In his will proved on 2 December 1708, Jacques de Gastigny, who had been Master of the Hounds to King William III, left £1,000 to improve the pest-house to the north of Old Street in the parish of St Giles without Cripplegate and provide an annual revenue which "shall be employed to ffurnish Bedds, Linnen and Cloths and other necessities of the said poor ffrench Protestants who shall be in the said place".

The corporation chose as its own seal an image of Elijah being fed by the ravens (1 Kings 17:6), with the motto Dominus providebit ("The Lord will provide").

In 1941 the inmates were evacuated and the French Hospital building was requisitioned as a day nursery for mothers doing war work, although the Court Room and Library were retained.

With the growth and consolidation of state health and welfare after the war, the directors decided that the hospital's future lay as an almshouse in a new location.

[7] Over the years many distinguished Huguenot settlers or their descendants have been associated with the hospital, from the soldiers Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, Earl of Galway and John Ligonier, 1st Earl Ligonier (both of whom served as governors of the hospital), to the diplomatist John Robethon and the surgeon Paul Buissière (both also governors), to the lawyer Sir Samuel Romilly and the archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard.

[9] A new Huguenot Museum, which displays the collections of the French Hospital, was opened on 13 May 2015 in Rochester, Kent, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and individual donations.