The revenue of this hospital, when it was surrendered to Henry VIII. amounted to 277_l._ 3_s._ 4_d._ _per annum_. The edifice was soon after purchased by the Mercer’s company. The image of Thomas a Becket however stood over the gate, till the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when somebody threw it down, broke it, and stuck up a writing on the church door, reflecting on those who placed it there. See the article MERCERS. THOMAS _court_, 1. Benjamin street: 2. Tackle Block court, Wapping. _St._ THOMAS’S HOSPITAL, on the east side of the street called the Borough in Southwark, is a very noble and extensive charity, for the reception of the necessitous sick and wounded. As to the origin of this hospital, it is to be observed, that the priory of St. Mary Overies being destroyed by fire in the year 1207, the canons erected at a small distance an occasional edifice to answer the same purpose, till their monastery could be rebuilt; which being accomplished, Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, for the greater convenience of air and water, pulled it down in 1215, and erected it in a place where the prior of Bermondsey had two years before built an almonry, or almshouse, for the reception of indigent children, and necessitous proselytes; and having dedicated the new structure to St. Thomas the Apostle, he endowed it with land to the value of 343_l._ a year: from which time it was held of the abbot of Bermondsey, and ever since an hospital has continued in the same place. In 1428, one of the abbots granted the foundation lands to Nicholas Buckland, the master of the hospital, and in that condition they remained, till at the dissolution of religious houses in the reign of Henry VIII. this fell with the rest. In the year 1551 the Lord Mayor and Citizens having purchased of King Edward VI. the manor of Southwark, with its appurtenances, for the sum of 647_l._ 2_s._ 1_d._ a part whereof being this hospital, the city immediately repaired and enlarged it at the expence of about 1100_l._ and in November following receiving into it two hundred and sixty poor sick and helpless objects, the hospital still retained its antient name, St. Thomas’s, and in 1553 the King incorporated a society of persons for its government, in common with the two other great charities, Bridewell and Christ’s Hospital.