Hospitals: East Tilbury

41. THE HOSPITAL OF EAST TILBURY (fn. 1)

It appears from a suit (fn. 2) in Michaelmas term, 1233, that this hospital was founded by Geoffrey Fitz Peter, earl of Essex, who died in 1213. Henry de Kemeseck claimed the advowson of the church of East Tilbury, and John Fitz Geoffrey, a younger son of the earl, said that the church belonged to the hospital which his father had built upon land purchased from Clement de Monasterio, who held it of the church. Clement was present and said that Geoffrey had taken the land from him by force. It was admitted that the land on which the hospital was built pertained to the church, which in its turn pertained to the ancestral fief of the earls at Pleshey, and consequently John lost his case.

About the same time Geoffrey de Helyun granted (fn. 3) to the poor's hospital of St. Mary at Tilbury 8s. rent from land in Aveley, Henry de Kemesec being one of the witnesses to the deed. The warden of the hospital was to pay to Geoffrey one pound of wax at Easter for the light at the altar of St. Margaret in Tilbury church.

In 1254 Simon de Dunton claimed eighty acres of marsh land in Little Tilbury against the master of the hospital of Great Tilbury, who said that he ought not to be impleaded as he was removable at the pleasure of John Fitz Geoffrey and held nothing except at the will of the said John. (fn. 4)

The advowson of the hospital belonged to Richard Fitz John, a great-grandson of the founder, at the time of his death in 1297; and on the division of his property it was assigned (fn. 5) to Joan la Botillere, one of his sisters and heiresses.

At the end of the fourteenth century the hospital was better known as the chapel of St. Margaret and the patronage belonged to the earls of Ormond. It is said to have been a free chapel time out of mind and to own land in East and West Tilbury, Aveley and Mucking. On the resignation of Thomas Ocle, James, earl of Ormond, granted it to Robert Crul in 1391; but Hugh de Pyryton also claimed it by a settlement of the late earl. (fn. 6)

In 1393 Robert Crull had a ratification (fn. 7) by the king of his estate as warden of the free chapel otherwise called the hospital or chantry of East Tilbury, in the diocese of London. Henry Fyfield occurs as warden in 1456. (fn. 8) After this little more is known of the hospital; but it is possible that it reappears as the chantry of Stonehouse in East Tilbury, which owned land in Aveley. (fn. 9)