| AdminHistory | In 1719, shortly after the Hospital's foundation, Etienne Seignoret (an original Director) had left by his will £600 to the Hospital's general funds, and also 'Long Annuities' which had over 72 years to run, the income from which was to be employed in apprenticing every year four children of poor French Protestant refugees. A G Browning, in his papers on 'Early history of the French Hospital 1737-1760', Proceedings of the Huguenot Soceity, vol. VII, pp. 193-216, mentions that this fund was capitalized and much of it lost in the 'South Sea Bubble'; but this cannot have been the Seignoret annuities as the names of Seignoret apprentices, including girls (nominated by the Directors in turn) appear regularly in the Court minutes (usually with the name of trade of the master or mistress, and sometimes the parentage of the apprentice) until 1793, when the annuities duly expired.
Another apprenticeship fund was founded by the will (12 September 1767, proved 20 March 1770) of Stephen Mounier, also a Hospital Director, whose legacy of £1000 and a Long Annuity of £20 was also for placing four apprentices yearly. The bequest took effect after the life interest of Mounier's wife, who died in 1776. For the next few years there are nominations to both endowed apprenticeships, but after the expiry of the Seignoret annuities in 1792 his name does not appear further. The Mounier apprenticeships have continued to the present day. |