TRANSACTIONS 
OF 
THE CROYDON MICROSCOPICAL AND 
| NATURAL HISTORY CLUB. 
141.—Aw Historica, anp Descriptive Account oF THE 
Wurtemwt Hosprrat, Croypon. ‘ 
By J. M. Hosson, M.D., B.Sc., President. 
(Read December 20th, 1898.) 
As this year’s work began with a resolution, carried unani- 
mously by this Club, against the suggested demolition of the 
best preserved, if not the oldest, of the ancient buildings in our 
town, and seeing that strongly expressed opinions have been 
heard in the Council and elsewhere still further threatening the 
Hospital of the Holy Trinity, as built by John Whitgift, it 
appeared to me to be not inappropriate that the close of the year, 
and of my term of office as your President, should be signalised 
by some account and discussion of this precious link with the 
aims and doings of our ancestors of three hundred years ago. 
Now, first, a word as to John Whitgift, Doctor of Divinity, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, himself. Born at Great Grimsby, in 
Lincolnshire, in 1580, the son of a merchant of that town, and 
nephew of an abbot of Black Austin Canons, he came early 
under the influence of doctrinal and ecclesiastical thought. He 
studied at Queen’s College, Cambridge, and at the age of twenty- 
five was elected a fellow of Peterhouse. In 1563 he was made 
Margaret Professor of Divinity, 1567 Master of Pembroke Hall, 
and a few months later Master of Trinity by Queen Elizabeth. 
While master of that college he issued the famous ordinance 
that if any undergraduate was caught bathing he should be 
B 
