The picture below was sent to me by a colleague as he walked down the street (thanks!). It is Grey Coat Hospital which is now a specialist language school for women.

I do not remember David Thompson from history class, so I looked him up:

David Thompson (April 30, 1770 – February 10, 1857) born Dafydd ap Thomas,^[1] was an English-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, known to some native peoples as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer". Over his career he mapped over 3.9 million square kilometres of North America and for this has been described as the "greatest land geographer who ever lived."^[2]

Thompson was born in Westminster to recent Welsh migrants , David and Ann Thompson. When Thompson was two, his father died and the financial hardship of this occurrence resulted in his and his brother’s placement in the Grey Coat Hospital, a school for the disadvantaged of Westminster. He eventually graduated to the Grey Coat mathematical school and was introduced to basic navigation skills which would form the basis of his future career. In 1784, at the age of fourteen, he entered a seven-year apprenticeship with the Hudson’s Bay Company. He set sail on May 28th of that year, and left England forever.^[3]

I cannot even imagine sending my 14 year old son away. Different times.