88-554: Greenwich Hospital may refer to: Greenwich Hospital, London , which was a home for retired Royal Navy sailors 1692–1869, operated by the Greenwich Hospital charitable foundation Greenwich District Hospital , a hospital in London from 1970 to 2001 Trinity Hospital , a group of almshouses located east of Maritime Greenwich Memorial Hospital, Woolwich or Greenwich Memorial Hospital,
176-480: A London cloth-merchant of Flemish descent (as evident in the name, contracted from "Van Brugh") and Protestant background, and his wife Elizabeth, widow of Thomas Barker (by whom Vanbrugh's mother had the first of her twenty children, Vanbrugh's elder half-sister, Elizabeth), and daughter of Sir Dudley Carleton , of Imber Court , Thames Ditton , Surrey. He grew up in Chester , where his family had been driven by either
264-519: A charge of espionage (which Downes concludes was trumped-up) in September 1688, two months before William invaded England. Vanbrugh remained in prison in France for four and a half years, albeit in reasonable comfort. In 1691 he requested to be moved from Calais to Vincennes , at his own expense, where his treatment deteriorated enough to suffice his writing to Louis XIV , leading to his eventual transfer to
352-601: A convivial London "set of wits" but was also linking up with old friends and co-conspirators. A hero of the cause who had done time in French prison for it, could have been confident of a warm welcome. In 1703, Vanbrugh started buying land and signing backers for the construction of a new theatre, the Queen's Theatre , in Haymarket , designed by himself and managed by Vanbrugh along with Thomas Betterton and his associate William Congreve. It
440-498: A delegation to Hanover to confer the Order of the Garter on Prince George , later to become King George II. Vaughan Hart has shown how Vanbrugh's interest in arms and heraldry found expression in, and gave meaning to, his architecture. In 1719, at St Lawrence's Church, York (since rebuilt), Vanbrugh married Henrietta Maria Yarburgh of Heslington Hall , York, aged 26 to his 55. In spite of
528-564: A drama of sententious morality. Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift , with its reformed rake and sentimental reconciliation scene, can be seen as a forerunner of this drama. Although Vanbrugh continued to work for the stage in many ways, he produced no more original plays. With the change in audience taste away from Restoration comedy, he turned his creative energies from original composition to dramatic adaptation/translation, theatre management, and architecture. The precise reasons and motivations behind Vanbrugh's change in career remain unclear, but
616-498: A former general hospital now providing elderly and psychiatric care Miller General Hospital , situated in west Greenwich, London St Alfege's Hospital , situated in east Greenwich, London (later the site of Greenwich District Hospital) Greenwich Hospital (Connecticut) , United States Greenwich Hospital, Sydney , Australia [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about hospitals or medical centers which are associated with
704-558: A long-running conflict between pinchpenny management and disgruntled actors came to a head and the actors walked out. A new comedy staged with the makeshift remainder of the company in January 1696, Colley Cibber 's Love's Last Shift , had a final scene that to Vanbrugh's critical mind demanded a sequel, and even though it was his first play he threw himself into the fray by providing it. Cibber's Love's Last Shift Colley Cibber's notorious tear-jerker Love's Last Shift, Or, Virtue Rewarded
792-563: A new play comes out on Saturday revives their reputation, they must break". That new play, The Relapse , did turn out a tremendous success that saved the company, not least by virtue of Colley Cibber again bringing down the house with his second impersonation of Lord Foppington. "This play (the Relapse )", writes Cibber in his autobiography forty years later, "from its new and easy Turn of Wit, had great Success". Vanbrugh's second original comedy, The Provoked Wife , followed soon after, performed by
880-473: A play with a big, flamboyant part for himself: the Frenchified fop Sir Novelty Fashion. Backed up by Cibber's own uninhibited performance, Sir Novelty delighted the audiences. In the serious part of Love's Last Shift , wifely patience is tried by an out-of-control Restoration rake husband, and the perfect wife is celebrated and rewarded in a climactic finale where the cheating husband kneels to her and expresses
968-438: A practising architect, Vanbrugh designed and worked on numerous buildings. More often than not his work was a rebuild or remodel, such as that of Kimbolton Castle , where Vanbrugh had to follow the instructions of his patron. Consequently these houses, which often claim Vanbrugh as their architect, do not best display his own architectural concepts and ideas. In the summer of 1699 as part of his architectural education Vanbrugh made
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#17328451457151056-618: A public memorial, and was regarded by the Coade workers as the finest of all their work. In 1824 a National Gallery of Naval Art was created in the Painted Hall, where it remained until 1936, when the collection was transferred to the National Maritime Museum , newly established in the Queen's House and adjacent buildings. On the riverside front of the north-east corner of King Charles Court
1144-494: A river view from, the Queen's House and Greenwich Park beyond. Construction was financed through an endowment, financed through the transfer of £19,500 in fines paid by merchants convicted of smuggling in 1695, a public fundraising appeal which brought in £9,000, and a £2,000 annual contribution from Treasury. Parliament passed the Greenwich Hospital, etc. Act 1695 ( 7 & 8 Will. 3 . c. 21), long titled An Act for
1232-658: A tour of northern England, writing to Charles Montagu, 1st Duke of Manchester , (he was still an Earl at the time) on Christmas Day of that year: 'I have seen most of the great houses in the North, as Ld Nottings (sic): Duke of Leeds Chattesworth (sic) &C.' This itinerary likely included many of the great Elizabethan houses, including: Burghley House , Wollaton Hall , Hardwick Hall and Bolsover Castle , whose use of towers, complex skylines, bow widows and other features would be reinterpreted in Vanbrugh's own buildings. Though Vanbrugh
1320-482: A tutor. Architectural historian Kerry Downes is sceptical of earlier historians' claims of a lower middle-class background, and writes that a 19th-century suggestion that Giles Vanbrugh was a sugar-baker has been misunderstood. " Sugar-baker " implies wealth, as the term refers not to a maker of sweets but to the owner of a sugar house, a factory for the refining of raw sugar from Barbados . Sugar refining would normally have been combined with sugar trading, which
1408-558: Is an obelisk, designed by Philip Hardwick and unveiled in 1855, erected in memory of the Arctic explorer Joseph René Bellot , who died in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the members of John Franklin 's ill-fated expedition to open a Northwest Passage in northern Canada. The first governor, Sir William Gifford , took up office in 1708. In 1774, the then Lieutenant Governor, Captain Thomas Baillie made allegations of mismanagement of
1496-473: Is best known in connection with stately houses, the parlous state of London's 18th-century streets did not escape his attention. It was reported in the London Journal of 16 March 1722–23: "We are informed that Sir John Vanbrugh, in his scheme for new paving the cities of London and Westminster, among other things, proposes a tax on all gentlemen's coaches, to stop all channels in the street, and to carry all
1584-558: Is best known today as an early 18th-century social gathering point for culturally and politically prominent Whigs, including many artists and writers ( William Congreve , Joseph Addison , Godfrey Kneller ) and politicians (the Duke of Marlborough , Charles Seymour , the Earl of Burlington , Thomas Pelham-Holles , Sir Robert Walpole and Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham who gave Vanbrugh several architectural commissions at Stowe ). Politically,
1672-566: Is hard to gauge, in April 1691 he was transferred to Château de Vincennes in the months he spent as a prisoner there he would have got to know the architect Louis Le Vau 's grand classical work (1656–61) in the château well. On his release from prison (he was at the Bastille by then) on 22 November 1692 he spent a short time in Paris, there he would have seen much recent architecture including Les Invalides ,
1760-573: Is no longer based at the original site. It is now a Crown Charity for the benefit of seafarers and their dependants, with the Secretary of State for Defence acting as The Crown 's sole trustee . The charity now funds sheltered housing for former Royal Navy personnel and the school the hospital spawned, the Royal Hospital School , now at Holbrook in Suffolk. The charity's head office is located in
1848-530: Is not surprising, given the social expectations of his day, that by descent his credentials for his offices there were sound. His forebears, both Flemish/Dutch and English, were armigerous , and their coats of arms can be traced in three out of four cases, revealing that Vanbrugh was of gentle descent (Jacobson, of Antwerp and London [the family of his paternal grandmother Maria daughter of Peter brother to Philip Jacobson, jeweller and financier to successive English kings, James I , and Charles I , and monied backer of
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#17328451457151936-569: The Bastille in February 1692. This raised the profile of his case once more, finally prompting his release in November of the same year, in an exchange of political prisoners. His life is sharply bisected by this prison experience, which he entered at age 24 and emerged from at 29, after having spent, as Downes puts it, half his adult life in captivity. It seems to have left him with a lasting distaste for
2024-478: The COVID-19 pandemic . After complaints, it was reported in September 2020 that the rent hikes would be reversed. 51°28′56″N 0°00′24″W / 51.48222°N 0.00667°W / 51.48222; -0.00667 John Vanbrugh Sir John Vanbrugh ( / ˈ v æ n b r ə / ; 24 January 1664 (baptised) – 26 March 1726) was an English architect, dramatist and herald , perhaps best known as
2112-761: The City of London . The charity derives some of its funds from properties in and around the hospital site. The core hospital buildings are let on a 150-year lease to the University of Greenwich and Trinity Laban College of Music. Greenwich Promenade is let to the Port of London Authority , while retail and residential properties in central Greenwich, including Greenwich Market, form the charity's core investment portfolio. In August 2020, several market traders warned they might have to cease trading after Greenwich Hospital's managing agent Knight Frank informed them of steep rent increases during
2200-528: The Collège des Quatre-Nations and the east wing of the Louvre Palace . His inexperience was compensated for by his unerring eye for perspective and detail and his close working relationship with Nicholas Hawksmoor . Hawksmoor, a former clerk of Sir Christopher Wren , was to be Vanbrugh's collaborator in many of his most ambitious projects, including Castle Howard and Blenheim. During his almost thirty years as
2288-544: The Dictionary of National Biography ). In 1681 records name a 'John Vanbrugg' working for William Matthews, Giles Vanbrugh's cousin. It was not unusual for a merchant's son to follow in his father's trade and seek similar work in business, making use of family ties and connections. However, Robert Williams proved in an article in the Times Literary Supplement ("Vanbrugh's Lost Years", 3 September 1999) that Vanbrugh
2376-534: The National Maritime Museum . The Greenwich Hospital buildings included an infirmary, constructed in the 1760s to a design also by James Stuart, where pensioners were attended by trained medical staff (Sir John Liddell was for a time senior medical officer). After some adaptation and rebuilding this became the Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital in 1870 (taking its name from a hospital ship moored off Greenwich). The treatment for tropical diseases moved in 1919 to
2464-727: The Seamen's Hospital Society hospital near Euston Square, in central London, to form the Hospital for Tropical Diseases . The Dreadnought Seaman's Hospital closed in 1986, with special services for seamen and their families then provided by the Dreadnought Unit at St Thomas's Hospital in Lambeth . Greenwich Hospital closed in 1869, with the buildings being taken over by the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in 1873. Due to railway construction,
2552-623: The Second Virginia Company and the East India Company ]; Carleton of Imber Court ; Croft of Croft Castle ). After growing up in a large household in Chester (12 children of his mother's second marriage survived infancy), the question of how Vanbrugh spent the years from age 18 to 22 (after he left school) was long unanswered, with the baseless suggestion sometimes made that he had been studying architecture in France (stated as fact in
2640-711: The Club promoted the Whig objectives of a strong Parliament , a limited monarchy, resistance to France, and primarily the Protestant succession to the throne. Yet the Kit-Cats always presented their club as more a matter of dining and conviviality, and this reputation has been successfully relayed to posterity. Downes suggests, however, that the Club's origins go back to before the Glorious Revolution of 1689 and that its political importance
2728-516: The College, however. The pageantry of state occasions appealed to his theatrical sense, his duties were not difficult, and he appears to have performed them well. In the opinion of a modern herald and historian, although the appointment was "incongruous", he was "possibly the most distinguished man who has ever worn a herald's tabard ." In May 1706 Lord Halifax and Vanbrugh – representing the octogenarian Garter King of Arms , Sir Henry St George – led
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2816-452: The French political system but also with a taste for the comic dramatists and the architecture of France. The often-repeated claim that Vanbrugh wrote part of his comedy The Provoked Wife in the Bastille is based on allusions in a couple of much later memoirs and is regarded with some doubt by modern scholars (see McCormick). After being released from the Bastille, he had to spend three months in Paris, free to move around but unable to leave
2904-541: The Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage . In his architectural career, he created what came to be known as English Baroque . His architectural work was as bold and daring as his early political activism and marriage-themed plays, and jarred conservative opinions on the subject. Born in London and baptised on 24 January 1664, Vanbrugh was the fourth child (of 19), and eldest surviving son, of Giles Vanbrugh,
2992-535: The Increase and Encouragement of Seamen , which established the basic rules of use and benefits for seamen, and amended it the following year by the Greenwich Hospital, etc. Act 1696 ( 8 & 9 Will. 3 . c. 23). In 1705 an additional £6,472 was paid into the fund, comprising the liquidated value of estates belonging to the recently hanged pirate Captain William Kidd . The first of the principal buildings constructed
3080-501: The King's Works had initially been the architect of choice, charging more than the Lord had thought reasonable. Vanbrugh's charm, and Talman's lack thereof, may have been enough to convince the patron to change his architect. However, it remains unknown how Vanbrugh, totally untrained and inexperienced, persuaded Earl Carlisle to grant the responsibility of architect to him. The design process began in
3168-515: The London stage. Vanbrugh's London career was diverse and varied, comprising playwriting, architectural design, and attempts to combine these two overarching interests. His overlapping achievements and business ventures were sometimes confusing even to Vanbrugh himself. A committed Whig, Vanbrugh was a member of the Kit-Cat Club – and particularly popular for "his colossal geniality, his great good humour, his easy-going temperament". The Club
3256-644: The Queen's House and Greenwich Hill beyond. This gave the hospital its distinctive look, with its buildings arranged in a number of quadrants. Its four main buildings (the "Courts") are bisected north–south by a Grand Square and processional route, and east–west by an internal road from the East Gate (and gate-house) to the West Gate (and gate-house) by Greenwich Market in Greenwich town centre. The Grand Square and processional route running north–south maintained access to, and
3344-422: The abused wife was especially famous as a tragic actress, and for her power of "moving the passions", i.e., moving an audience to pity and tears. Barry and the younger Bracegirdle had often worked together as a tragic/comic heroine pair to bring audiences the typically tragic/comic rollercoaster experience of Restoration plays. Vanbrugh takes advantage of this schema and these actresses to deepen audience sympathy for
3432-412: The active force behind the Glorious Revolution itself. Secret groups tend to be poorly documented, and this sketch of the pre-history of the Club cannot be proved. But as we have seen, young Vanbrugh was indeed in 1688 part of a secret network working for William's invasion. If the roots of the Club go back that far, it is tempting to speculate that Vanbrugh in joining the club was not merely becoming one of
3520-399: The actors' company, making himself sole owner. He was now bound to pay salaries to the actors and, as it turned out, to manage the theatre, a notorious tightrope act for which he had no experience. The often repeated rumour that the acoustics of the building Vanbrugh had designed were bad is exaggerated (see Milhous ), but the more practical Congreve had become anxious to extricate himself from
3608-406: The age difference, this was by all accounts a happy marriage, which produced two sons. Unlike that of the rake heroes and fops of his plays, Vanbrugh's personal life was without scandal. Vanbrugh died "of an asthma " on 26 March 1726, in the modest town house designed by him in 1703 out of the ruins of Whitehall Palace and satirised by Swift as "the goose pie ". His married life, however,
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3696-415: The age, and Vanbrugh tailored The Provoked Wife to their specialities. While The Relapse had been robustly phrased to be suitable for amateurs and minor acting talents, he could count on versatile professionals like Thomas Betterton, Elizabeth Barry, and the rising young star Anne Bracegirdle to do justice to characters of depth and nuance. The Provoked Wife is a comedy, but Elizabeth Barry who played
3784-503: The buildings included an infirmary which, after Greenwich Hospital closed, operated as Dreadnought Seaman's Hospital until 1986. The foundation which operated the hospital still exists, for the benefit of former Royal Navy personnel and their dependants. It now provides sheltered housing on other sites. The hospital was created as the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich on the instructions of Queen Mary II , who had been inspired by
3872-449: The business in 1708 to Owen Swiny ., though without ever collecting much of the putative price. He had put a lot of money, his own and borrowed, into the theatre company, which he was never to recover. It was noted as remarkable by contemporaries that he continued to pay the actors' salaries fully and promptly while they were working for him, just as he always paid the workmen he had hired for construction work; shirking such responsibilities
3960-523: The country, and with every opportunity to see an architecture "unparalleled in England for scale, ostentation, richness, taste and sophistication". He was allowed to return to England in April 1693; once he returned to England he joined the Navy and took part in an unsuccessful naval attack against the French at Brest . At some point in the mid-1690s, it is not known exactly when, he exchanged army life for London and
4048-400: The decidedly Protestant and sometimes radical milieu out of which Vanbrugh's own political opinions came. They also gave him a very wide social network that would play a role in all sections of his career: architectural, ceremonial, dramatic, military, political, and social. Taken in this context, though he has sometimes been viewed as an odd or unqualified appointee to the College of Arms, it
4136-511: The decision was sudden enough even to be remarked upon by commentators of his time: Jonathan Swift , in this quote, suggests that Vanbrugh had no previous training in, nor studied architecture, but applied himself to the discipline whole-heartedly. As an architect (or surveyor, as the term then was) Vanbrugh is thought to have had no formal training (see " Early life " above). To what extent Vanbrugh's exposure to contemporary French architecture during years of imprisonment in France affected him
4224-424: The depth of his repentance. Love's Last Shift has not been staged again since the early 18th century and is read only by the most dedicated scholars, who sometimes express distaste for its businesslike combination of four explicit acts of sex and rakishness with one of sententious reform (see Hume ). If Cibber indeed was deliberately attempting to appeal simultaneously to rakish and respectable Londoners, it worked:
4312-408: The designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard . He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies , The Relapse (1696) and The Provoked Wife (1697), which have become enduring stage favourites but originally occasioned much controversy. He was knighted in 1714. Vanbrugh was in many senses a radical throughout his life. As a young man and a committed Whig , he was part of
4400-454: The fact that Vanbrugh in January 1686 took up an officer's commission in his distant relative the Earl of Huntingdon's foot regiment. Since commissions were in the gift of the commanding officer, Vanbrugh's entry as an officer shows that he did have the kind of family network that was then essential to a young man starting out in life. Even so in August 1686 he left this position when the regiment
4488-552: The family and connexions of each of his four grandparents: Vanbrugh, Jacobs or Jacobson, Carleton, and Croft, summing up the characteristics of each line and concluding that, far from being of lower middle class origins, Vanbrugh was descended from Anglo-Flemish or Netherlandish Protestant merchants who settled in London in the 16th and 17th centuries, minor courtiers, and country gentry. The complex web of kinship Downes' research shows that Vanbrugh had ties to many of England's leading mercantile, gentry, and noble families. These ties reveal
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#17328451457154576-415: The fifth act. Vanbrugh laughed at these charges and published a joking reply, where he accused the clergyman Collier of being more sensitive to unflattering portrayals of the clergy than to real irreligion. However, rising public opinion was already on Collier's side. The intellectual and sexually explicit Restoration comedy style was becoming less and less acceptable to audiences and was soon to be replaced by
4664-523: The flat characters from Love's Last Shift a dimension that at least some critics are willing to consider psychological (see Hume ). In a trickster subplot, Vanbrugh provides the more traditional Restoration attraction of an overly well-dressed and exquisite fop, Lord Foppington, a brilliant re-creation of Cibber's Sir Novelty Fashion in Love's Last Shift (Sir Novelty has simply in The Relapse bought himself
4752-436: The greater part of Castle Howard was inhabited and completed by 1709, the finishing touches were to continue for much of Vanbrugh's lifetime. The west wing was finally completed after Vanbrugh's death, to an altered design. The acclaim of the work at Castle Howard led to Vanbrugh's most famous commission, architect for Blenheim Palace. Regarding the commission, William Talman, an already established architect and Comptroller of
4840-514: The hospital's affairs, which led to a celebrated court case. A Royal Hospital School opened on the site in 1712 to provide assistance and education to the orphans of seafarers in the Royal and Merchant Navies. In the 1820, the school incorporated the Royal Naval Asylum . In 1933 it moved to Holbrook, Suffolk (where it remains today); the old school buildings were reopened the following year as
4928-432: The large cast required by The Relapse . Members of that cast had to be kept from defecting to the rival actors' cooperative, had to be "seduced" (as the legal term was) back when they did defect, and had to be blandished into attending rehearsals which dragged out into ten months and brought the company to the threshold of bankruptcy. "They have no company at all", reported a contemporary letter on 19 November 1696 "and unless
5016-533: The main entrance block to the flanking wings, its centre crowned by a great domed tower complete with cupola , is very much in the school of classic European baroque. It combined aspects of design that had only appeared occasionally, if at all, in English architecture: John Webb's Greenwich Palace, Wren's unexecuted design for Greenwich, which like Castle Howard was dominated by a domed centre block, and of course Talman's Chatsworth. A possible inspiration for Castle Howard
5104-466: The major outbreak of the plague in London in 1665, or the Great Fire of 1666. It is possible that he attended The King's School in Chester, though no records of his being a scholar there survive. Another candidate would have been the school at Ashby-de-la-Zouch , founded by Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon . It was also not uncommon for boys to be sent to study at school away from home, or with
5192-412: The new Royal Hospital. Sir John Vanbrugh succeeded Wren as architect, completing the complex to Wren's original plans. An early controversy arose when it emerged that the original plans for the hospital would have blocked the riverside view from the Queen's House . Queen Mary II therefore ordered that the buildings be split, providing an avenue leading from the river through the hospital grounds up to
5280-424: The next, providing a natural progression of thoughts and style. Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle , a fellow member of the Kit-Cat Club , commissioned Vanbrugh in 1699 to design his mansion , often described as England's first truly baroque building. The baroque style at Castle Howard is the most European that Vanbrugh ever used. Castle Howard, with its immense corridors in segmental colonnades leading from
5368-506: The pensioned seamen's refectory and was never regularly used as such. It became a tourist destination, opened for viewing. On 5 January 1806, Lord Nelson 's body lay in state in the Painted Hall of the Greenwich Hospital before being taken up the river Thames to St Paul's Cathedral for a state funeral . Nelson's Pediment in the William Courtyard was sculpted in Coade stone in 1813 as
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#17328451457155456-557: The play was a great box-office hit. Sequel: The Relapse Vanbrugh's witty sequel The Relapse, Or, Virtue in Danger , offered to the United Company six weeks later, questions the justice of women's position in marriage at this time. He sends new sexual temptations in the way of not only the reformed husband but also the patient wife, and allows them to react in more credible and less predictable ways than in their original context, lending
5544-451: The plot, that a wife trapped in an abusive marriage might consider either leaving it or taking a lover, outraged some sections of Restoration society. In 1698, Vanbrugh's argumentative and sexually frank plays were singled out for special attention by Jeremy Collier in his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage , particularly for their failure to impose exemplary morality by appropriate rewards and punishments in
5632-555: The project, and Vanbrugh was left spreading himself extremely thin, running a theatre and simultaneously overseeing the building of Blenheim, a project which after June 1705 often took him out of town. Unsurprisingly under these circumstances, Vanbrugh's management of the Queen's Theatre in Haymarket showed "numerous signs of confusion, inefficiency, missed opportunities, and bad judgment". Having burned his fingers on theatre management, Vanbrugh too extricated himself, expensively, by selling
5720-424: The rebel actors' company. This play is different in tone from the largely farcical The Relapse , and adapted to the greater acting skills of the rebels. Vanbrugh had good reason to offer his second play to the new company, which had got off to a brilliant start by premièring Congreve's Love for Love , the greatest London box-office success for years. The actors' cooperative boasted the established star performers of
5808-544: The remains of thousands of sailors and officers, including many of those who had fought in the Battle of Trafalgar , were removed from the hospital site in 1875 and reinterred in East Greenwich Pleasaunce also called Pleasaunce Park (named after the former Palace of Placentia which had been on the site of the hospital). Governors included: The charitable foundation of Greenwich Hospital still exists, although it
5896-508: The same title. If an internal link referred you to this page, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Greenwich_Hospital&oldid=1149822174 " Category : Hospital disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Greenwich Hospital, London Greenwich Hospital
5984-454: The scheme to overthrow James II and put William III on the throne. He was imprisoned by the French as a political prisoner . In his career as a playwright, he offended many sections of Restoration and 18th century society, not only by the sexual explicitness of his plays, but also by their messages in defence of women's rights in marriage. He was attacked on both counts, and was one of the prime targets of Jeremy Collier 's Short View of
6072-534: The sight of wounded sailors returning from the Battle of La Hogue in 1692. She ordered the King Charles wing of the palace —originally designed by architect John Webb for King Charles II in 1664—to be remodelled as a naval hospital to provide a counterpart for the Chelsea Hospital for soldiers. Sir Christopher Wren and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor gave their services free of charge as architects of
6160-439: The summer of 1699, before the end of the year the model for Castle Howard was under construction, stone was being quarried and foundations discussed. It appears that the early drawings of the design for Castle Howard were made by Nicholas Hawksmoor , and in 1700 he was formally introduced by Vanbrugh into the project as draughtsman and clerk of works. Designs varied and evolved until 1702, the pair working together. In July 1700
6248-506: The title of "Lord Foppington" through the corrupt system of Royal title sales). Critics of Restoration comedy are unanimous in declaring Lord Foppington "the greatest of all Restoration fops" (Dobrée ), by virtue of being not merely laughably affected, but also "brutal, evil, and smart" (Hume ). The Relapse , however, came very close to not being performed at all. The United Company had lost all its senior performers, and had great difficulty in finding and keeping actors of sufficient skills for
6336-425: The unhappily married Lady Brute, even as she fires off her witty ripostes. In the intimate conversational dialogue between Lady Brute and her niece Bellinda (Bracegirdle), and especially in the star part of Sir John Brute the brutish husband (Betterton), which was hailed as one of the peaks of Thomas Betterton's remarkable career, The Provoked Wife is something as unusual as a Restoration problem play . The premise of
6424-495: The untrained and untried Vanbrugh astonishingly managed to out-charm and out-clubman the professional but less socially adept Talman and to persuade the Earl of Carlisle to give the great opportunity to him instead. Seizing it, Vanbrugh instigated European baroque's metamorphosis into a subtle, almost understated version that became known as English baroque. Four of Vanbrugh's designs act as milestones for evaluating this process: Work on each of these projects overlapped with that on
6512-404: The water off by drains and common sewers under ground." Vanbrugh's chosen style was the baroque , which had been spreading across Europe during the 17th century, promoted by, among others, Bernini and Le Vau . The first baroque country house built in England was Chatsworth House , designed by William Talman three years before Castle Howard. In the contest for the commission of Castle Howard,
6600-517: Was a lucrative business. Downes' example of one sugar baker's house in Liverpool , estimated to bring in £ 40,000 a year in trade from Barbados, throws a new light on Vanbrugh's social background, one rather different from the picture of a backstreet Chester sweetshop as painted by Leigh Hunt in 1840 and reflected in many later accounts. To dispel the myth of Vanbrugh's humble origins, Downes took pains to explore Vanbrugh's background, closely examining
6688-684: Was a permanent home for retired sailors of the Royal Navy , which operated from 1692 to 1869. Its buildings, initially Greenwich Palace , in Greenwich , London , were later used by the Royal Naval College, Greenwich and the University of Greenwich , and are now known as the Old Royal Naval College . The word "hospital" was used in its original sense of a place providing hospitality for those in need of it, and did not refer to medical care, although
6776-612: Was also Vaux-le-Vicomte in France. The interiors are extremely dramatic, the Great Hall rising 80 feet (24 m) into the cupola. Scagliola , and Corinthian columns abound, and galleries linked by soaring arches give the impression of an opera stage-set – doubtless the intention of the architect. Castle Howard was acclaimed a success. This fantastical building, unparalleled in England, with its facades and roofs decorated by pilasters, statuary, and flowing ornamental carving, ensured that baroque became an overnight success. While
6864-451: Was close to being standard practice in early 18th century England. Vanbrugh himself never seems to have pursued those who owed him money, and throughout his life his finances can at best be described as precarious. Vanbrugh's introduction and advancement in the College of Arms remain controversial. On 21 June 1703 the obsolete office of Carlisle Herald was revived for Vanbrugh. This appointment
6952-521: Was created by John Papworth . King William Court is famous for its baroque Painted Hall, which was painted by Sir James Thornhill in honour of King William III and Queen Mary II (the ceiling of the Lower Hall), of Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark (the ceiling of the Upper Hall) and George I (the north wall of the Upper Hall). The Painted Hall was deemed too magnificent for
7040-522: Was followed by a promotion to the post of Clarenceux King of Arms in March 1704. In 1725 he sold this office to Knox Ward, and he told a friend he had "got leave to dispose in earnest, of a place I got in jest". His colleagues' opposition to an ill-gotten appointment ought to have been directed to Lord Carlisle, who as Deputy Earl Marshal , arranged both appointments and against whose wishes they were powerless. Vanbrugh went on to make more friends than enemies at
7128-566: Was in India for part of this period, working for the East India Company at their trading post in Surat , Gujarat where his uncle, Edward Pearce, had been Governor. However, Vanbrugh never mentioned this experience in writing. Scholars debate whether evidence of his exposure to Indian architecture can be detected in any of his architectural designs. The picture of a well-connected youth is reinforced by
7216-434: Was intended for the use of an actors' cooperative (see The Provoked Wife below) and hoped to improve the chances of legitimate theatre in London. Theatre was under threat from more colourful types of entertainment such as opera, juggling , pantomime (introduced by John Rich ), animal acts, travelling dance troupes, and famous visiting Italian singers. They also hoped to make a profit, and Vanbrugh optimistically bought up
7304-442: Was mostly spent at Greenwich (then not considered part of London at all) in the house on Maze Hill now known as Vanbrugh Castle , a miniature Scottish tower house designed by Vanbrugh in the earliest stages of his career. A Grade I listed building, and formerly a RAF Boys' School, it is today divided into private apartments. Vanbrugh arrived in London at a time of scandal and internal drama at London's only theatre company, as
7392-434: Was much greater before it went public in 1700, in calmer and more Whiggish times. Downes proposes a role for an early Kit-Cat grouping in the armed invasion by William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution. Horace Walpole , son of Kit-Cat Sir Robert Walpole, claims that the respectable middle-aged Club members generally mentioned as "a set of wits" were originally "in reality the patriots that saved Britain", in other words were
7480-909: Was ordered to help garrison Guernsey . In spite of the distant noble relatives and the lucrative sugar trade , Vanbrugh never seemed to possess any capital for business ventures (such as the Haymarket Theatre ), but always had to rely on loans and backers. The fact that Giles Vanbrugh had twelve children to support and set up in life may go some way towards explaining the debts that were to plague John all his life. Some of Vanbrugh's kinsmen – as he addressed them in his letters: Vanbrugh's younger brothers, Charles MP and Philip , Governor of Newfoundland Colony , were naval commanders. Vanbrugh's own first and second cousins included Sir Humphrey Ferrers (1652–1678), Sir Herbert Croft Bt (1652–1720) , Sir Roger Cave Bt (1655–1703) and Cave's sister, wife of Sir Orlando Bridgeman Bt (1650–1701) . From 1686, Vanbrugh
7568-472: Was the King Charles Court (the oldest part dating back to the restoration), completed in March 1705. The other principal buildings constructed included: Queen Mary Court houses the hospital's chapel (designed by Wren but not completed until 1742). Its present appearance dates from 1779 to 1789, when it was rebuilt to a design by James "Athenian" Stuart after a devastating fire. The ornate plasterwork
7656-479: Was working undercover, playing a role in bringing about the armed invasion by William of Orange , the deposition of James II , and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He thus demonstrates an intense early identification with the Whig cause of parliamentary democracy , with which he was to remain affiliated all his life. Returning from bringing William messages at The Hague , Vanbrugh was arrested at Calais on
7744-483: Was written and staged in the eye of a theatrical storm. London's only and mismanaged theatre company, known as the United Company, had split in two in March 1695 when the senior actors began operating their own acting cooperative, and the next season was one of cutthroat rivalry between the two companies. Cibber, an inconspicuous young actor still employed by the parent company, seized this moment of unique demand for new plays and launched his career on two fronts by writing
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