Domus Carthusiana

A Carthusian priory was established near Smithfield in 1371 and dissolved in 1537—much to the displeasure of the resisting monks, whose prior was hanged at the gate for refusing to renounce papal supremacy. Ten monks were taken to Newgate Prison, where nine starved to death and the tenth was executed at Tower Hill. The property became a mansion house, bought and embellished first by Sir Edward North and then by Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of Norfolk, before Thomas Sutton purchased it in 1611 and bequeathed money to establish an almshouse for eighty male pensioners and a school for forty scholars, with a schoolmaster aged at least 27. The almshouse remains in the City of London. The school, Charterhouse, much expanded, moved to Godalming in Surrey in 1872, making way first for the Merchant Taylors’ School and then for part of the St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School. It has become a leading public school, whose eminent pupils have included among others Isaac Barrow, Joseph Addison, William Makepeace Thackeray and early University of London Vice-Chancellor George Grote. With reference to the priory, the pupils are still known as Carthusians.