at Islington, where you will find
Whittington College, providing accommodation for twenty-eight poor
women. Besides this the Mercers have charge of Lady Mico's Almshouses
at Stepney, founded in 1692 and rebuilt in 1857, and the Trinity
Hospital at Greenwich, founded in 1615 by Henry Howard, Earl of
Northampton. This earl was of a very charitable disposition, and
founded other hospitals at Castle Rising in Norfolk and Clun in
Shropshire. The Mercers continue to manage the property and have built
a new hospital at Shottisham, besides making grants to the others
created by the founder. It is often the custom of the companies to
expend out of their private income far more than they receive from the
funds of the charities which they administer.

[Illustration: Inmate of the Trinity Bede House at Castle Rising,
Norfolk]