At the best of times the keelmen lived at subsistence level and variations in trade or even a prolonged spell of unfavourable weather could plunge them into distress. There were always many among them stricken by old age, accident or sickness, as well as widows and orphans, and as neither the parish nor private charity rendered adequate assistance, the keelmen determined to provide for their poor themselves. In 1699, representatives of the keelmen declared in a petition to the Hostmen's Company, that on account of the ‘pinching want and extremities’ from which they often suffered, they were willing that four pence per tide should be deducted from the wages of crews of keels carrying 6 to 8 chaldrons, and three pence from those of keels bearing a lesser load, to create a fund for relief of the needy. They begged the Hostmen to make rules for the government of this charity. The petition was reported in the Hostmen's books with a gloss to obviate the implication that the keelmen's wages were insufficient:

therefore, ‘deeply sensible of their own misgovernment’, they had resolved that a fund should be established under the Hostmen's control to assist those in need. Accordingly, the Hostmen ordered that the stewards of their Company should collect the money to be deducted by the fitters and distribute it each quarter as the Company directed. Six months later they ordered a clause concerning the charity money to be inserted into the keelmen's bonds, and the sum already collected to be distributed after a list of the ‘poorest sort’ had been examined by the Company.

Soon the major part of the fund was devoted to building a hospital to accommodate sick and aged keelmen and keelmen's widows.