Whitehall in 1900: The War Office
Arthur H. Beavan here deals with the War Office, in Imperial London, first published in 1901:
Some of the leading Government Departments were the War Office in Pall Mall and
the Admiralty in Whitehall.
The former building was erected for the Duke of York, brother of George III,
and called after him; but after his death in 1767 it became a subscription club,
and was designated the Albion Hotel, fore-runner of the stately buildings that
then made Pall Mall an avenue of club-houses.
With the Boer War fresh in people's memory, it was pathetic to recall the lobby at
the west end of the War Office, a dull little yellow-papered room, where on long
narrow frames were pinned the ominous lists of killed and wounded, that quenched
the hopes and too often realized the fears of all classes during that dreadful
time of suspense.
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