November 28 of this Book of Days found me wandering into St James' Square in Westminster, in search of Nancy Astor, the first woman to take a seat in Parliament; myself taking the opportunity to pay tribute to PC Yvonne Fletcher, who was murdered by a gunman in the besieged Libyan Embassy. In truth, there is much more of interest in the square than just these two, and today is the perfect day on which to speak of them.
Like all of London's squares (Savannah, Georgia borrowed the model), the centre is a shared garden, the statue in the centre of that centre being William III, who became king just after Henry Jermyn had finished establishing the "West End" of London, between his brand-new Regent Street and St James' Palace in Piccadilly, where royalty lived in those days - the Duke of Buckingham had the big house at the other end of the red road. Jermyn had been given the land as a gift by George IV, and built so well that, at one point of the 1720s, no less than seven Earls were living there, five minutes from the king in one direction, ten minutes brisk walk if you didn't want to take a carriage from Parliament in the other.
The Astor house, at Number 4, is in the north-east corner, and is now "The In & Out Club" (there is apparently a brothel in Las Vegas, Nevada, that has the same name), one of several military gentlemen's clubs in the vicinity - several, like most of the embassies, on the south side, or on St James' Street beyond, the south side being the back of Pall Mall, or Pell Mell, as it was, back then.
Everything else of significance is in the north-west corner, on the far side of Duke of York Street, with the plaque to Earl Jermyn on the first building. Next to it is Chatham House, then the home of Byron's brilliant daughter Ada Lovelace, with the London Library in the north-west corner; I have skipped a couple of unplaqued houses between these, and some modernisations on the east that seem to be trying, but fortunately are failing, to spoil the overall.
Like all of London's squares (Savannah, Georgia borrowed the model), the centre is a shared garden, the statue in the centre of that centre being William III, who became king just after Henry Jermyn had finished establishing the "West End" of London, between his brand-new Regent Street and St James' Palace in Piccadilly, where royalty lived in those days - the Duke of Buckingham had the big house at the other end of the red road. Jermyn had been given the land as a gift by George IV, and built so well that, at one point of the 1720s, no less than seven Earls were living there, five minutes from the king in one direction, ten minutes brisk walk if you didn't want to take a carriage from Parliament in the other.
Everything else of significance is in the north-west corner, on the far side of Duke of York Street, with the plaque to Earl Jermyn on the first building. Next to it is Chatham House, then the home of Byron's brilliant daughter Ada Lovelace, with the London Library in the north-west corner; I have skipped a couple of unplaqued houses between these, and some modernisations on the east that seem to be trying, but fortunately are failing, to spoil the overall.
Because my real destination, the point of this, is Chatham House, the home of the 14th Earl of Derby, Prime Minister on three occasions, 1852, 1858, and 1866, Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley before he acquired his title.
For the full history of the house, when it was built as St Albans, and then renamed by the Duke of Ormonde, click here - it provides a splendid miniature of English history from the Restoration to the present day, freeheld so to speak in a single building.
My interest is from the time that it became known as Chatham House, because William Pitt "the elder", the first Earl of that obscure place (Chatham was actually one of the royal dockyards, and had been making ships since 1618), lived there throughout his term as Prime Minister (1766 to 1768), as did his son, William Pitt "the younger", who held office twice, from 1783 to 1801, and again from 1804 to 1806. William Gladstone also lodged there during his several times as PM. So why did 10 Downing Street become the official prime ministerial residence, and not 10 St James' Square?
To which the answer appears to lie in two other Prime Ministers.
The first is Robert Walpole in the 1730s, who was given what was then Number 5 Downing Street by George II to be the official residence, but he never actually moved in, because the street that George Downing had put up was, well... Samuel Pepys is a good source on this. According to Pepys, Downing was "a perfidious rogue", who built as cheaply as any building contractor could get away with, and only got permission to build in the first place by trading official secrets he had learned as a diplomat overseas for the dropping of the arrest warrant that had greeted him when he came home. Walpole had been offered the house as a gift of gratitude by the king; his insistence that he accept it only as an official residence may have had less to do with morals than with damp and absent plumbing.
The first is Robert Walpole in the 1730s, who was given what was then Number 5 Downing Street by George II to be the official residence, but he never actually moved in, because the street that George Downing had put up was, well... Samuel Pepys is a good source on this. According to Pepys, Downing was "a perfidious rogue", who built as cheaply as any building contractor could get away with, and only got permission to build in the first place by trading official secrets he had learned as a diplomat overseas for the dropping of the arrest warrant that had greeted him when he came home. Walpole had been offered the house as a gift of gratitude by the king; his insistence that he accept it only as an official residence may have had less to do with morals than with damp and absent plumbing.
When Gladstone replaced him at the 1880 election, and saw what had been done, he went further and had electric lights installed, along with the first telephones. But Gladstone continued to lived at Chatham House while he was PM (maybe he moved out so as not to be disturbed by the electricians; or - or maybe it was the proximity to what was becoming Soho, and to Mayfair, by the Wellington Arch at the foot of Piccadilly, in both of which he liked to spend his evenings trying to encourage the streetwalkers to go home and become respectable.) Nevertheless his official home was not in St James Square, but at what was now Number 10 Downing Street, and which had, as noted above, been appointed as the official residence of the British Prime Minister, today in 1735.
Amber pages
Thomas Carlyle, Scottish historian, born today in 1795
Rainer Maria Rilke, born today in 1875; and no less than four entries in my "Private Collection", though only one specifically the poem, "Der Panther"; the other three are "A Pilgrimage to Beethoven", a comparison of Rilke with Ruskin in "Advice to the Writer and the Reader", and a piece addressed "To Lou Andreas-Salomé, on her birthday"
One of the great tragedies, one of the great stupidities, of modern political diplomacy, and ironically Gandhi warned that it would happen when the two-state solution was first proposed for Moslem-Hindu India. But it didn't happen there; it happened to the ludicrous two-state solution called Pakistan. And turned into catastrophe today, in 1971, when East Pakistan became the Republic of Bangladesh, and then all hell broke loose.
But tell that to those who still go on proposing two-state solutions elsewhere in the world.
1963: Malcolm X suspended by Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad.
1978: Pioneer Venus 1 (US) became the first craft to orbit Venus.
Today in 2018 the Royal Institute of International Affairs inhabits the building at Number 10 St James' Square, providing conservative advice to non-resident Prime Ministers. Gladstone's legacy survives in the fact that the In and Out Club is not a pitt of prostitution but a highly respectable club for true gentlemen.
Much more on the history of Downing Street when Prashker's London finally gets published.
Amber pages
Thomas Carlyle, Scottish historian, born today in 1795
Rainer Maria Rilke, born today in 1875; and no less than four entries in my "Private Collection", though only one specifically the poem, "Der Panther"; the other three are "A Pilgrimage to Beethoven", a comparison of Rilke with Ruskin in "Advice to the Writer and the Reader", and a piece addressed "To Lou Andreas-Salomé, on her birthday"
One of the great tragedies, one of the great stupidities, of modern political diplomacy, and ironically Gandhi warned that it would happen when the two-state solution was first proposed for Moslem-Hindu India. But it didn't happen there; it happened to the ludicrous two-state solution called Pakistan. And turned into catastrophe today, in 1971, when East Pakistan became the Republic of Bangladesh, and then all hell broke loose.
But tell that to those who still go on proposing two-state solutions elsewhere in the world.
1963: Malcolm X suspended by Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad.
1978: Pioneer Venus 1 (US) became the first craft to orbit Venus.
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