ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part explores the adaptation of the joint-stock company to the charitable purposes of the Bath Infirmary. It considers the extent to which its administrative structures and practices offset the allegations of corruption sown by commerce and politics. The part provides the Hospital’s income and expenditure, and asks how the associational method of financing tapped the resources of the volatile Georgian economy. As an early member of the hospital movement, the Bath Infirmary was founded while joint ventures of all kinds were at a low ebb. In 1720, the South Sea Bubble had traumatized the commercial sector, after the conversion of high-interest annuities into stock, without an agreed ratio of exchange, precipitated the inevitable crash. The most valuable documents for quarrying the administrative history of this early incorporated charity are the minutes relating to the general court and the weekly committee which co-ordinated hospital affairs.
