Guy, Thomas, an eminent bookseller, founder of the hospital for sick and lame in Southwark which bears his name, was the son of Thomas Guy, lighterman and coal-dealer in Horsley-down, Southwark. He was put as apprentice, in 1660, to a bookseller in the porch of Mercer's Chapel; and set up trade with a stock of about L200, in the house which formed the angle between Cornhill and Lombard Street. The English bibles being at that time very badly printed, Mr Guy engaged with others in a scheme for printing them in Holland, and importing them; but this being put a stop to, he contracted with the university of Oxford for their privilege of printing them, and carried on a trade in bibles for many years to a considerable advantage. The bulk of his fortune, however, was acquired by purchasing seamen's tickets during Queen Anne's wars, and by South-Sea stock in the memorable year 1720. To show what great events spring from trivial causes, it is asserted that the public owe the dedication of the greater part of his immense fortune to charitable purposes, to the indiscreet officiousness of his maid-servant in interfering with the mending of the pavement before his door. Guy, it seems, had agreed to marry her, and, preparatory to his nuptials, had ordered the pavement before his door, which was in a neglected state, to be mended, as far as a particular stone which he pointed out. The maid, whilst her master was out, innocently looking on the paviers at work, observed a broken place they had not repaired, and mentioned it to them; but they told her that Mr Guy had directed them not to go so far. "Well," said she, "do you mend it; tell him I bade you, and I know he will not be angry." It happened, however, that the poor girl presumed too much on her influence over her careful lover, with whom a few extraordinary shillings of expense turned the scale totally against her. The men obeyed; Guy was enraged to find his orders exceeded; his matrimonial scheme was renounced; and, instead of marrying, he built hospitals in his old age. In the year 1707 he built and furnished three wards on the north side of the outer court of St Thomas's Hospital in Southwark, and gave L100 to it annually for eleven years preceding the erection of his own hospital; and, some time before his death, he erected the stately iron gate, with the large houses on each side, at the expense of about L3000. He was seventy-six years of age when he formed the design of building the hospital which bears his name, contiguous to that of St Thomas's; and he lived to see it roofed in, having died in the year 1724. The charge of erecting this vast pile amounted to L18,793, and he left L219,499 to endow it; a much larger sum than had ever before been dedicated to charitable uses by any one man in this kingdom. He erected at Tamworth in Staffordshire, the place of his mother's nativity, and of which he had been representative in parliament, an alms-house, with a library, for fourteen poor men and women; and for their pensions, as well as for putting out poor children as apprentices, he bequeathed L125 a year. Lastly, he bequeathed L1000 to every one who could prove himself related to him in any degree, however remote.