1673 - Care of the Disabled Mariners

A new ordinance by Jean-Baptiste Colbert creates the Caisse des Invalides meant to rescuing the wounded mariners. Simultaneously, a small sum is spared from mariners’ wages – one 40th – to run two dedicated hospitals, one at Rochefort, the other in Toulon. This act completes Colbert’s welfare work to the seafarers.

On its own, England has been taking care of her mariners for long. The Guild which became in 1514, through a charter by King Henry VIII, the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Guild Fraternity or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity and of St Clement in the Parish of Deptford Strond in the County of Kent, better known as Trinity House, had already built almshouses to host 'decayed Masters of Ships and their Widows’ since the 15th century.

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SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

J-J Dubarry, J-J Peny, J-F Hervier – Colbert, Père de la Sécurité Sociale de la Marine, Communication du 16 décembre 1978 à la Société Française d’Histoire de la Médecine – Paris, 1978