History

Our Veterans' Home is inspired by the Royal Hospitals of Chelsea and Greenwich, which respectively housed Britain’s retired army and navy veterans from the late-seventeenth century onwards. They were hospitals in the sense that they provided refuge for disabled servicemen (providing beds, living quarters, and hot meals), though both also had their own infirmaries (and various other facilities, including in-house breweries). Both institutions and the many disabled veterans they housed were the subject of much interest from nineteenth-century writers, commentators, and painters—in part because of the growing expense the hospitals caused with increasing numbers of pensioners requiring support following the Napoleonic Wars. Greenwich Hospital eventually closed in 1869 and shortly after naval pensions served much of the original need of the hospital. The Royal Hospital Chelsea remains in service today, and it is home to 300 army veterans.