What can these Diamond Jubilee portraits tell us about the Royal Pavilion?

In February 2012 two official, specially commissioned Diamond Jubilee photographs of HM the Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh were released to mark the 60th anniversary of The Queen’s accession to the throne. The photographs were taken in December 2011 by renowned photographer John Swannell, who has photographed members of the royal family on several occasions since the 1980s.

Official Diamond Jubilee Portrait, copyright Royal Household/John Swannell

In the first photograph, the Queen is shown in the Centre Room of Buckingham Palace, with a glimpse of The Mall and the Queen Victoria memorial visible through the large window behind her.

Official Diamond Jubilee Portrait, copyright Royal Household/John Swannell

The second official jubilee photograph, also taken in the Centre Room of Buckingham Palace, shows the Queen with Prince Philip in a room that could be mistaken for our very own Royal Pavilion in Brighton. The pair are posing in front of a Chinoiserie fireplace, and to either side of the mirror above the fireplace is a geometric border design that might well look familiar to Royal Pavilion visitors.

Banqueting Room, Royal Pavilion, fa207733

The white and gold fireplace, complete with small Chinese figures on either side of the fire grid, was originally installed in the Banqueting Room of the Royal Pavilion in 1817. It was designed by Robert Jones, one of the principal artists employed by the Prince Regent for the transformation of the Royal Pavilion from Henry Holland’s neo-classical building into John Nash’s Indian fantasy. Eagle-eyed observers might also spot to the right of Prince Philip a little bit of silvered background next to the trellis border. This is the background of the large Chinese-style paintings by Robert Jones which are also in the Banqueting Room.

The Centre Room of Buckingham Palace is also commonly known as the Balcony Room. On special occasions, such as royal weddings or jubilee celebrations, the royals gather on the balcony, watched by crowds in The Mall. If you look carefully at some of the press pictures taken at events such as Kate and William’s balcony kiss after their wedding in April 2011 (as seen in this picture by The Telegraph) you will see one of the smaller Frederick Crace chandeliers from the Royal Pavilion’s Music Room in the background.

So how did these items from Brighton find their way into Buckingham Palace?

Music Room, Royal Pavilion, fa207734

In 1850 Queen Victoria sold the Royal Pavilion to the Corporation of Brighton, but excluded the contents of the building from this sale. In the years before the sale the Pavilion had been stripped of all its contents and decorations, including heavy pieces such as the large chandeliers and the fireplaces. Queen Victoria used many of the fittings, furniture, and decorative objects in the newly built Blore Wing of Buckingham Palace (that rather imposing side of the palace that can be seen from The Mall), creating an 1850s recycled take on the Prince Regent’s Brighton Chinoiserie scheme. To this day there is a suite of rooms in the Blore Wing of Buckingham Palace that looks remarkably similar to the interior of the Royal Pavilion.

But this doesn’t mean that what we have in Brighton is not original. Many items were returned by Queen Victoria herself as early as the 1860s, among them important large pieces, such as the two large chandeliers from the Music Room and the Banqueting Room. The larger Robert Jones’ paintings in the Banqueting Room are original, the others being very good 19th century copies. The Jones paintings in Buckingham Palace have recently been restored and re-hung in the Centre Room, so if you come across older pictures of this room you might not see them. Of the smaller Music Room chandeliers, half of the smaller ones are original.

Since 1850 several members of the royal family have been very supportive of efforts to restore the Pavilion, and have returned many original Pavilion pieces.  Queen Mary was a prominent supporter in the early twentieth century, and visited the building on several occasions during World War One. Her Majesty the Queen has also very graciously returned several very important items on a permanent loan basis.

It is of course tempting to say that it would be nice to have all the original pieces returned to Brighton, but one has to bear in mind that these Chinoiserie interiors have also become an integral part of the history of Buckingham Palace. The present Royal Pavilion also reflects its history as a former royal palace that has been in municipal ownership since 1850. We should also not forget that some of the Chinese decorations that were in the Royal Pavilion during George IV’s lifetime had were taken from another building: his lavish London residence Carlton House, in which he first experimented with Chinoiserie interiors. Carlton House was demolished in the 1820s and its furniture and decorative objects taken to Buckingham House (as Buckingham Palace was then called) and the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.

The history of buildings and their interiors has always been one of change, movement, inspiration and the re-use of objects in new contexts and by new owners, and it is all the more fascinating for it.

Alexandra Loske,
Researcher and Guide at the Royal Pavilion

A Very Short History of the People’s Palace (Part 1)

In the lead up to our People’s Palace Open Day on 22 January 2011, we will be posting material relating to the often forgotten history of the Royal Pavilion as a civic building. This is the first of three posts outlining its history from 1850 to the present. You can also enter our People’s Palace Quiz for a chance to win free admission and a cream tea for two at the Royal Pavilion.

Fall from Favour

Queen Victoria Arriving at Brighton, 1843 (FA000133)

Queen Victoria made her last visit to the Royal Pavilion in 1845.  Although it’s often assumed that Victoria disliked the building, it may be more accurate to state that she had outgrown it. The location of the Pavilion may have suited a young prince who wished to be close to the entertainments and society offered by Brighton, but it became oppressive for a young queen with a growing family. During her last visit to Brighton, Victoria wrote a letter to her aunt, the Duchess of Gloucester, in which she complained that ‘the people are very indiscreet and troublesome here really, which make this place quite a prison’. But there were also less personal reasons for her discomfort in the Pavilion. This was a time in which the Queen was rebranding the monarchy and trying to distance herself from her unpopular Hanoverian uncles, Kings George IV and William IV. The strange and opulent Pavilion was, in many respects, a symbol of the more decadent behaviour of her predecessors.

The Entrance to the Royal Palace Brighton, 19th century. (BH440171)

It did not take long for suspicions to be raised about the fate of the building. In late 1845, Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert purchased Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, and work soon commenced on expanding the building. Larger, and in a more secluded location, this was a clear replacement for the holiday palace at Brighton. The following year, work began on dismantling the Pavilion. By the end of 1847, the remaining servants, many of whom had served in the palace for 20 or 30 years, were dismissed. 147 van loads of material were removed to Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, and Windsor Castle. According to one of the earliest historians of the Pavilion, John George Bishop, ‘the interior was so demolished it looked more like a Barracks than a Pavilion.’

In 1849 the Commissioners of Woods and Forests raised a bill to sell or demolish the Pavilion. Initially, demolition seemed the most likely outcome. George IV had regarded the Pavilion as a product of his unique vision, and had not expected the building to survive long after his death. And who would want to buy such a building? The Pavilion was regarded by many as vulgar and tasteless. This had been memorably expressed over 25 years earlier by William Cobbett.  Having dubbed it ‘The Kremlin’, Cobbett wrote a violent description of the recently completed palace in 1822:

‘Take a square box, the sides of which are three feet and a half, and the height a foot and a half. Take a large Norfolk-turnip, cut off the green of the leaves, leave the stalks nine inches long, tie these round with a string three inches from the top, and put the turnip on the middle of the top of the box. Then take four turnips of half the size, treat them in the same way, and put them on the corners of the box. Then take a considerable number of bulbs of the crown-imperial, the narcissus, the hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and others; let the leaves of each have sprouted to about an inch, more or less according to the size of the bulb; put all these, pretty promiscuously, but pretty thickly, on the top of the box. Then stand off and look at your architecture. There! That’s “a Kremlin !”‘

A political radical, Cobbett’s scorn for the Pavilion was fuelled by political motivations, but many would have sympathised with his description. The building had many detractors in Cobbett’s time, and many more by the 1840s. Unfashionable, and lacking royal favour, who would acquire such a building?

An Artful Acquisition

Portrait of Lewis Slight, 19th century (FA001117)

The  purchase of the Pavilion for the people of Brighton is largely due to the efforts of one man: Lewis Slight, Clerk to the Commissioners of Brighton. The Town Commissioners were the local authority of the day: a group of 112 wealthy men elected by local rate payers. In 1846 the Commissioners had set up a committee to consider options for preventing the sale or disposal of the Pavilion, but while the Crown had not formally stated its plans for the palace, it could do little more than watch the Pavilion being emptied. When the bill for the sale of the Pavilion was presented in the House of Commons on 21 June 1849,the Commissioners were horrified by its implications. The bill proposed to:

‘…sell or otherwise dispose of or to pull down the same, and to sell the Materials thereof, and to sell demise, or otherwise dispose of the land and hereditaments aforesaid comprising the site of the said Royal Pavilion and the lawns and Grounds thereof and to apply the residue of all money received in and towards the expenses incurred or to be incurred of repairing, improving and enlarging Her Majesty’s Palace Called Buckingham Palace.’

A town meeting was held in Brighton, and 7,406 signatures were raised in a local petition. This delayed the Bill and allowed fresh negotiations between the town and the Crown to begin. These were lead on behalf of Brighton by Lewis Slight, who was instrumental in persuading the lead Commissioner of Woods and Forests, Lord Carlisle, that the Pavilion ought to be sold to the town. On 17 July, Slight signed an agreement to purchase the Pavilion for £53,000. This is equivalent to £4.5 million pounds in today’s money.

Although an enormous sum, Slight seems to have pulled off a remarkable deal by convincing Carlisle to support the town’s purchase. Although the Pavilion may have been an unpopular building, it occupied a prime piece of land in a thriving seaside resort. It is likely that the government could have obtained a higher price for the Pavilion; it was widely rumoured at the time that the local building firm Cubitt was prepared to offer £100,000 for the estate.

But Slight’s efforts were not appreciated by all of the town. A number of Town Commissioners objected to the purchase, and, in particular, Slight’s handling of it. In early December, a draft bill authorising the purchase was rejected and a demand was made that the sale should be reconsidered. Slight, however, announced that he had already signed a contract for the sale, and rejected the decision with remarkable coolness. In presenting his contract to the Commissioners, Slight asserted:

‘I have great pleasure and pride in submitting to you this agreement, because whatever may be the decision of the inhabitants at the meeting, they cannot deprive me of the pleasure which I feel in placing the property within your reach.’

Displaying his contempt for his opponents, Slight struck out from the draft bill all the names of those Commissioners who opposed the purchase of the Pavilion, and replaced them with his own.

In spite of this opposition, the purchase was approved by a popular vote shortly before Christmas. A loan of £60,000 was obtained from the Bank of England, and, the following year, on 19 June 1850, the Pavilion became the property of the people of Brighton.

The only problem now was to find something to do with it.

You can read more about the History of the People’s Palace in Part 2.
Kevin Bacon
Digital Development Officer

Personality of the Month – Henry Solomon (1794-1844)

Photograph of Henry Solomon taken from History of the Brighton Police 1838 – 1976

Whether you believe in them or not, ghost stories abound at this time of year, and one of Brighton’s most dramatic concerns the spectre of Henry Solomon, the town’s first chief of police. He was murdered in March 1844 and his spirit is said to haunt the old cells – now the Old Police Cells Museum– in the basement of Brighton Town Hall.

Solomon was involved with Brighton’s Police Force from its early days. Born in 1794, he moved to Brighton in 1821. A watchmaker by trade, he opted for a life of municipal service and held a number of positions in the town, Inspector of Nuisances and Inspector of Gas Lights among them. He married the daughter of Emanuel Hyam Cohen, head of one of Brighton’s most prominent Jewish families and, in 1838, became the town’s first chief constable.

Solomon’s death was brutal, unexpected and apparently without motive. The catalyst was the arrest, on 14 March 1844, of petty criminal John Lawrence, who had been spotted attempting to steal a roll of carpet from a shop in St James’s Street. Lawrence was taken to the police station, located in the newly built Town Hall, where Solomon began to question him. Reports suggest that Lawrence became agitated during this process and that Solomon asked him to sit by the fire for a few moments to gather his thoughts. Lawrence impulsively grabbed a poker from the hearth and struck Solomon over the head with it, causing, according to the Brighton Gazette, ‘a mortal fracture, rupture and wound’. Although there were three other officials in the room at the time, it seems no one was able to restrain him.

Brighton Gazette, 21 March 1844

The chief constable was treated by doctors at the scene, before being taken to his home in Prince’s Street, near the Royal Pavilion. He died the following morning. Local papers described the incident in graphic detail, including the moment Solomon ‘fell bleeding to the floor’. There was even speculation that he may have survived had he been wearing a top hat.

Brighton Herald (2nd edition), 6 April 1844

Solomon’s standing in Brighton was such that thousands turned out to join the funeral procession that took him to the Jewish Burial Ground in Florence Place. A fund was set up to provide support for his wife and nine children: over £1,000 was raised, of which £500 was given by the Brighton Town Commissioners and £50 by Queen Victoria herself. Meanwhile, Lawrence was found guilty of murder and, on 6 April, executed in Horsham in front of a large crowd.

Find out more about the history of Brighton’s Police Force

Kate Elms, Brighton History Centre