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The throne in the House of Lords and its setting
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
The throne and its surrounding canopy in the House of Lords (PI. i)1 provide a well-known and easily intelligible symbol of the position of the monarch in our parliamentary democracy. The dignity of the Crown is emphasized, as well as the essential part it plays in the government of the country, yet it is clearly set apart from ordinary political activity. All this is made obvious by the architecture, and is as effective every day as when the monarch is present at a State Opening of Parliament. The throne and its setting form the undoubted masterpiece of the House of Lords, which was described when first opened as ‘the finest specimen of Gothic civil architecture in Europe’.
- Type
- Section 1: Royal Works and The Office of Works
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1984
References
Notes
1 This photograph shows the original arrangement of the throne and consorts’ chairs, as it appeared throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1901 King Edward VII ordered a second throne for Queen Alexandra. Its design, in almost all respects a replica of the original, is in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Since then the intended arrangement has not been used again. Today the original throne stands alone and is kept covered, on all except state occasions.
2 The Illustrated London News, 17 April 1847, p. 245.
3 The quarrel was initiated by Pugin’s eldest son, E. W. Pugin, with his book, Who was the Art Architect of the Houses of Parliament? (1867). It was answered by A. Barry, who had just completed a biography of his father, in The Architect of the New Palace at Westminster. A reply to the statements of Mr. E. Pugin (1868), and followed by E. W. Pugin in Notes on the reply of the Rev. Alftrd Barry, D.D., to the ‘infatuated statements’ made by E. W. Pugin on the Houses of Parliament (1868). A final comment was added by E. M. Barry, another son, in a pamphlet printed for private circulation, Correspondence with Mr. J. R. Herbert, R.A., and letters of the late Mr. Pugin (1868). Much information about the construction of the Houses of Parliament which appears in these books is not known from any other source.
4 Sunday Times Magazine, 17 October 1983, p. 62.
5 Crook, J. Mordaunt and Port, M. H. History of the King’s Works, Vi (1973), 519-20 and pi. 35A.Google Scholar
6 The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction, 15 November 1834, p. 338. I am indebted to Clive Wainwright for drawing my attention to this description and for his informative and perceptive ideas on the subject of thrones.
7 The temporary House of Lords, from a drawing by Shepherd, T. H. History of the King’s Works, vi (1973), pi. 35B.Google Scholar The engraving given in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction, 14 February 1835, p. 97, appears to be inaccurate, with the throne and its canopy looking like a cut-down version of Soane’s design of 1820.
8 I am grateful to Clive Wainwright andjohn Hardy for drawing this object to my attention.
9 The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction, 14 February 1835, p. 98.
10 The Duchess of Devonshire, The House: A Portrait of Chatsworth (1982) p. 138.
11 PRO Works 29/81.
12 Ported, M. H.. The Houses of Parliament (1976), pi. 70.Google Scholar
13 SRO Ministry of Works MSS Holyrood Abbey. I am indebted to Dr James Macaulay for drawing my attention to these drawings.
14 See this volume; Macaulay, James ‘The Architectural Collaboration between Graham, j. Gillespie and Pugin’, A. W. pp. 406-20.Google Scholar
15 PRO Works 29/13 5 and HLRO Moulton-Barrett volume, p. 335. There is also a tracing by John Gibson of a perspective of the interior of the House of Lords looking towards the throne, in the Victoria & Albert Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, E67—1912.
16 Mostly in the RIBA Drawings Collection, see particularly Sketches vol. 1 Quarto and Ran 2.
17 RIBA, A. W. Pugin Catalogue [50] 6-10 Google Scholar, described in Wedgwood, A. The Pugin Family (1977), PP 62-63.Google Scholar These newly discovered drawings had remained in the possession of the Barry family. There is also a grey wash design for six paterae, with a water-mark of 1840, unsigned but undoubtedly by A. W. Pugin, in the library of the Society of Antiquaries.
18 RIBA Drawings Collection Sketches, C. Barry vol. 1, p. 74 and HLRO Moulton-Barrett volume, p. 189.Google Scholar
19 HLRO Moulton-Barrett volume, p. 312.
20 PRO Works 29/97.
21 Port, M. H. ed., op. cit., pi. 66.Google Scholar
22 Ported, M. H.. op. cit., p. 109.Google Scholar
23 PRO Works 29/177.
24 In the Lord Great Chamberlain’s Records (HLRO) is a ‘Memorandum respecting the place of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in the House of Lords’, dated 4 January 1842, written by J. Pulman, Deputy Black Rod. This summarizes evidence from the sixteenth century onwards for there being a chair by the throne for the Heir 1 am indebted tojohn Sainty, Clerk of the Parliaments, for suggesting this source). An order ofProcession in this year mentions the chair for the Prince of Wales, and an empty chair is shown on the right of the monarch in a painting by Alexander Blaikley of Queen Victoria opening Parliament on 4 February 1845 (Palace of Westminster collection). At Grimsthorpe Castle two consorts’ chairs are preserved as being that of Prince Albert 1840-47 and that of the Prince of Wales 1842—47 (Guidebook to Grimsthorpe Castle).
25 There are reasons for being somewhat suspicious of the date; the drawing is pen and ink on tracing paper which has been mounted and the date continues across a tear in the tracing paper on to the mount. The date may represent when the tracing was made from an earlier original.
26 HLRO Moulton-Barrett volume, pp. 5, 7 and 9.
27 PRO Works 29/207.
28 Hunt, F. Knight The Book of Art 184(1), pp. 148-67.Google Scholar The Royal Fine Art Commission reacted very slowly but finally wrote 011 6June 1846 to the Treasury that ‘the Commission has since found that the Architect has undertaken upon his own responsibility the whole of the decorative work’ and disclaimed their responsibility for the result. Barry replied at length on 23 June 1846. He explained that he had stipulated that the wood-carvings should be executed under the control of the architect at the Thames Bank workshops, and that the master carvers who were recommended as a result of the competition refused to work under that condition (PRO Works 11/9/4). There can, however, be no doubt that Barry and Pugin much preferred to pick their own men, see below p. 66.
29 Barry, A. op. cit., p. 53.Google Scholar
30 Barry, A. op. cit., p. 39.Google Scholar
31 Pugin’s diary for 1844, Library Victoria & Albert Museum.
32 RIBA, A.W. Pugin Catalogue [50] 11-14 Google Scholar, described in Wedgwood, A. op. cit., p. 63.Google Scholar It is interesting to note that these drawings remained in the possession of the Barry family.
33 RIBA, A. W. Pugin Catalogue [50] 15 Google Scholar; another tracing is in the HLRO Moulton-Barrett volume, p. 241.
34 Barry, A. op. cit., pp. 75-76.Google Scholars
35 Pugin’s diary, loc. cit.
36 Pugin, E. W. Notes on the reply of the Rev. Alfred Barry, D.D., to the ‘infatuated statements’ made by Pugin, E. W. on the Houses of Parliament (1868), pp. 12-14.Google Scholar
37 Port, M. H. ed., op. cit., pi. 82 Google Scholar, where the drawing is incorrectly called a tracing.
38 Barry, E. M. op. cit., p. 5.Google Scholar
39 Barry, A. op. cit., pp. 7-8.Google Scholar
40 RIBA, A. W. Pugin Catalogue [50] 52, described in Wedgwood, A. op. cit., p. 67.Google Scholar
41 PRO Works 1/27 p. 318.
42 Pugin’s diary for 1845, Library Victoria & Albert Museum.
43 Port, M. H. ed., op. cit., p. 138.Google Scholar
44 Barry, A. op. cit., p. 41.Google Scholar Pugin was travelling constantly from 14 May to 4june.
45 A second copy is still in family hands. Information kindly supplied by David Blissett, 1982.
46 HLRO Moulton-Barrett volume, pp. 230-34, 236-39 and 242 and PRO Works 29/200, 202, 203.
47 RIBA Drawings Collection, C. Barry diary no. 22.
48 Microfilm of A. W. Pugin’s Correspondence with John Hardman, HLRO Hist. Coll. 304; and much information in the Hardman Archive, Birmingham City Museum and Reference Library.
49 A. W. Pugin’s correspondence with J. G. Crace is in the RIBA MSS Collection.
50 Furniture in the House of Lords, A Report hy the Victoria & Albert Museum (1974).
51 Barry, A. op. cit., pp. 55-56.Google Scholar
52 Barry, A., op. cit., p. 89.Google Scholar
53 Barry, A., op. cit., p. 90.Google Scholar
54 Port, M. H. ed., op. cit., p. 120.Google Scholar
55 An inventory made in 1859 when the Thames Bank workshops were closed lists 7499 plaster casts. PRO Works 11 /16 fol. 19 et seq.
56 During the recent restoration of the ceiling of the House of Lords, several signatures have been found on the carved trophies. These include Potts and G. Kett. Information kindly supplied by Peter Locke.
57 Information from Messrs Rattee and Kett, Cambridge.
58 The Builder, m ( 1845), 416.
59 Op. cit., p. 367.
60 Barry, A., op. cit., p. 90.Google Scholar
61 l’Hopital, W. de Westminster Cathedral and its Architect, 11 (1919), p. 353.Google Scholar I am indebted to R. O’Donnell for this reference.