San Carlos Hospice

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: 1785

The San Carlos Hospice was an institution with a marked Enlightenment spirit founded by the Marquis of Branciforte in 1784 as a place that could function as a home for the elderly, a refuge for abandoned children, or a place where the unemployed could learn a trade to earn a living.  

The innovative Enlightenment ideas promoted by the Crown through the upper social estates and disseminated by the Royal Economic Societies aimed to provide some social assistance to all those needy groups. 

The new hospice established in Santa Cruz, named after the saint of the sovereign Charles III, was located on the southern outskirts of the city. Its cost was covered by funds raised through alms and donations made by the wealthier classes of the area. The complex came to include workshops and kitchens where users could learn various trades. 

The establishment began with a capacity for 99 people; five years later, in 1789, there were 84 women and 28 men dedicated to different trades (weavers, spinners, laundresses, seamstresses, cooks, bakers, shoemakers, carpenters, etc.) who sold their products and services both to the local market and abroad. 

The charitable centre functioned acceptably until the Marquis of Branciforte ceased command at the end of the 18th century. From that moment, alms and private donations that the military man had managed to maintain steadily decreased. On the other hand, foreign trade, the basis for the maintenance of the place, fell to almost nil limits due to the new international situation following the effects of the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic wars.  

By 1821 the hospice housed only eight girls and all manual activity had disappeared. A few years later it ceased its activity and it was then that the City Council rented its premises to the General Command, which used it as a barracks. The building, purchased by the State in 1849, underwent a major formal transformation, although it retained the name, now as the San Carlos Barracks.

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