St Bartholomew's Hospital (London)

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St Bartholomew's Hospital, also known as Barts, is a hospital in Smithfield in the City of London, England. It was founded in 1123 by Raherus or Rahere (died 1144, and entombed in the near by priory church of St Bartholomew-the-Great), a favourite courtier of King Henry I. Following the dissolution of the monasteries which, although did not affect the running of Barts as a hospital, left in it a precarious position by removing its only income, it was refounded by Henry VIII in December 1546, on the signing of an agreement granting the hospital to the City of London, which was reaffirmed in the Letters Patent of January 1547 endowing it with properties and income. The hospital became legally known as the 'House of the Poore in West Smithfield in the suburbs of the City of London of Henry VIII’s Foundation', although the title was never used by the general public. Upon the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948, it officially became known as St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.