was assigned by the patent of William and Mary to cer tain of the great officers of state, as commissioners for its conversion into a hospital for seamen. As it now stands, the building consists of four blocks. Behind a terrace j 860 feet in length, stretching along the river side, are the buildings erected in the time of Charles II. by Webb from Inigo Jones s designs, and in that of Queen Anne from designs by Sir Christopher Wren ; and behind these buildings are on the west those of King William and on the east those of Queen Mary, both from Wren s designs. In the King William range is the painted hall. Its walls and [ ceiling were painted by Sir Thomas Thornhill with various emblematic devices, and it is hung with portraits of the most distinguished admirals, and paintings of the chief naval battles of England. In the centre of the principal quadrangle of the hospital there is a statue of George II. by Rysbrack, sculptured out of a single block of marble taken from the French by Admiral Sir George Rooke. The oldest part of the building was in some measure rebuilt in 1811, and ths present chapel was erected to replace one destroyed by fire in 1779. The endowments of the hospital were increased at various periods from bequests and for- feited estates. Formerly 3000 retired seamen were boarded within it, and 5000 or 6000 others, called out-pensioners, i received stipends at various rates out of its funds ; but in 1865 an Act was passed empowering the Admiralty to grant liberal pensions in lieu of food and lodging to such of the inrrutes as were willing to quit the hospital, and in 1869 another Act was passed making their leaving on these conditions compulsory. It has since been devoted to the accommodation of the students of the Royal Naval College, for which purpose it was formally opened in 1873. Behind the College is the Royal Hospital School, where 1000 boys, sons of petty officers and seamen, are boarded. Another of the attractions of Greenwich is the park, 190 t acres in extent, in which is situated the Royal Observatory. It was enclosed by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, in 1433, and laid out by Charles II. It still contains a fine avenue of Spanish chestnuts planted in his time; and the hill rising towards the south commands a fine prospect over London, the Thames, ani the plains of Essex. The Royal Observa tory was built in 1675, for the advancement of naviga- tion and nautical astronomy. From it the exact time is conveyed at one o clock every day by electric current to London and all the other chief towns of the kingdom; and , English geographers reckon longitude from its meridian. Adjoining Greenwich Park is Blackheath, an open common much frequented by excursionists, and also used for golf and cricket. Greenwich possesses a considerable number of almshouses and other charitable foundations, among which may be mentioned Quean Elizabeth s College; Trinity Hospital, founded by Henry Howard, earl of Northampton, in 1613 ; the Jubilee Almshouses, founded by subscription of the inhabitants in 1809 in commemoration of the fiftieth anni versary of George III. ; the Green Coat School, the Grey Coat School, and the Orphan Girl s School. The parish church is dedicated to St Alphege, archbishop of Canter bury, who suffered martyrdom at Greenwich.
Greenwich is first noticed in the reign of Ethelred, when it was from 1011 to 1014 the station of the Danish fleet. It has been the place of debarkation of many illustrious personages, as well as in 1806; after the battle of Trafalgar, of the remains of Lord Nelson, which lay in state in the painted hall of the hospital previous to their removal for interment in St Paul s Cathedral. In 1577 it returned two burgesses to parliament, but it was not again represented till the same privilege was conferred on it by the Reform Act of 1832. The population of the parish in 1871 was 40,412. The population of the parliamentary borough whose limits were extended in 1868, and include the parishes of Charlton next Woolwich, Plumstead, and St Nicholas and St Paul, Deptford, and part of Woolwich is 169,361, and the area 8581 acres, of which 657 are in Surrey.
GRÉGOIRE, Henri (1750-1831), bishop of Blois and French revolutionist, was born at Yeho near Luneville, 4th December 1750. After studying at Metz and Nancy, he became cure of Embermesnil and professor at the college of Pont-a-Mousson. In 1783 he was crowned by the academy of Nancy for his loye de la Poeaie, and in 1788 by that of Metz for an Essai sur la regeneration 2>hysiqi(e ct morale des Jidfs. He was chosen in 1789 by the clergy of the district of Nancy to represent them in the states- general, where he took a leading part in the deliberations, and gave energetic support to the republican?. Along with four other cures he abandoned his order and joined that of the tiers ctat ; he presided at the permanent sitting of sixty- two hours while the Bastile was being attacked by the people, and made a vehement speech against the enemies of the republic ; and he subsequently took a prominent ^hare in abolishing the privileges of birth and religion. Under the new constitution of the clergy he was chosen bishop by the department of Loir-et-Cher, taking the title of bishop of Blois. As a member of the national assembly he pro posed the motion for the abolition of the kingly office, which was carried by acclamation. During the trial of Louis XVI., being absent with other three colleagues on a mission for the union of Saxony to France, he along with them wrote a letter urging the condemnation of the king, but omitting the words a mort ; and he endeavoured to save the life of the king by proposing in the assembly that the penalty of death be suspended. His subsequent action was very influential in moderating extreme republican views: he opposed the national renunciation of Christianity, and was the first to advocate the reopening of the churches; exerted himself to get measures put in execution for re straining the vandalistic fury against the monuments of art ; extended his protection to artists and men of letters, and obtained for them pecuniary encouragement from the state ; and devoted much of his attention to the reorganization of the public libraries, the establishment of botanic gardens, and the improvement of technical education. He also took a great interest in negro emancipation, and on his motion men of colour in the French colonies were admitted to the same rights as whites. On the establishment of the new constitution, Gregoire was elected to the council of 500, and after the 18th Brumaire he became a member of the new legislative assembly, In this capacity he voted in the minority of five against the proclamation of the empire, and opposed the creation of the new nobility and the divorce of Napoleon from Josephine; but notwithstanding this he w r as subsequently created a count of the empire and officer of the legion of honour. During the later years of Napoleon s reign he travelled in England and Germany, but in 1814 he had returned to France and was one of the chief instigators of the action that was taken against the empire. After the second restoration he was excluded from the Institute, and when in 1819 he was elected to the assembly by the department of Isere, his election was annulled. From that time, therefore, he lived in retirement, occupying himself in literary pursuits and conducting a voluminous correspondence with most of the eminent savants of Europe; but as he had been deprived of his bishopric and of his pension as a senator, he was compelled to sell his library to obtain the means of support. He died at Paris, May 20, 1831. As he had remained steadfast to his republican principles the ecclesiastical authorities refused him the last offices of religion, and the rites of Christian sepulture, but through the intervention of the civil power mass was said over his body in the church of the Abbaye aux Bois by a proscribed priest ; and after the hearse set out from the church the populace unyoked the horses and themselves drew it to the cemetery of Mont Parnasse. Gregoire forms a striking exception to most of the French
