The relative positions of the city companies has frequently changed, thus at one time the Barber Surgeons were entitled to the seventeenth place, but in 1516 they only ranked as the twenty-eighth. In 1537 the Barber Surgeons formed the most numerous company in London, the number of freemen being 185. The next in order of numbers was the Skinners with 151, then the Haberdashers with 120, the Leathersellers with 113, and the Fishmongers with 109. The rest of the companies numbered less than 100, the Bowyers being the lowest with 19.[151] In 1745 the surgeons, who had long chafed under the inconveniences caused by official connection with the barbers, seceded and formed the Surgeons' Company, under the title of 'The Masters, Governors and Commonalty of the Art and Science of Surgery,' which was established by Act of Parliament. The Surgeons found a temporary home at Stationers' Hall until 1751, when the premises known as Surgeons' Hall, in the Old Bailey, were ready for occupation.
The company came to a premature end in 1796, and it was not until 1800 that the Royal College of Surgeons was established.
_St. Bartholomew's Hospital._--We are justly proud of the hospitals of the twentieth century, but one of them stands out from the rest on account of its early foundation, and its enormous influence on the growth of professional feeling. In following the incidents in the history of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, we cannot doubt but that this is one of the noblest institutions in London. The hospital was founded by Rahere in 1123, and refounded in 1546. We have little history of the earlier period, but the documents relating to the refoundation evidently echo the sentiments formed during the earlier period.
Dr. Norman Moore in his paper on the Progress of Medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital (1888), writes: 'We are in the very middle of the sacred land of medicine, and many of the great events in the history of medicine are connected with the particular region in which our hospital is, or have occurred in our hospital itself.'
Rahere while building the hospital continued his labours by founding the priory, of which all that now remains is the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great. This consists of the choir and transept of the church of the priory, and a part of the site of the close is marked by the present Bartholomew Close. The hospital and the priory were independent but connected. The relations between the two were revised by Richard de Ely, Bishop of London in 1197; by Eustace de Fauconberg, Bishop of London in 1224: and by Simon of Sudbury, Bishop of London in 1373, and the two foundations were finally separated on the dissolution of the priory in 1537.