Houses of Parliament in 1900: The House of Commons

Arthur H. Beavan's comments on the House of Commons from Imperial London, published in 1901, are reproduced here:

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"There was a period, well within the memory of middle-aged men, when but little difficulty was experienced by any one desirous of hearing a debate in the House of Commons, provided he knew a Member, or was possessed of a little tact, a reasonable amount of patience, and, well, some loose cash.

The process was simple.

A Speaker's or Member's order, obtained beforehand, of course made smooth the path; but failing that, the said stranger entered the precincts through Westminster Hall, and by way of St. Stephen's Hall gained the Central Hall, whence, on sending in his card to a Member and thereby giving plausible evidence of having business to transact, it was easy enough to pass on unchallenged to the sacred Lobby itself.

If the particular Member named was not forthcoming, a diplomatic interview with one or other of the affable officials who guarded the approach to the Speaker's and Strangers' galleries, generally terminated, after more or less of waiting, with admission to the coveted position within the House.

But all is changed.

Beyond the Central Hall no one may pass until his aforesaid M.P. puts in an appearance, and conducts him away; and even the M.P. is often powerless to obtain a seat in the gallery for his most influential constituent, as orders to be present at a debate are subject to a ballot, and for a special occasion are regarded, in this year of grace, 1901, as a great privilege.

Except that there are no cross benches, that the Speaker sits in a raised and canopied chair, and that there is a gangway, the main arrangements of the Commons somewhat resemble those of the House of Peers; but its small dimensions, excellent for hearing, no doubt, and its general inadequacy to accommodate anything like the full complement of its Members, is apparent to the most unobservant.

No other nation, great or small, houses its people's representatives so shabbily, and with so little attempt to provide the most ordinary conveniences for transacting an empire's affairs.

In Paris, Berlin, Washington, Madrid, Rome, and Vienna, the Members have ample space, comfortable seats and desks, though in the last-named city they have played a quite unexpected part in the art of obstruction, the "irreconcilables" last year, having by means of continually banging their desks, raised such an awful din, that the legislature business of the dual empire was for the time hopelessly paralyzed.

On entering the House from the Lobby, the Speaker's chair, with the gallery immediately above it, occupied by reporters, faces the Bar.

The Press Gallery, for half-a-century, was looked after by an official, the late Mr. Henry Wright, who acted as a kind of Cerberus of the passage-way which led to the reporters' boxes. In the olden times, when a dining-room for the members of the press was unknown, he catered for them, and half-starving shorthand writers had either to accept his menus, or leave it.

Outside the Bar, on a level with the floor, on each side are seats for the Diplomatic Corps, distinguished strangers, etc., while a balcony for the use of Members runs right and left of the Speaker's chair, uniting at the opposite end in a deep gallery, the first row of which is reserved for exalted visitors.

Behind is a fair amount of space for those who have been lucky enough to obtain a Speaker's order; and behind this, again, is an exiguous area for strangers admitted by Members' orders.

Ladies, like birds in a cage, are cooped up behind the brass trellis-work of a kind of large private box above the Strangers' Gallery; but they are more comfortable than they look.

Seats for the Ladies' Gallery are ballotted for by the Members, and no one may succeed in getting them oftener than once a week, the space being so limited.

A lift brings them from the lower level of the Palace, an obliging official has them in his special charge and is always willing to impart information as to the debates, speakers, etc., and very cosy teas are served to them (if they do not prefer the River Terrace for that refreshment) in commodious rooms adjoining their cage.

That tea on the Terrace is the more popular place with lady-visitors there can be little doubt, especially during some lovely summer, when, as in jubilee Year, and in 1900, we had hot weather not in samples, but in bulk.

The Terrace Tea is a social institution that has come to stay.

It is our legislators' higher education, revealing to them the fact that women indirectly mould the destinies of a nation, and that the grandest study of Parliamentary mankind is woman.

Technically, a Member's wife, sisters, cousins, aunts, and friends are strangers and pilgrims at St. Stephen's, but their weary journeyings are made easy for them, and after a personally-conducted tour through the Palace labyrinths, they are comfortably settled down at little tables in the open air, sheltered from the heat and glare, where they can see and be seen, and regaled with tea and bread-and-butter, or with ices and wafer-biscuits, strawberries and cream, cherries, etc., and somehow it is a fact that has not yet been satisfactorily accounted for, that the ladies thus entertained are invariably good-looking and very well dressed.

I have referred to the labyrinths of St. Stephen's; and without a guide a stranger would have as little chance of finding his way there as the exhilarated tripper has of reaching the haven of rest within the Maze at Hampton Court.

There is much to see.

There is the spacious Conference-room in the centre of the river-front; the Commons' libraries corresponding with those of the Lords in size and with the same outlook on the Thames, very comfortable, and with interesting portraits of distinguished statesmen on the panels over the bookcases.

Close to the Terrace is the chief smoking-room, a cheerful place with floor of encaustic tiles, walls of elaborately-designed china slabs, and cemented roof supported by clustered stone pillars.

Here is placed the Exchange Telegraph Company's annunciator, which enables Members sitting at their ease and worshipping at the shrine of Nicotiana to tell at a glance what, is going on in the House itself.

From the smokeroom there passed away not long ago a very familiar figure in the person of Mr. Montagu Scott, Member for Sussex, who almost made this part of the House his home, spending hour after hour here with a long cigar, for he was one of those rather eccentric individuals who seem to think that the chief object of life is the consumption of much tobacco.

In the present House of Commons, barristers, in or out of practice, predominate; next in order numerically come landowners and gentry, and lowest in the list are estate-agents and architects, two in number.

Among the names of members there are, in colours, a Black, a Gray, Green, Brown, and a White; ornithology is represented by a Schwann, a Finch, and a Martin; animals by a Bull, a Hogg, a Wolff, and a Hare; poetry by Burns, Milton, and Scott; trade by a Tanner, a Taylor, and a Butcher; the sea by a Beach; rural life by Hill, Hay, Dyke, Field, Flower, Moss and Mount; and the law by Wills, Bond, and Bill.

There are three dining-rooms, the middle one being called the Strangers'-room. Here a Member may bring guests, and not infrequently quite a large dinner-party assembles.

Another of these apartments goes by the name of the Irish-room, but as a matter of fact a large proportion of the Irish Members dine in the Strangers'-room.

Then there is the first room, as a rule left to the official Members of the House, who use a long oval table, and whose conversation is generally of a private and confidential nature relating to the prospects of and arrangements for the night's sitting.

There is a great deal of eating and drinking going on in the "best club in London."

During the Session of 1900, dinners, luncheons, teas, suppers, and bar-meals were served to the extent, in round numbers, of 67,000.

Consequently, much responsibility rests upon the Kitchen Committee, upon whom all arrangements connected with cuisine and cellar depend.

In former times the catering left much to be desired, and the cooking was very unsatisfactory; but grumbling is now unheard of, a negative tribute to the efficiency of the management.

As regards the cellar department, it has the largest area for the purpose in the land, and the stock of wines, including some rare port valued at a sovereign per bottle, is considerable.

In the matter of whisky, a specialty of the Commons, there is the Irish vat holding about three hogsheads of matured "cratur," and the new Scotch receptacle, an oval tun as high as a tall man, and measuring sixteen feet round, containing some seven hundred gallons of a blended spirit ten years old.

Then there are the various committee-rooms to peep into, the division lobbies behind the Speaker's end of the House to see, St. Stephen's Hall, which stands upon exactly the same foundations of the old House of Commons, St. Stephen's Crypt (by special permission), the Cloister Court, the Star Chamber Court, through which the Members enter the House by a private door and staircase, the Speaker's Court and the Speaker's abode, for the House of Commons resembles a very large family, having not only a Father but a dignified Master of the Household who lives on the premises in a comfortable residence of some seventy rooms at the northern end of St. Stephen's Palace, its frontage on the grass lawn that divides it from Westminster Bridge, and under the shadow of the Clock Tower.

The Speaker's house includes a drawing-room and a fine state dining-room, forty-five feet in length, and enriched with carvings and gilding.

It has some interesting portraits of past Speakers; over the mantel-shelf are presentments of Charles Shaw Lefevre (Viscount Eversley); of Henry Brand and John Evelyn Denison, and amongst other portraits of "first Commoners" is one of Harbottle Grimston, who continued to sit although his election was never confirmed by Charles II.

In these rooms take place the receptions and dinners given by the Speaker during the Session.

"Mr. Speaker's" position is not only most honourable, but it is of ancient origin, and his introduction is attended with curious formalities, the survival of past elaborate ceremonies.

As soon as his election is declared, his proposer and seconder are required to take him by the hand and lead him up to the Chair, where, standing on the steps, he is expected to thank the House for the honour bestowed upon him.

He then sits down, and the Mace, which, pending the election, has been suspended upon its hooks where it always reposes when the House is in Committee, is now placed upon the table as an evidence that the Commons are in full session.

The House then adjourns.

On the next appearance of "Mr. Speaker-elect," he is in semi-state dress, i. e. a court-dress, and a bob-wig like a barrister's.

A procession is formed, the Speaker-elect first, Serjeant-at-Arms and Mace following, and proceeds to the Lords, where the Royal Commissioners announce the Sovereign's confirmation of her faithful Commons' choice.

Having exchanged the "bob" for a "fullbottomed" wig, and having added the dignified flowing robe, "Mr. Speaker," as he is now termed, takes the Chair as duly qualified Head of the House of Commons.

The post is hardly an enviable one; his trials are numerous, and his powers of endurance are often tried to the uttermost.

Only when the House is in Committee can he hope for anything like repose.

Usually, Mr. Speaker Gully takes the chair about 3 p.m., and with the exception of a brief interval (half-an-hour) for dinner, practically has to sit for nine hours at a stretch, hearing the chimes at midnight, and often at a later hour.

It is almost a relief to him when some point of order is raised, and he has to stand up, for when the Members are on their best behaviour and there are no unseemly interruptions, it is tedious work to preside over the House.

Could he but join in the debates, or at pleasure arrest the intolerable flow of prose that he is doomed to listen to for hours, he might find life worth living by reason of his noble residence, a salary of £5000 a year, and the prospect of a peerage and retiring pension of £4000.

However, his lot is easy compared with that of his predecessors in Cromwell's Parliament, when, after a long nine days' debate, the House sat through one entire night up to 10 p.m. the following day, at which hour the Speaker was compelled to leave the Chair - and he expired a few weeks later.

His successor, Mr. Lisleborne Long, then sat for four days continuously, and he, too, succumbed and died a few days afterwards.

How far back the Parliamentary institutions of Great Britain date, and how thoroughly engrained is our National conservatism, is shown by the curious fact that the Royal assent to all Acts of Parliament continues to be given in Norman French, "caviare to the general," in the words "Le Roy le veult," and the present Speaker has told us that since the year 1650 large additions and modifications of rules have been made and that the principle of order, courtesy, and freedom of debate come down to us from the seventeenth century, if not from a much earlier date.

The laws of procedure and etiquette in the Lords are comparatively simple, and easy to master; but in the Commons they are most intricate, and to become perfect in them entails the study of years.

Some of these unwritten laws must appear almost childish to our foreign visitors, especially those relating to that mystic parliamentary article, the hat.

When a Member is seated, he keeps his hat on; when he moves, even a yard, he takes it off; replacing it the moment he sits down; when he crosses from one side to another, or leaves the House for a moment, he bows to the Chair, like some very devout ritualist in passing the altar.

This, no doubt, quickly becomes a matter of habit; but when the "question" has been put or is about to be put, by the Speaker, unwary Members are apt to become entangled in the rigid forms of the House.

Last year an amusing incident arose on this point, which caused a sensation at the time.

The victim was Mr. C. P. Scott, Member for Leigh in Lancashire, who, at the close of a debate, was speaking, and was twice called to order by the Chair.

In his perplexity, he lost his nerve, and sat down while the Speaker explained and when he had finished his explanation, the Member for Leigh, who had not yet recovered his presence of mind, remained sitting, although he had not completed his speech.

The Speaker naturally concluded that he had said all he had to say, and at once "put the question."

Mr. Scott, not remembering what he ought to do with his hat, rose, sat down, and rose again in his vain attempt to expostulate.

At last, seated and covered according to rule, he gained a hearing, and the Speaker replied; but it was too late to continue the debate; the fatal two minutes' sand-glass on the clerks' table was turned, the grains ran out, the door was locked, the Speaker put the question for the second time, and the division was taken.

This Member's fate was a peculiarly hard one.

He sat down because he thought the Speaker wanted him to.

The Speaker thought it was because he had finished!

This occurrence gave rise the following day to a perplexing series of problems, viz.:

When the Speaker has put the question, what happens if a Member sits without his hat? if he sits with his hat? if he stands with his hat? if he stands without his hat? and finally, if he happen to have no hat?

The reply to the last query being, that, like Mr. Gladstone on a certain occasion, he must borrow one, however badly adapted to the shape of his head."

Next: Official, Legislative, and Diplomatic London in 1900: Foreign Embassies