The Hospital-Priory does not appear to have been very amply provided with funds, as in 1403 some of the houses were alienated, for the purpose seemingly of raising money, and the brethren had to go abroad collecting alms for the sustenance of the inmates. In 1523, one Stephen Gunnings, a merchant tailor, left £40 in trust to the Corporation for purchasing the house, to be continued as a receptacle for lunatics, and the Mayor took some steps for that purpose; but before they were carried out it was granted to the Corporation, after the Dissolution, by King Henry VIII., who placed it in charge of the governors of Christ's Hospital in 1556, and the following year transferred it to the governors of Bridewell. In 1555 the income, arising chiefly out of rents, amounted to £43 4s. 8d. per annum, and by 1632 they were valued at £470, which, not being all forthcoming, was inadequate for the support of the house, and the Spital preachers were directed to appeal to their hearers on its behalf, there being then forty-four lunatics within the walls, the revenues paying only two-thirds of the cost of their maintenance. Besides, there were so many pressing cases for admission, that it became necessary to discharge many of the half-cured and less violent patients, to whom were granted licences for begging, and they went abroad, dressed fantastically, singing "mad songs," and imploring food or money. They went by the name of "Tom o' Bedlams," and are alluded to by Shakespeare in _King Lear_, where he says— "With a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam." In the reign of Elizabeth the church and chapel were taken down, and houses built on the site; and in the following century, the buildings having become ruinous and much too small for the constantly increasing patients, it was resolved to build a new and larger hospital. The Corporation made a grant of land on the southern margin of Finsbury Moors, where the Liverpool Street railway stations now stand, and the public contributed £17,000 towards its erection. It was commenced in 1644, and completed in 1676; and in 1732 two wings were added, which made the entire length of the building 540 feet, with a depth of forty feet. The style adopted was that of the Tuileries in Paris, which so offended Louis XIV. that he caused some out-offices of a more useful and less dignified character to be built in the style of St. James's Palace, London. It was adorned with figures of raving and melancholy madness from the chisel of Caius Cibber, which are now in the hall of the present hospital. The estates belonging to the hospital afterwards rapidly increased in value, and at the beginning of the present century the governors found themselves in a position to build a larger and better-planned building, and purchased a large plot of land in St. George's Fields, which with the new hospital cost £100,000. The total income is now about £20,000 per annum.