Politics and Topography in the Old House of Commons, 1783-1834*

CLARE W I L K I N S O N

The old house of commons, whch was situated in St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, was destroyed by fire on 16 October 1834. The fire had been started accidentally by workmen who were burning old exchequer tallies. They had made use of a stove for the house oflords, which became overheated and set fire to its surroundings (Fig. l).’ As recently as 1828 Sir John Soane had drawn attention to the dangers of fire within the Palace of Westminster. ‘These old buildings’, he warned, were

constructed chiefly with timber covered with plaster. In such an extensive assem- blage of combustible materials, should a fire happen, what would become of the Painted Chamber, the House of Commons, and Westminster Hall? Where would the progress of the fire be arrested? The want of security fiom fire . . . calls loudly for revision and speedy amendment.2

But nothing was done. Over the years there had been a number of abortive schemes for rebuilding the House. William Kent produced plans between 1735 and 1739, as did Soane at various junctures born 1793 onwards. There were two basic choices in this matter: to extend the existing structure, or to construct a new building on a hfferent site. In 1831 and 1833 parliamentary select committees examined the problem but failed to devise a solution? Objections broadly fell under three heads: nostalgia, fear and inertia. Nostalgia ranked foremost. Even advocates of change acknowledged that ‘many gentlemen . . . cherished a strong recollection of events that had passed in that House, and were, in consequence, very anxious that no change should take place’. There was a particular aversion to any hint that the mother of parliaments needed to

This article is based on my doctoral thesis ‘The Practice and Procedure of the House of Commons, c.1784-1832’, University of Wales (Aberystwyth) Ph.D., 1998. I am indebted to my supervisor, Professor Peter D. G. Thomas, for his advice and encouragement. I gratefully acknowledge permission from the trustees of the History of Parliament to quote from transcripts in its archive; and fiom Guildhall Library, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum and the House of Lords Record Office for permission to reproduce illustrations from their collections.

Maurice Hasting, Parliament House. T h e Chambers offhe House of Commons (1950), p. 124. Sir John Soane, Designsfor Public Buildings (1828). The Painted Chamber was used for the opening and

closing assemblies of parliament. It was partially burnt in 1834 and afterwards used as a temporary house of lords until it was finally demolished. Westminster Hall was the great hall of the palace and housed the law courts until the late nineteenth century; it was also used for impeachments and various state occasions.

Orlo C. Williams, ‘The Topography of the Old House of Commons, 1768-1774‘, unpublished monograph, House ofLords Record Office, 1953, pp. 2, 19; Parliamentary Papers, (1831), IV, 308; (1833), XII, 487; T h e History offhe King’s Work, ed. Howard M. Colvin (6 vols, 1973-82), VI, 532.

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Figure I Picken after John Taylor, 1835. Courtesy of Guildhall Library.

The Remains of St Stephen’s Chapel after the Fire of 1834. Engraved by Andrew

emulate the examples of America or France. As one member pungently expressed it, he was opposed to ‘puhng down that building hallowed by its recollections for the purpose of creating in its stead a semicircular theatrical edifice’. Another consideration was that St Stephen’s was ‘well adapted to hearing’ and that given the ‘mystery in the science of acoustics’ there was no guarantee that this would be maintained if the chamber was enlarged nor the good acoustics replicated if a new one was built.4 Fear of failure and the desire to avoid expense therefore underpinned the argument from inertia. During a debate in 1833, one member expressed a commonly held view that it was unnecessary

to build a House large enough to accommodate the whole body of representatives, who only assembled as a collective body on very extraordinary occasions -some two or three times a year. For the remainder of the year’s business this House was better adapted than any building . . . There were most important matters discussed

Hansard, Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., XVI, 377.

Old House of Commons 143

Figure 2 Late Seventeenth-Century Westminster from the Thames, with key showing (1) St Stephen’s Chapel before Wren’s alterations (2) Westminster Hall (3) Westminster Abbey. Engraved by Giambattista Albrizzi, 1707. Courtesy of Guildhall Library.

when only 150 or 200 members were present, and this number the House could accommodate e~cellently.~

It is not surprising therefore that the practice of making ad hoc alterations to St Stephen’s only came to an end when the fire of 1834 left no alternative. New construction could not now be avoided, and the fire itself had conveniently removed any necessity for moving to a new location.

Although the accommodation requirements of the Commons were not subjected to any thoroughgoing rationalization, substantial alterations were undertaken (Figs. 2 and 3). In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries St Stephen’s had been extensively re-modelled under the guidance of Sir Christopher Wren. The mullioned windows at the east end of the chapel, which had been surmounted by a large gothic arch, were replaced by four round-headed ones. Only three of these were visible from the floor of the House because Wren lowered the ceiling of the chamber by 15 feet. From this new ceiling a large and elaborate candelabra was suspended (fig. 4). The internal walls of the chapel had originally been decorated with wall-paintings

Ibid., 375.

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Figure 3 Engraved by J. T. Smith after Thomas Sandby in Antiquities .f Westminster (1837).

St Stephen’s Chapel in the Early Eighteenth Century, after Wren’s Alterations.

of biblical scenes. This sumptuous medieval ornamentation was simply panelled over with oak. Galleries were added to both side-walls and to the western end-walL6 Wren’s alterations gave a basic look and feel to the House which remained much the same until the fire of 1834 (Figs. 5 to 8).

It is important, however, not to overlook the alterations necessitated by the arrival of an extra 100 members as a consequence of the Irish Act of Union. In the interval between the passage of the act in 1800 and the opening of the first session of the imperial parliament in January 1801, the architect John Wyatt was commissioned to provide extra seating. His solution was to knock down the walls between the buttresses and reduce them in thickness from three feet to one foot.’ This provided space for extra seating, but only at the expense of wanton vandalism. Wyatt had no interest in preserving the underlying medieval craftsmanship, simply selling off any easily salvageable items and destroying the rest. The controversy surrounding his actions demonstrated the beginnings of a new attitude towards the preservation of historic buildings. John Carter, a draughtsman to the Society of Antiquaries,

Katherine M. Ellis, ‘The Practice and Procedure of the House of Commons, 1660-1714’. University of Wales (Aberystwyth), Ph.D., 1993, pp. 1-10, ’ Hastings, Parliament Housr, p. 110.

Old House of Commo~s 145

Figure 4 Courtesy of Guildhall Library.

Interior of the House of Commons, c.1750. Engraved by Benjamin Cole.

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Figure 5 1825. Courtesy of Guildhall Library.

Interior of the House of Commons in the 1790s. Engraved by Andrew Picken,

conducted a concerted campaign against the changes. His efforts proved vain: he was barred from entering the site, and only limited access was granted to another artist to make a few drawings prior to the destruction of the murals. There was little love lost between Carter and Wyatt, who were engaged in an ongoing personal and aesthetic feud.8 Although Carter failed in his efforts to preserve the interior of St Stephen's, there was considerable justification in his practical critique. He pointed out that the benefits accruing from Wyatt's vandalism merely amounted to 'a bench, one poor solitary bench run in between the opening of each window'.' Yet, there was no great public outcry. Contemporaries seem to have been less concerned about the destruction of the medieval interior than with another consequence of Wyatt's alterations, namely the reduction in seating for members of the public to hear debates from the strangers' gallery."' Wyatt also made some interesting external changes to St Stephen's. Where Wren had filled up the east window with brickwork and inserted new windows, Wyatt created a pseudo-gothic faqade, whilst somewhat incongruously retaining round-headed windows within the design

Carter and Wyatt had previously clashed over alterations to the cathedrals of Salisbury and Durham. Wyatt had removed the chantries in the nave of Salisbury cathedral and destroyed the chapter house of Durham cathedral.

Gentlettian's Mapzinr (1807), 11, 709-800. '" Once Wyatt had stretched the chamber by thinning the walls and adding extra seats, he put everything

back more or less as he had found it, making no drastic changes in the style of the chamber, simply introducing some gothic details of his own (Hastings, Parliament House, pp. 110-16).

Old House of Commons 147

Figure 6 War, 1793. By Karl Anton Hickel. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

William Pitt Addressing the House of Commons on the French Declaration of

Figure 7 National Portrait Gallery.

The House of Commons in 1833. By Sir George Hayter. Courtesy of the

148 Clare Wilkinran

Figure 8 Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

Sketch of the Interior of the House of Commons for Sir George Hayter’s Picture.

(Fig. 9). He thereby succeeded in disguising the external remodelling from the internal viewpoint. This is apparent in Hayter’s painting, where also can be seen the new benches in the alcoves (Fig. 7).

The chamber of the house of commons occupied two thirds of St Stephen’s Chapel; the remaining third formed the lobby at the west end of the building. The chamber was just under 58 feet long and less than 33 feet wide (excluding the benches in the bays).” Some impression of how small and intimate a space this was can be gained by standing in St Stephen’s Hall in present-day Westminster. This hall was built on the exact site of the old house of commons and forms a thoroughfare to the Central Hall. The most striking feature is how narrow it is; far narrower than the impression given in contemporary pictures. The preliminary sketch and completed painting by Hayter demonstrate the artist’s skillful use of perspective and proportion to attain the objective of collective portraiture (Figs. 7 and 8). In reality the narrowness of the room combined with a relatively low ceiling height of only 30 feet lent a claustrophobic atmosphere to the House during crowded debates. The debating chamber was located on the first floor of a four-stoned building, as can be seen in cross-section (Fig. 10). One unusual feature was that the crypt, instead of being underground, was actually at ground level. This was used as a dining room, and the vaulted ceilings provided a grand setting for the Speaker’s dinners. Immediately above the dining room were

Chamber: 57fi. IOin. long and 32ft. loin wide. Lobby: 2% 301n.. including 6ft. for the staircase (Williams, ‘Topography’, p. 2).

Old House of Commons 149

Figure 9 Engraved by J. T. Smith in Antiquitier of Westminster (1837).

St Stephen’s Chapel in the Early Nineteenth Century, after Wyatt’s Alterations.

Figure 10 Record Ofice.

Cross-section of St Stephen’s Chapel, c.1833. Courtesy of the House of Lords

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the lobby and the chamber on the first floor. The location of the Speaker’s chair and the benches behind are clearly indicated. Within the chamber, but on the next level, can be seen the galleries, which were accessed from various staircases leading from the second to the third floor. The galleries on either side of the House were for the use of members. But at the western end of the chamber, directly opposite the Speaker’s chair below, was situated the strangers’ gallery. From here members of the public and parliamentary reporters could observe proceedings. This was not the only vantage point for visitors. There existed a series of spy-holes in the ventilator in the ceiling of the chamber. This is indicated on the cross-section in the roof-space above the false ceiling. By gaining access to the roof space on the fourth floor visitors could hear, and to a limited extent see, what was going on below. This inconvenient location was used principally by women, who were officially disbarred &om the strangers’ gallery. Procedural experts differ on the precise timing and efficacy of this ban, and there is some anecdotal evidence that ladies were sometimes present after the allegedly watershed ruling of 1778.12 The restriction, however, seems to have been rigidly enforced in the early nineteenth century. Speaker Abbot, a stickler on such matters, stated categorically in 1815 that ‘there is no box in the House of Commons for the accommodation of ladies’, adding that the only exception to this rule was that ‘by the usage of the House of Commons the daughter of any foreign sovereign may be admitted into the gallery of the members, attended by any one lady whom she thinks fit to bring’.’3 Moreover, the presence of women at the ventilator-cum-peepholes on the fourth floor is well-documented. In 1829 T h e Times noted with some astonishment that ‘the curiosity of the ladies who throng to hear the debates in the House of Commons must be very great, for it overcomes all sense of convenience and delicacy. They sit in a shabby room over the chamber . . . hearing imperfectly through the holes of the ceiling ventilator^'.'^ Maria Edgeworth gave a detailed account of one such visit a few years earlier.

We went one night to the House of Commons. Mr Whitbread took us there. A garret - the whole size of the room - the former chapel . . . Below kitcats of Gothic chapel windows, stopped-up, appear on each side above the floor. Above, roof-beams. One lantern with one farthing candle, in a tin candlestick, all the light. In the middle . . . is what seemed like a sentry-box of deal boards and old chairs placed round it: on these we got and stood and peeped over the top of the boards. Saw the large chandelier with lights blazing, immediately below . . . we could look down and beyond it: we saw half the Table with the Mace lying on it and papers, and by peeping hard two figures of clerks at the farther end, but no eye could see the Speaker or his chair - only his feet; his voice and terrible ‘ORDER’ was soon heard. We could see part of the Treasury bench and the opposition in their places, -the tops of their heads, profiles, and gestures perfectly.”

l 2 Peter I). G. Thomas, T h e House qf Commons in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1971), pp. 148-9. l 3 P.R.O., Colchester MS 30/9/14: Charles Abbot to duke of Orleans, 7 Apr. 1815. l 4 The Times, 14 Feb. 1829. l5 The Li and Letters cfhlan’a Edgeworth, ed. A. Hare (2 vols, 1894), 11, 66-7.

Old House of Commons 151 Edgeworth’s knowledgeable references to the significance of seating arrangements- notably the confident distinction she makes between the political sides of the House - requires further explanation.

The layout of the debating chamber is clearly shown on a floorplan of about 1833 (Fig. 11). One of the most important features is the bar of the House. It was not until a member had passed the bar into the body of the chamber that he was deemed formally to be present. Loolung up the chamber tiom the bar one would see the table at which the clerks sat. If the House was sitting, the mace would be placed on the table, otherwise it was always replaced underneath. Beyond the table, on a slight dais, was the Speaker’s chair. This was a focal point of the House, and fiom here the Speaker would co-ordinate proceedings. The seating arrangement for members closely followed that of a chapel. The stalls became the benches on which members sat; but accommodation also extended along the walls and behind the Speaker’s chair at the east wall and by the entrance at the western part of the chamber.16 The seating of members was governed by practical considerations of space as well as by a variety of procedural traditions. One member complained that they were all ‘wedged in, almost like herrings in a barrel’, deeming it scandalous that ‘the business of this great country should be transacted in a situation so extremely un~omfortable’.’~ Even after the modifications of 1800 the old house of commons could only seat approximately 350 members out of a grand total of 658. Joseph Hume complained in 1833 that only

348 indwiduals, not including those in the strangers’ gallery, might be inconve- niently crowded together. But, ifthe seats were placed at such a distance as to enable gentlemen to pass each other easily (which it was impossible for ordinary-sized men to do at present) then . . . only 294 persons could sit comfortably.18

On those occasions when important business was expected, the demand for seats greatly exceeded availability, and it had long proved impractical to enforce the order of 1698 that no member should sit or stand in ‘any of the passages to the seats, or in the passage behind the Chair, or anywhere else that is not proper place’.’’ Members simply crowded in where they could and otherwise congregated in the region of the chamber ready to participate in any division.

Further inconveniences should also be taken into account: there were, for example, no separate division lobbies in which to count the members on either side of a question. So, those who voted in the positive usually were obliged to go into the lobby, whereas the ‘Noes’ possessed the important advantage of remaining behind in the chamber. In a full House members sometimes preferred to vote against their inclinations rather than lose their place. Lack of space might also force some to stand where they could not easily be seen by the Speaker. This made it harder to catch his eye when trying to gain the right to speak, and also made it more difficult for

l6 Thomas, House ofcommons, pp. 1-2. l7 Hansard, Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., XVI, 371-2, ’* Ibid., 370-9. For other calculations of seating capacity, see Thomas, House of Commons, pp. 127-8;

A. Arthur Aspinall, ‘The Old House of Commons and its Members, c.1783-1832’, Parliamentary A$&,

l9 John Hatsell, Precedents and Proceedings ofthe House $Commons, with Observations (4 vols, 1818), 11, 92. XIV (1960-l), 22-23.

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I r-

Figure 11 c.1833. COUI

Floor Plan of the Debating Chamber and Lobby of the Hol tesy of the House of Lords Record Office.

use of Commons,

Old House 4 Commons 153

the Speaker himself to maintain control of an assembly where pockets of disorderly members could congregate beyond his field of vision.” The manifest peculiarities and shortcomings of accommodation must be taken into account when analysing the political significance of seating arrangements within the chamber.

The only certain method of guaranteeing a place for the ordmary member was by attendance at prayers. Any member was permitted to come into the House before prayers in order to affix hls name to the back of the seat, but was definitely expected to attend prayers in order to validate the reservation. It was tempting to take a chance on missing prayers in the hope that this claim to a seat would not be challenged. Any other member who arrived at prayers was nevertheless permitted to remove a ticket from an empty seat and take it for himself. Disputes naturally arose if the original member arrived belatedly during prayers. The eighteenth-century practice (sanctioned by ‘the opinion of the oldest members’ accordmg to the contemporary procedural expert John Hatsell) was that the member who had made the reservation possessed the better claim to the seat because anyone ‘coming into the House after prayers are begun, ought to make as little disturbance as possible and kneel down as close as he can to the door’. Although Hatsell thought it unfair for a member to ‘lose his place because he comes in but a moment after prayers are begun’, Speaker Abbot took a different line in 1809, at the time of the well-attended debates on the duke of York affair. Abbot confirmed the right of the supposed usurper by pointing out that the practice of reserving places before prayers was tolerated but was not officially sanctioned, whereas there was a clear privilege under an order of 13 March 1734 that any member in place at prayers was entitled to retain his seat.2’ Speaker Manners Sutton re-affirmed the spirit ofabbot’s ruling on 4 July 1831.

Places can only be taken by members being present at prayers. The affixing of names to seats is intended as an intimation that the members whose names are so affied will be present at prayers . . . A member can become entitled to a seat only by being present in it at prayers . . . It is impossible, except by general consent, to prevent differences upon a matter of this kind, and there can be no use in laying down a general rule unless there be a common disposition among honourable members to accommodate each other.

This plea by Manners Sutton for members to supply ‘by general complaisance and good feeling what may be defective in strictness of rule’ was prompted by a complaint from the radical member Joseph Hume, who had been the victim of a schoolboy prank. An unknown member had gained access to the House before the doors had been Officially opened at 10 a.m. and pasted up the names of some 200 or 300 members. ‘When I came down to the House’, complained Hume, ‘I found the name of Colonel Lindsay d i e d to my seat. I took down the name . . . and placed it on the bench behind me. The honourable member, however, occupied my place at the time of prayers and I could not then dispossess him’.22 Although nothmg was done

2o Hansard, Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., XVI, 372-4. 21 Hatsell, Preredents, 11, 92; Thomas, House of Commons, p. 128. 22 Mirror ofParliumenf (1831), pt. 2, p. 293. The Speaker had recently commented wryly on the practice

of memben attending prayen to obtain seats only to leave the chamber immediately: ‘When I came down

154 Clare Wilkinson immediately to resolve the continuing uncertainty about reserving seats, on 6 April 1835 it was made a standing order of the House that ‘no member’s name may be affixed to any seat in the House before the hour of prayer^'.'^

Not all members laboured under the inconvenience of having to claim a seat by attendance at prayers. One special category was those who had received the ‘thanks of the House in their place’. By courtesy these members, who were most often d t a r y or naval oficers, were entitled to retain their particular seats for the remainder of the ~ar l iament .~~ More importantly, those in high ofice and who were consequently ‘supposed by their avocations to be prevented from coming down to take places themselves’ were accorded the privilege of sitting on the ‘lower bench on the right hand of the Speaker’. The existence of this so-called treasury bench was nevertheless ‘a matter of courtesy, and not of right’.’’

It was somewhat inevitable that a particular significance should attach to those seats directly facing the ministerial ones. The importance of this opposition bench was signified in February 1783, when Charles Fox abandoned the seat to which he was personally attached (on the third row to the Speaker’s left near the gallery) in order to take his place on the opposition front bench with Lord North. The success of the Fox-North coalition in bringing down the Shelburne ministry led to their joint move to the treasury bench in April, but this was followed a few months later by their fall from grace and consequent return to the opposition bench. The fact that Fox’s seating pattern had been mirrored by that of William Pitt helped establish a convention which was further confirmed by Pitt’s establishment of a long-lasting ministry from 1784.26 A political satire of 1787 neatly encapsulated this distinction between the opposing sides of the House. Although charmingly inaccurate in point of architectural detail, this print entitled The Opening Of St Stephen’s Chapelfor the Present Season conveys with telling immediacy the political significance of topography (Fig. 12). Members are shown hastening towards the House, where the open doorway reveals the Speaker in his chair, the benches and galleries. The ministerial benches on the Speaker’s right are labelled ‘Pro Rege’ (i.e. for the king) and identified by the accompanying key as ‘Velvet Seats for the Ins’, being also covered with loaves and fishes. Conversely, the opposition benches are labelled ‘Pro Patria’ (i.e. for the country) and, being covered in spikes, are described as ‘Porcupine Seats for the Outs’.27

22 (Continued) to the House this afrernoon, it was remarkably full; but after prayers had been said, and before the ballots were made, the papers on the backs of the seats were more numerous than the members in them’ (ibid. , pt. 1, p. 555).

23 C J . , X C , 202; Thomas Erskine May, A Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, (1st edn, 1844, reprinted Shannon, 1971), p. 146. In the new house of commons the seats were provided with bronze plates into which specially made tickets could be placed.

24 May, Treatise, p. 146. 25 Its orignal name was the privy councillors’ bench. One peculiar surviving tradition was that on the

first day of a new parliament, the memben for the City of London enjoyed the privilege of sitting here (Hatsell, Precedents, 11, 94).

26 Thomas, House CJ Commons, p. 132; Archibald S. Foord, Hi3 Majesty’s Opposition, 1724- 1830 (Oxford, 1964), pp. 35-6, 155-8.

27 For a full description, see Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires. Preserved in the Department of Pn’nts and Druwinp in the British Museum, ed. Frederick G. Stephens and Dorothy M. George (11 vols, 1870-1954). VI, BM 7130.

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The distinction between opposing sides of the House may be further illustrated by the lasting stigma endured by William Eden upon his defection from opposition. This episode demonstrated that ‘crossing the floor’ was by now synonymous with a change in political affiliation. Eden, a Northite and former supporter of the coalition with Fox, had accepted a diplomatic appointment from premier Pitt in December 1785. Eden therefore took his place on the ministerial side of the House for the opening debate of the parliamentary session on 24 January 1786. The first speech by an opposition member on that occasion was bitingly sarcastic. Lord Surrey, in attaclung Pitt’s credibility as an economical reformer, questioned the necessity of having two ambassadors to France.

Possibly the right honourable gentleman who was appointed the new ambassador . . . and whom he did not then see in his place [A loud laugh, Mr Eden sitting upon an opposite bench] could convince him that he was in an error . . . and perhaps the same right honourable gentleman would state, that he had been furnished with reasons . . . to give h s confidence to that very administration . . . not finding the right honourable gentleman, his late political friend, upon that bench where he once sat, and from whence he had declaimed so ably against . . . the minister, he could scarcely believe, in spite of recent circumstances, that he had changed his place.28

The fact that Eden had been one of the leading critics of administration in the previous session made h s actions the more reprehen~ible.~~ Indeed, his reputation as a turncoat was still current in the early 1790s, when a series of fake letters between him and another more recent defector, Lord Loughborough, were published in the Morning Chronicle. Eden and Loughborough were facetiously described as skilled practitioners in the ‘intricate and ever-varying dance of politics’ and their actions were compared to those of ‘the commonest prostitute’, who ‘by a well-timed exercise of the squeamish airs of prudery (however blasted her reputation) may veil eyes of innocent ~irnplicity’.~’ The intemperate language is partly attributable to the bitter feelings aroused by the protracted break-up of the whig party in response to the French revolution. This process had certainly introduced a new subtlety in seating arrangements in the Commons, and one which was to have intermittent significance in the ensuing period.

On 28 December 1792 Burke made his famous ‘dagger speech’, in which he warned the House of the dangers ofJacobin insurrection, and with no prior warning produced a dagger and threw it onto the floor of the House (Fig. 13).31 The intention

”Debrett, Pad. Reg., 1st ser., XIX, 7-8. 29 Upon Eden ‘principally devolved the task of dissecting, answering and refuting the arguments,

calculations, or propositions brought forward by the government’ (The Historical and Posthumous Memoirs ofsir Nathaniel Wraxall, 1772-1784, ed. H. B. Wheatley (5 vols, 1884). IV, 227-9). See also Sir Lewis B. Namier and John Brooke, T h e History $Parliament. The House of Commons, 1754- 1790 (3 vols, 1964), I, 379.

30Morning Chronicle, 29 Jan., 4, 20 Feb. 1793. Eden had been raised to the Irish peerage as Baron Auckland in 1789. Loughborough accepted the lord chancellorship in January 1793. He took office singly, after having failed to persuade the duke of Portland to lead the conservative Whigs into openly supporting the ministry.

31 For a full description of Gillray’s print, see British Museum Catalogue, ed. George, VI, BM 8147.

Old House of Commons 157

Figure 13 The Dagger Scene, 1792. By James Gillray. Courtesy of Guildhall Library.

was to emphasise the immediacy of the danger, but his plan misfired. Instead of stunned silence, his action was greeted with laughter and ‘some asked where the fork was’.32 He then made a further dramatic gesture by crossing ‘to the Treasury bench,

32 711e Correspondence and Diaries ofJohn Wilson Croker, ed. L. W. Jennings (3 vols, 1885). I , 409; Debrett, Pad. Reg., 1st ser., XXXIV, 224; Cobbett, Purl. Hist., XXX, 189.

158 Clare Wilkinson

where he squeezed himself in between Dundas and Pitt’.33 Burke’s crossing of the floor on this occasion was a spontaneous gesture of temporary significance. In other debates he returned to his seat on the neutral benches which he had taken up after his initial break with Fox in 1791. He did not in fact move to the government side of the House until after the Pitt-Portland coalition of 1794. Burke’s role in leadmg the intellectual denunciation of the French revolution, and the encouragement he gave his political disciple William Windham to establish the ‘third party’ of conservative Whigs in 1793, meant that Burke’s seat on the cross-bench acquired a special status that continued beyond his death.34 The breakaway group under Windham, which was neither connected with the Foxite opposition nor yet fully assimilated within ministerial ranks, put pressure on the w h g grandee the duke of Portland and helped him eventually to overcome his aversion to joining forces with Pitt. Until the coalition of 1794 the third party and the Portland Whigs both continued to sit on the Speaker’s left and only crossed the floor upon joining the ministry.35 But Windham himself, after resigning with Pitt in 1801 over catholic emancipation, paid a posthumous tribute to Burke’s action. Unlike Pitt, who chose to sit ‘on the right hand of the chair, in the third row from the floor’ and thereby signalled his intention to support the Addington ministry, Windham took his place on the bench ‘near the Bar of the House . . . from which Mr Burke always spoke after separating from Mr Fox’.36 There was a further significance in this move. The followers of Lord Grenville, the former foreign secretary, also sat with Windham, signifjring the formation of what was to be called the ‘new opposition’ to distinguish it from the old Foxite oppo~ition.~’ The chief bond of unity in the new opposition was disgust at the peace of Amiens. The resumption of war with France and the attack on Addington led the Grenvillites to style this the ‘anti-Amiens’ bench, and subsequently one of their number grandiosely dubbed it ‘that little bench [which] turned out the g~vernment ’ .~~ In point of fact, the Foxites and Pitt himself contributed more than a little to the defeat of Adlngton in 1804. Nevertheless, the political significance of the cross-bench lingered in the

33 Wraxall Memoirs, V, 317; Roland G. Thome The History of Parliament. The House of Commons, 1790-1820 (5 vols, 1986), 111, 324. The nadir of Burke’s reputation was the regency crisis of 1788-9, when he was suspected of having become slightly deranged: ‘with dlstempered look and frantic mien, rage in his breast and malice in his eyes . . . feared by his friends, derided by his foes’. H. J. Pye, A Congratulory Epistle to His Grace the Duke of Portland on His Majesty’s Recovery (1789). Burke’s imagery was highflown and his mannerisms melodramatic. The French Revolution, however, rescued his reputation for posterity because his speeches and writings became classics of conservative ideology. History has perhaps been kinder to him than were many of his auditon in the Commons, who no doubt found reading Burke much easier than listening to him.

34 The third party was formed in February-March 1793, its first notable public gesture was a collective resignation from the Whig Club (Frank O’Gorman, The Whig Party and the French Revolution (1967), pp. 120-1). ‘’ On seating patterns. see ibid., p. 181; Cobhett, Pad. Hisf., XXX, 1240-2. ” Burke’s seat had been on the foremost cross-bench under the gallery at the opposite end of the House

to the Speaker’s chair. Thorne, House of Commons, V, 621; The Diary and Correspondenre of Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester, ed. Lord Colchester (3 vols, 1861). I, 261; The Later Correspondence of George III, ed. A. Arthur Aspinall (5 vols, 1962-70), 111, 513n.

37 James J. Sack, T n e Grenvillites, 1801-29. Party Politics and Factionalism in the Age ofPi t t and Liverpool (Chicago and London, 1979), p. 57; Later Correspondence of George I l l , ed. Aspinall, IV, p. xi.

3K Arthur I. Dasent, The Speakers oftheHouse ofCommons,-from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1911), p. 305; Sack, Grenvillites, pp. 179-80.

Old House of Commons 159

consciousness of the GrenviUe party. Their political association with the Foxites was confirmed by the formation of the Talents ministry in 1806, and after a brief spell on the ministerial side of the House, they moved with their allies to the opposition side in 1807. Differences of opinion over the need for a crackdown on radicahsm in 1817 brought about a schism, and the Grenvillites duly resumed their place on the cross-bench and assumed the status of a ‘third party’, eventually being bought off by the Liverpool ministry in 1821.39

At times of political flux from the 1790s onwards talung one’s seat on the cross- bench acquired a particular importance, which originated with Burke but acquired a factional significance from the later conduct of the Grenvillites. At other times, however, the cross-benches were simply a customary place for independents to sit in order to distance themselves as individuals from too close an affiliation with either side of the House. Henry Grey Bennet, in his parliamentary diary of 1821, simply referred to these as the ‘neutral’ benches, and James Grant, writing in the mid-l830s, likewise described the cross-benches as a place for members ‘who professed to belong to no party - to be neither the friends nor opponents of g~vernment’.~’ In a similar vein, Lord Mahon jokingly suggested to Peel in 1833 that it would be inappropriate for the tones to sit on the opposition benches because their numbers had been so greatly reduced by the first election after the Great Reform Act. He advocated a tactful retreat to the cross-benches below the gangway because ‘from our weakness we must be umpires rather than parties in the great struggle which the new House is so shortly to witness’.41 Mahon was prechcting, albeit incorrectly, that the Whig-tory dichotomy would be superseded by one of whlgs versus radicals.

Earlier in the century, however, the radicals themselves had been classified as men of ‘no party’. This was a pejorative description used to distinguish them from those who were respectably independent. Some radicals apparently adopted a strategy of retaining the same personal seat in the House irrespective of changes in government, and in this way sought to distinguish their ~niqueness .~~ This tendency was particularly noticeable in Joseph Hume, and his known predilection for a particular place contributed to his outrage in the incident over a disputed seat referred to earlier. His seat ‘was close to one of the posts which supported the side gallery on the left of the Speaker’s chair; there he was constantly to be found’.43 In 1833, during the early sittings of the first reformed parliament, William Cobbett attempted to disrupt traditional seating arrangements by occupying any vacant place on either of the front benches. He proclaimed that it was an egalitarian duty not to submit to existing conventions, and made it a particular object to oust Peel (whose resistance to reform had ‘done much

39 Thome, House of Commons, V, 592; Sack, Grenvillites, pp. 181, 189-93; Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, ed. duke of Buckingham and Chandos (4 vols, 1853-5), 11, 198; History of Parliament Archive, Hatherton diary transcripts, sub 7 Feb. 1818.

4 0 H o ~ e ofLords R. O., Grey Bennet diary, sub 9 May 1821; James Grant, Random Recollections of the House o fCommons , jom the Year 1830 fo fhe Close of1835 (1836), p. 4.

41 Sir Robert Pee l , j om His Private Papers, ed. C . S. Parker (3 vols, 1891-9), 11, 210-11. 42 On the distinction of radicals as ‘no party’ men, see The Satirist, June 1810 (annotated transcript in

History of Parliament Archive) and Thome, House of Commons, I, 201. On radicals and seating, see Grant, Recollections, pp. 5-6. ‘’ Grant, Recollections, p. 6 . O n Hume’s conversion to radicalism, see Thome, House of Commons, IV,

262-5.

160 Clare Wilkinron

mischief’) from the opposition bench: ‘he was not inclined to cede that right to him . . . thinking that he of all men in the House ought not to enjoy pre-eminence on that or on any side of the House’.44

It should also be remembered that, despite the clear distinction between the two sides of the House, the cohesion of the opposition grouping was often superficial. Within the early nineteenth-century Whig party, for example, there existed a so- called ‘mountain’ of dissidents, whose nickname was a satirical allusion to the French revolutionary extremists whose own designation had originated in their occupation of high-up seats in the c ~ n v e n t i o n . ~ ~ In October 1812 George Tiemey concisely expressed the distinction between a simplistic description of the opposing sides of the House and the actual existence of a coherent party of opposition.

I f . . . dislike in common were a sufficient bond of union, we should to be sure be strong enough, for we have but one opinion of the present ministers; but unfortunately as it is necessary that there should be . . . similarity of views and mutual confidence . . . to constitute an opposition, I cannot conceive how any gentlemen can have less pretensions to be considered as such a body than those who sit on the left hand of the Speaker.46

The longevity of Whig opposition, however, created an understandable unwikngness to abandon customary patterns of seating. At the formation of the Canning ministry in 1827 there was a great deal of uncertainty. Some prominent Whigs, such as Henry Brougham and George Tiemey, fully supported it and crossed the floor, whereas Lord Grey, the party’s aristocratic head, urged his followers to remain in opposition. There were others, such as Lord Althorp, who favoured a policy of benign neutrality. The Whig member Sir Robert Heron reported the resultant confusion over seating.

Burdett on the first day of the House of Commons meeting after Easter, had great difficulty in determining where he should sit; at last he took his seat behind Canning. For my own part, I determined to take my seat on the left hand of the Speaker, with the Russells, Ponsonbys . . . Lords Milton, Althorp . . . and many more staunch Whigs, ready to support Ministers when we can, but unwdling to pledge ourselves to them.47

An independent member, Hudson Gurney, painted a vivid picture of a hfferent aspect of the scene shortly afterwards.

Peel in Canning’s old place when out, on the second neutral bench, and the ultra Protestants on the neutral benches and about the Bar . . . A real High Church Protestant opposition-I think not very strong in number, and an ill-assorted,

44 Hansard, Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., XVI, 305; Norman Gash, Sir Robert Peel (1972). p. 43. 45 Thome, House of Commons, I, 201, 352-3. This group had some overlap and affinity with those

46 Durham University Library, Grey MSS: Tierney to Grey, 19 Oct. 1812. 47 Sir Robert Heron, Notes by Sir Robert Heron, Baronet (1851), p. 168.

designated of ‘no party’ in the Satirist list (see above note 42).

Old House of Commons 161 ungainly multitude supporting ministry . . . A regular High Church Oxford Tory opposition is formed . . . which Peel will head himself in a few days.48

The cautious wisdom of the neutral Whigs was justified by unforeseen events: Canning &ed only four months after taking office and the ensuing political realignments eventually resulted in the formation of a tory ministry under Wellington and Peel. Those Whigs who had crossed the floor returned to the opposition benches in evident embarrassment, and the party attempted to re-unite in pursuit of the old object of defeating the ministry in the Commons by concerted party action.49

Professor Peter Thomas, in his definitive analysis of eighteenth-century practice and procedure, has demonstrated the essential truth of the ‘axiom of modern British history that the division of the seating of the House of Commons into two sides has been a significant factor in the evolution of a two-party political system’ and, moreover, that ‘seating conventions preceded the emergence of modern par tie^'.^' Yet the paradoxes and subtleties which Thomas detected in the earlier eighteenth century did not entirely disappear in the ensuing period. The usual political connotation of seating is amply evidenced in the printed reports of debates, which are punctuated with references to the sounds, either of cheering or disapprobation, that came fi-om the ministerial and opposition benches. Occasionally it was thought necessary to point out the political significance of a member’s location. The independent member John Wood stated on 22 November 1830 that he would not be giving immediate support to the recently formed Grey ministry, despite having opposed the Wellington ministry. The parliamentary reporter added in parenthesis that ‘the honourable member occupied his usual seat on the opposition benches’. Furthermore, in reporting the next speech by Sir Joseph Yorke, a time-serving ministerialist who had not changed sides with the fall of Wellington, it was explained that he ‘spoke from his usual place upon the ministerial benches’.51

As in the preceding period, the seating patterns of independent members are difficult to trace. But it remains likely that those without strong political ties continued to take seats where they could and attracted little notice for so doing. In a crowded House even political partisans had to accept the best available seat, wherever it lay. The ministerialist James Bland Burges recorded in February 1787 that he listened to one of Pitt’s speeches from ‘a snug corner on one of the Opposition benches, just facing the Treasury bench’.52 And, the Whig John Cam Hobhouse recalled that, owing to the crowded state of the House in anticipation of Lord John Russell’s opening speech on the Reform Bill on 1 March 1831, it was ‘with much difficulty I got a vacant space on the fourth bench, nearly behind the Speaker, almost amongst the [tory] opposition and the anti-ref~rmers’.~~

48 History of Parliament Archive, Gurney diary transcripts, sub 3 May 1827. 49 Frank O’Gorrnan, The Emergence of the British Two-Party System, 2760- 1832 (1982), pp. 106-7. 5” Thomas, House of Commons, pp. 136-7. 51 Hansard, Pad. Debs, 3rd ser., I , 624-6.

Selectiumjom the Letters and Correspondence of Sirjames Bland Burger, Baronet, ed. J. Hutton (1885), p. 84.

53 Aspinall, ‘Old House of Commons’, p. 303.

162 Clare Wilkinson

There was significant difference between squeezing into any available seat to listen to a debate and the careful choice of location fiorn which deliver a speech to the House. An important consideration was to ensure visibility from the Speaker's chair. It was certainly better to sit in the chamber itself rather than in one of the galleries above. In a full House there was often no alternative, however, and speeches on ----I- ----":--- --,. - - - - i - -o A ~ - , - - - s ~ l . l a i- +ha nAn+nA Anho+nr ..,hen 1 r l~hren~len+

Old House .f Commons 163

in it for more than ten minutes at a time’.57 Discomfort was also exacerbated by the increased length of time spent in the chamber. From the later eighteenth century the trend for longer speeches gave rise to complaints. Charles Abbot complained in 1795 ‘that the style of parliamentary debating is grown intolerably diffuse and prolix’, a sentiment echoed by Charles Arbuthnot in 1830: ‘everybody is now a talker. There is but little of eloquence . . . but everybody has a word to say . . . What fatigue it is to listen for weeks and weeks together to the very dullest of ~peeches.’~’ In reality, neither the increased length of speeches, nor the propensity for second speeches was the fundamental cause of lengthier sittings of the House, which stemmed from the increase in parliamentary business during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.59

Of course no member attended all debates and the sensible ones paced themselves. During the second reading of the Reform Bill, one member recalled having left the chamber a ‘little before twelve, under the impression the debate would be again adjourned’. He was keen to attend the following day’s proceedings and went to the House at 7 o’clock in the morning with the intention of securing a seat, only to find ‘the discussion still proceeding which he had left the previous night’. Arriving just in time to vote, he was given credt ‘for having been in the House all night, in the plenitude of his devotion to the cause of reform’.60

It was nevertheless difficult to reconcile assiduous attendance with regular social and eating habits. George Canning complained bitterly over ‘such an irregularity of hours’ which frequently detained him in the House beyond the time to which ‘any reasonable man, out of Parliament, will consent to wait for his dinner’.61 Fasting was reputed to be a popular strategy with some members, particularly prior to speaking, but Canning for one lamented the debilitating effects of this practice.62 Surviving on snacks was another option. ‘Some crack nuts’, observed the German travel writer Moritz, ‘others eat oranges, or whatever else is in season’.63 One member put his faith in the sustaining quality of pears, eating them ‘as a substitute for dinner’.64 Others opted for more substantial fare before going to the House. The Younger Pitt, noted Canning, regularly ate ‘at least a fowl and drinks I know not how much Madeira before he goes down’ to the House.65 On one occasion Pitt’s obvious drunkenness caused distress to the one of the clerks of the House. He was so upset that he found difficulty sleeping that night and still felt unwell the following morning. When

j7 B.L., Add. MS 51705, E. 137-8. 58 Abbot Diary, ed. Colchester I, 24. At this time the Wellington ministry was under great pressure,

with whip and radicals concentrating their attacks upon both finance and parliamentary reform. The government was under especial pressure as tory malcontents wished to see the government brought into general disrepute (Norman Gash, Mr. Secretary Peel (1961), p. 609).

j9 Wilkinson, ‘Practice and Procedure’, pp. 171-91. 6o Grant, Recollections, pp. 9-10. 61 The Letterjournal of George Canning 1793-5, ed. Peter J. Jupp, (Camden SOC., 4th ser., XLI, 1991),

62 Ibid., p. 77. 63 Travels ofCarl Philipp Moritz in Enfland in 1782, ed. P. E. Matheson (1924), p. 53. 64 Grant, Recollections, p. 7 . 65 Canningjournal, ed. Jupp, p. 182.

p. 197.

164 Clare Wilkinson

informed of this Pitt quipped: ‘Could there possibly have been a fairer division? I had the wine, and the Clerk, poor man, had the headache.’ O n another occasion, after drinking heavily with Dundas, Pitt was heard to remark: ‘I can’t see the Speaker, Hal. Can you?’ ‘Not see the Speaker, Billy!’, came the reply, ‘I see two!’66

Any historical interpretation of the topographical significance of seating arrange- ments in the old house of commons would be sadly lacking if it failed to conjure up an image of the sheer bedlam which on occasion prevailed - with members jammed cheek by jowl in the chamber, galleries and passageways of the House. The resultant noise and confusion could be quite extreme, as this vivid account from the 1830s demonstrates.

At repeated intervals a sort of drone-like humming, having almost the sound of a distant hand-organ or bag-pipes, issued from the back benches; coughing, sneezing, and ingeniously extended yawning, blended with the other sounds . . . A single voice from the ministerial benches imitated very accurately the yelp of a kennelled hound . . . There was a constant movement of the persons as well as the tongues of honourable members . . . One honourable member imitated the crowing of a cock . . . Not far from the same spot issued sounds marvellously resembling the bleating of a sheep, blended occasionally with an admirable imitation of the braying of an ass . . . Then there were coughing, yawning, and other vocal performances in infinite variety, and in most discordant chorus. There were yelpings worthy of any canine animal, and excellent imitations of the sounds of sundry instrument^.^'

Such descriptions bring to life the departed spirit of the old house of commons and provide, moreover, a humorous counterpoint to the prosaic unravelling of its topographical mysteries and their political significance. Indeed, many members found it impossible to stay still when they spoke. They almost literally threw themselves into their speeches. Richard Lalor Shed did not so much rise to speak, as jump off his seat, as if he were ‘about to run out of the House’. Having obtained a hearing for himself, he found it impossible to remain in one place for any length of time. He was not content with waving his arms around, preferring to bend his whole body to such an extent that ‘you are sometimes not without fears he may lose his equilibrium, and f d , head foremost, prostrate on the floor’. John Wilson Croker wheeled ‘his body round and round’ like ‘a hen on a hot girdle’, barely remaining in the same position for a few seconds together. Colonel Sibthorpe beat the air ‘in all directions, but chiefly above his head’, whilst turning ‘his face from one part of the House to another, as if his body sat on a pivot, and were whirled round, not by a mere act of mental volition, but by some external application of force’. Sir John Cam Hobhouse, when not waving his hands above his head, was to be seen with them clasped behind his back, and retreating ‘four or five feet from the table, and then rapidly advancing towards it again’. Having arrived, he would then knock o n ‘the box or the books on the table, with his right hand’. Peel, like Hobhouse, also used to strike the box, but reserved this for speeches on great questions. Each stroke was given with considerable force, and as ‘the box is remarkable for its acoustic properties, the sound is distinctly heard in every

‘‘ Dasent, S‘enkers ofrhr House, p. 291; Grant, Recollections, p. 393. 67 Grant, Recollerfiuns, pp. 75-7.

Old House of Commons 165 part of the House’. Pride of place -for eccentricity - should undoubtedly be given to Joseph Hume, who was notorious for an elaborate series of movements that involved placing his hat on an adjacent seat and taking from it a sheaf of papers ‘so closely rolled up as to have the appearance of a solid piece of matter’, whch he then used as a baton whilst speaking. This performance usually accompanied lengthy speeches; and Hume was prone to repeatedly intimating that he was ‘about to conclude’ long before he actually did so. One seasoned observer discerned a habitual pattern: ‘the only symptom that can be depended on of his being about to resume his seat, is that of his giving a glance at his hat. He always concludes in two or three sentences after he has done that.’68

It is most appropriate to end with Hume, not simply because of his curious mannerisms in debate, nor merely for his habit of retaining the same seat irrespective of changes in government, but rather because he was a persistent critic of St Stephen’s as a building and a staunch advocate for new construction. It was reported in The Times on 18 October 1834 that a bystander surveying the charred and shattered ruins of the old house of commons was heard to remark that at long last ‘Mr Hume’s motion for a new House is carried without a d i~ i s ion . ’~~

681bid., pp. 101, 114-5, 145-6, 214, 281-2, 332-3. 69 The Times, 18 Oct. 1834.