Diplomatic London in 1900: Foreign Embassies

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Arthur H. Beavan started his survey of London's foreign embassies and consulates in Imperial London, first published in 1901, with a reference to the recent Boxer Uprising in China:

"In 1900 the doubled-walled city of Pekin presented to the world a remarkable spectacle.

Shut up within the space where stood their Legations in amicable proximity, a community of diplomats fought for weeks against hordes of bloodthirsty Boxers until the long-delayed relief arrived, and the allied forces entered the capital.

United for self-defence during that terrible time of suspense, petty differences and rivalries ceased, and the Concert of Europe, in China at any rate, was a living fact.

Strangely that incident compares with the history of Embassies in England.

Men like Pepys continually mention the bitter feuds, jealousies, and other fatal encounters between the leading Ambassadors' retainers, even in the streets of London.

One such he describes, when a fight for precedence arose, just after Charles the Second's accession, between the French and the Spaniards, when the latter, though greatly outnumbered, got the best of it, much blood being shed.

The question of precedence was continually cropping up, and the wits of every successive Court Chamberlain, particularly in James I's reign, were exercised to devise some means of amicably settling the difficulty.

It has, however, since the Vienna Congress Treaty of 1815, been agreed between the Powers, that Ambassadors shall take precedence according to the date of the official notification of their arrival, an obviously simple way of solving the problem.

In the year Queen Victoria ascended the throne there were only some twenty Foreign Ministers, ie Ambassadors proper, Envoys Extraordinary, or Ministers Plenipotentiary, - residing in Great Britain.

The list has considerably changed in character since then, and the Legations are located very differently.

In 1837, Prussia, Sicily, Sardinia and Lucca, Bavaria, Hanover, Saxony, and Wurtemburg were represented separately, but united Germany and Italy did not exist, and neither China nor Japan was diplomatically dreamt of.

Considerable state prevailed at the Embassies; this was particularly evinced at the Coronation, when their equipages created a great sensation, and called forth columns of eulogistic description in the journals.

The coach of Marshal Soult, Ambassador Extraordinary for France, was apparently the most magnificent; a gorgeous affair of French manufacture, the colour a rich cobalt relieved with gold, the panels superbly emblazoned with the Marshal's Arms, the lamps of richly-chased silver, the cornice and large ducal coronets of the same metal at each corner, the lining of the coach nankeen satin pricked out with scarlet, and the harness completely overlaid with the richest silver furniture.

Embassies in the troubled East are still semi-fortresses; but in London the only thing that distinguishes them from an ordinary private mansion is the flagstaff, which, on rare occasions, bears their national flag.

I will describe only the American and the Chinese Embassies, two nations at the opposite poles of civilization; and just briefly refer to some of the others.

Their secretaries, judging by my own experience, would treat any reasonable request to see what there is to be seen of their Legations, with courteous compliance.

America, in respect of its British Legation, occupies an unenviable and anomalous position.

Every other great Power gives its Ambassador a fine mansion, which by continuous use becomes the real Embassy.

But the Minister of a country numbering some 70,000,000 souls is compelled to hire a "furnished house," while his "chancellerie " is separately located, as it has been for years, in Victoria Street, S,W.

For some not quite apparent reason, Congress has always declined to acquire a suitable Embassy for the nation; and each successive Representative, his tenure of office beyond four years being uncertain, dare not purchase a house and settle down; nor, if he ventured to do so, could he depend upon his successor taking the property off his hands; in other words, the shadow of a coming Presidential election is ever before him!

The "chancellerie" is quite unworthy of the United States of America.

It occupies the ground floor of a dingy house, where en suite are: the waiting-room, shabbily furnished and sadly in need of the painter and house-cleaner, its old-fashioned book-cases filled with ponderous volumes of State, "Notes of Despatches," etc., over the mantelpiece an engraving of the President, and the visitors' book lying on the table under the window; the visitors' room; the Naval Attache's department; the room, puritanically plain, but with complete appointments, reserved for the first secretary of the Embassy, Mr. Henry White; the clerks' office, over which Mr. Charles Hodson, an Englishman, has presided for the last twenty-two years; an office where the second Ambassadorial secretary, Mr. John R. Carter, reigns; and the Hon. Joseph H. Choate's sanctum, an "invisible room" access to which is necessarily restricted, with no pretension to luxury, and whose sole adornment is a number of portraits of ex-Presidents, etc.

No. I, Carlton House Terrace, the Ambassador's residence, belongs to Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Viceroy and Governor-General of India; but the freehold, like that of the rest of the grand Terrace, is Crown property.

It is in a part of London fraught with political associations.

Mr. Gladstone at one time lived at No.11, and also at No.12.

The German Embassy is at No. 9; and No. 1 used to be occupied by Sir Charles Seeley, Bart., M.P. for Lincoln, and at another time by Mr. George Tomline, Member for Shrewsbury, in his day a well-known personage in the House of Commons.

Entering the beautifully-carpeted hall of No.1, two fine heads ot the great mountain sheep of Asia, projecting from the walls, claim attention from the fact that they were brought over from Pamir, the"roof of the world," by the then Hon. George N. Curzon, in 1894.

On the left, looking out towards Pall Mall, is Mr. Choate's study, a cosy and quite unimposing room, with couches, easy-chairs, writing-tables, etc., a few readable volumes scattered about, a modest but select collection in the small book­cases, several photographs of American scenery, and plenty of nick-nacks.

Adjoining the study, and facing St. James' Park, is the dining­room, whose crimson wall-paper, and carpet, chairs, and settees of the same warm tint, produce a comfortable effect, while a table big enough to accommodate a host of friends, reminds one that an important duty of an Ambassador is hospitality, and that Mr. Choate has no desire to shirk it.

Up the broad white staircase, adorned with many fine engravings after Gainsborough, Reynolds, etc, and approached by a wide corridor whose roof is supported by four scagliola pillars, is the chief drawing-room, which occupies the entire width of the house, and from its four windows commands a splendid view across the park.

It is an imposing salon, with polished oak floor, white walls and ceiling, and old-fashioned furniture.

At the other side of the house, and at the opposite end of the corridor, is a fine music-room, used for balls, etc, necessarily rather bare of furniture, the prominent object being a magnificent ebony Steinway "Grand."

Like most " furnished houses," No. 1 is somewhat lacking in ornaments, and shall we say feminine trifles, that go to make a place look home-like.

But it is a stately and appropriately situated residence for an Ambassador; and on Independence Day, when the Stars and Stripes float in solitary grandeur over the roof, and exotics fill every corner of the noble rooms, when music discourses on the terrace, and a thousand or more gaily-dressed guests, American and British, enjoy Mr. and Mrs. Choate's hospitality, few mansions in London look handsomer and brighter.

Situated in the one only wide "avenue" of which London can boast, No. 49, Langham Place, midway between All Saints' Church and Regent's Park, is one of the largest of the stately buildings that abound there.

Its rooms, from the entrance-hall upwards, are all on a noble scale, and one experiences a delightful feeling, unknown in many modern houses, that, let the household be ever so numerous, there is room for all.

Sir Chilchen Loh Feng-luh has brought its interior arrangements considerably more in accordance with European ideas than his predecessor in office.

Still it is not difficult to perceive that the Chinese method is different from ours, inasmuch as all superfluities are ignored, nick-nacks, pictures, ornaments, etc, being kept in the background or dispensed with altogether, so that the rooms are never overcrowded.

The drawing-room has a white and gold ceiling, whence depends a splendid chandelier; the furniture is European, that essentially European article, a piano, being a conspicuous object; and the chief reminder of the Flowery Land is a piece of superb embroidery glowing with rainbow-colours, also some handsome china vases on black and gold stands.

Behind this apartment is His Excellency's study, but even here there is nothing characteristically Chinese except some of the many books in which he delights.

Downstairs, the dining-room, architecturally of the type usual in the Prince Regent's period, has nothing remarkable about it, except its size.

At the back of the hall, where the house stretches out a good distance, is the "chancellerie," or office; and quite in the rear is the sanctum of Sir Halliday Macartney, K.C.M.G., the English secretary.

During the last sixty years or so, most of the Legations have several times changed their quarters, with a marked tendency to centre in the W. and S.W. of London.

Austro-Hungary, now occupying a handsome and spacious mansion, 18, Belgrave Square, (formerly in the occupation of Sir Henry Meux, Bart., the well-known brewer), used to be housed in Chandos Street, Cavendish Square.

Belgium is at Harrington Gardens, South Kensington, but was formerly at Fitzroy Square, and subsequently at Portland Place.

The Brazilian Envoy Extraordinary resided in 1837 in York Terrace, Regent's Park, afterwards in Baker Street and Cavendish Square, and is now at 55, Curzon Street, Mayfair.

Denmark has wandered from Grosvenor Place, Wilson Terrace, S. W., and Lowndes Square, to Pont Street, S.W., consistently keeping to the west end of town.

The French Embassy has a small history of its own.

In or about the year 1693, its Government purchased Monmouth House, Soho Square.

Several of its Ambassadors lived there, and it is a matter of history that in 1764, Count de Guerchy caused a new chapel to be erected in the garden for the use of his household.

Again, when Talleyrand, Guizot, and Sebastiani successively were representatives of their country at the Court of St. James', Manchester (Hertford) House, Manchester Square, was their head-quarters.

Then came the move to Albert Gate House, once the property of Hudson, a financial king in the early days of railways.

Undeniably the French Embassy stands on one of the finest sites in London, though the edifice itself, according to our exalted modern ideas, is hardly worthy of it; but in Hudson's day it was the largest private residence in town.

A considerable extension of the Embassy has just been completed; the improvements include a splendid ball-room, which, in conjunction with the fine suite of salons on the first floor, now makes the French Embassy worthy of its great nation.

The German Embassy, 9, Carlton House Terrace, is rivalled only by that of France in splendour of position, and surpasses it in the fine views of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament, obtainable from its upper windows.

It is a spacious corner mansion, the "chancellerie" at the rear of the noble entrance-hall large and convenient, and the lofty upper rooms on the ground floor splendidly furnished.

In 1837, Germany (i.e. Prussia) was at 6, Bolton Row, Curzon Street, Mayfair; and in 1848, at No. 9, Carlton House Terrace.

Holland was located years ago in Bryanston Place, and in the year 1848 in Great Cumberland Street; in 1860 it moved to Lowndes Square, and finally to 118, Eaton Square.

One would have thought that Japan has hardly had time in its short representative career to make many changes in its locality, but it has successively moved from Cavendish and Sussex Squares to 4, Grosvenor Gardens, S.W.

Here His Excellency Baron Tadasu Hayashi shows his good taste in the decorations of the fine reception-rooms on the first floor, in the shape of inimitably executed delineations of birds, etc., Japanese embroideries, and paintings of swimming carp amid bamboos and patient storks; also by inlaid tortoiseshell work, and valuable cloisonne vases of sombre colour.

Persia's Minister some years ago occupied a charming double-fronted house in Holland Park, Kensington, set in the midst of trees and flowers.

The Legation then went to Ennismore Gardens, S.W., and has recently moved to 4, Buckingham Gate, S.W.

Portugal has never migrated from the neighbourhood of its old haunts, Baker Street and Seymour Street, W., and is now at Gloucester Place, Portman Square.

The Russian Embassy for years has been an institution of Belgravian London.

(Editor's note: for a selection of legacy goods and folk art from Russia, visit Russian Store.)

In 1837 it was at 37, Dover Street, Piccadilly, and when it made its one only move, it was to the familiar corner house at Chesham Place, S.W.

Spain has wandered during the last sixty-four years from Edward Street, Portman Square; from York Street, Portman Square; from Hereford Street, Park Lane, to find rest at No. 1, Grosvenor Gardens, S. W.

Sweden and Norway were housed, at the time of Queen Victoria's accession, in Upper Belgrave Street, Pimlico, and later on in Halkin Street, W., and in Grosvenor Place, and in1901 at52, Pont Street, S.W.

Turkey, ever conservative, has moved its Embassy but once during the present reign, i.e. from 2, Sussex Place, Regent's Park, to the corner house, No. 1, Bryanston Square, where it has been for many years, though it is rumoured that a move to a more central position is contemplated.

Next: Diplomatic London in 1900: The Consulates