Emergence In the 1820s, those
Knights of Malta residing in France granted knighthoods to certain people of various Christian denominations who provided support to the Order in England. In 1823, the Council of the French Langues—a French state-backed and hosted faction of the Order of Malta (Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta)—sought to raise through private subscription sufficient money to restore a territorial base for the Order of Malta and aid the
Greek War of Independence. This was to be achieved by issuing bonds in London to form a
mercenary army of
demobilised British soldiers using readily available, cheap war surplus. A deal transferring various
islands to the Order of Malta, including
Rhodes when captured, was struck with the
Greek rebels, but, ultimately, the attempt to raise money failed when details leaked to the press, the
French monarchy withdrew its backing of the Council, and the bankers refused the loan. The Council was re-organised and the
Marquis de Sainte-Croix du Molay (previously number two of the Council and a former Order of Malta administrator in Spain) became its head. In June 1826, a second attempt was made to raise money to restore a Mediterranean homeland for the Order when Philippe de Castellane, a
French Knight of Malta, was appointed by the Council to negotiate with supportive persons in Britain.
Scotsman Donald Currie was in 1827 given the authority to raise £240,000. Anyone who subscribed to the project and all commissioned
officers of the mercenary army were offered the opportunity of being appointed knights of the Order. Few donations were attracted, though, and the Greek War of Independence was won without the help of the
knights of the Council of the French Langues. Castellane and Currie were then allowed by the French Council to form the Council of the English Langue, which was inaugurated on 12 January 1831, under the executive control of Alejandro, conde de Mortara, a
Spanish aristocrat. It was headquartered at what Mortara called the "
Auberge of St John",
St John's Gate, Clerkenwell. This was the Old Jerusalem Tavern, a
public house occupying what had once been a
gatehouse to the ancient
Clerkenwell Priory, the
medieval Grand Priory of the
Knights Hospitaller, otherwise known as the Knights of Saint John. The creation of the
langue has been regarded either as a revival of the Knights Hospitaller or the establishment of a new order.
The Reverend Sir Robert Peat, the absentee
perpetual curate of
St Lawrence, Brentford, in
Middlesex, and one of the many former
chaplains to
Prince George (
Prince Regent and later King George IV), had been recruited by the Council as a member of the society in 1830. On 29 January 1831, in the presence of
Philip de Castellane and the
Agent-General of the
French Langues, Peat was elected prior
ad interim. Then, on the grounds that he had been selling knighthoods, Peat and other English members of the organisation expelled Mortara, with the backing of the Council of the French Langues, leading to the existence of two competing English chivalric groups between early 1832 and Mortara's disappearance in 1837. On 24 February 1834, three years after becoming prior
ad interim, in order to publicly reaffirm his claim to the office of Prior and in the hope of reviving a charter of
Queen Mary I dealing with the original English branch of the Order of Malta, Peat took the oath
de fideli administratione in the
Court of the King's Bench, before the
Lord Chief Justice. Peat was thus credited as being the first
Grand Prior of the association, but in January 1919 "W.B.H." wrote to the journal
Notes & Queries: "His name is not in the knights' lists, and he was never 'Prior in the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem': he became an ordinary member of that Order on Nov. 11, 1830." ,
London, in 1880 Sir Robert Peat died in April 1837 and
Sir Henry Dymoke was appointed Grand Prior and re-established contact with the knights in
France and
Germany, into which the group had by that time expanded. However, until the late 1830s, only the English arm of the organisation had considered itself to be a grand priory and langue of the Order of St John, having never been recognised as such by the established order. Dymoke sought to rectify this by seeking acknowledgement from the headquarters of the
Roman Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Malta, but its then
Lieutenant Grand Master,
Philippe de Colloredo-Mansfeld, refused the request. In response to this rebuff, the English body declared itself to be the Sovereign Order of St John in England, under the title The Sovereign and Illustrious Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Anglia, thereby emphasising the order's independence and claim to direct and continuous succession from the Order of St John that was established in the 11th century. This new entity grew its membership over the ensuing three decades and, in 1861,
William Montagu, 7th Duke of Manchester, agreed to become its grand prior. Additionally, an associated national
hospitaller organisation was formed with a
corps of
ambulances.
Order of St John of Jerusalem in Great Britain In 1871, the Duke of Manchester instituted a new constitution, which again changed the order's name, offering the more modest Order of Saint John of Jerusalem in England, abandoning the pretension to the title of "Sovereign Order". Five years later,
Princess Alexandra was appointed a
Lady of Justice, and this was followed by her husband,
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) becoming a Knight. Two years later,
Sir Edmund Lechmere bought St John's Gate as the order's headquarters; the property was initially leased from Lechmere, before the order acquired the freehold in 1887. In 1877, the order established various
St John Ambulance associations in major railway centres and mining districts, so that railway men and colliers could learn how to treat victims of accidents with
first aid; in 1882, the Grand Priory founded a
hospice and
ophthalmic dispensary in
Jerusalem (known today as the
St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group); and, by 1887, had established the
St John Ambulance Brigade, which undertook practical and life-saving work. The name given in 1888, when the order was first constituted as the present order of chivalry by
Queen Victoria's
royal charter was Grand Priory of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem in England. This was changed by the royal charter of 1926 to the Grand Priory in the British Realm of the Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem and further in 1936 to the Grand Priory in the British Realm of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem. In 1961, it played a role, together with the
Protestant Continental branches of the original
Order of Saint John (the "
Johanniter Orders" in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and elsewhere), in the establishment of the
Alliance of the Orders of Saint John of Jerusalem and thereafter finally received (through an agreement in 1963) collateral recognition by the Order of Malta. Its most recent royal charter was granted in 1955, with a supplemental charter issued in 1974, recognising the worldwide scope of the organisation by setting its present name. In 1999, the order received
special consultative status from the
United Nations Economic and Social Council. ==Structure==