The life and works of Sir Charles Barry

by Alfred Barry

To the Commissioners appointed to superintend the Completion of the New Palace at Westminster.

Great George Street, 6th February, 1849.

My Lord and Gentlemen,—The time is now arrived, when I deem it necessary to call your attention to a matter of great personal interest to myself. I allude to the remuneration for my past services as architect of the New Palace at Westminster.

As I am now in a position to prove the inadequacy of the amount of the sum originally proposed to me, and the insufficiency of the grounds upon which that proposition was made, I feel that I ought not any longer delay to request an early settlement of my claims.

You are doubtless aware that the proposition originally made to me by the Government in 1839 was, that I should receive the sum of 25,000l. for the labour and responsibility to be imposed upon me in the superintendence, direction and completion of the intended edifice, and that I was induced to accede conditionally to that proposition, in the belief that it was made to me in the absence of a due appreciation of the enormous extent of that labour and responsibility, and that any attempt on my part, at that time, to prove the inadequacy of the sum proposed would have been fruitless. I was further induced to take this course from having then entered upon the duties of my appointment as architect of the New Palace, for more than nineteen months, when I had already made extensive and costly arrangements to enable me to carry on the works; so that if, instead of acceding conditionally to the proposition, I had adopted the alternative of relinquishing the employment, which at the time occurred to me, I could not have done so without a considerable sacrifice. I preferred, therefore, to postpone all further application on the subject, until I should be in a condition to prove incontestably the full extent of my services, and then to rely upon the Government for a just and liberal determination of the question.

As it is possible that you may not be acquainted with the whole of the circumstances under which this proposition was made to me, I think it right to trouble you with the following short narrative of the transaction:—

When my original design for the New Palace at Westminster had been approved, and the original estimate had been subjected to a searching examination by the department of Woods and Works, and some discussion also, as I was informed, had taken place in a Committee of the House of Commons respecting my remuneration, the Government, in 1837, conferred upon me the appointment of architect, to carry into effect that design, but without making any stipulation whatever relative to the remuneration for my services; and I was ordered to proceed immediately with the work, which I accordingly commenced on the 3rd of July in that year.

As this order was conveyed to me unconditionally, I had no reason to doubt but that my remuneration would be of the customary amount.

On the 1st March, however, in the year 1839, I had the first official intimation that such was not proposed to be the case, in a letter, which I then received from the Office of Woods, enclosing a copy of a letter to that effect from the Lords of the Treasury to the Commissioners of Woods, &c., of the 29th of the preceding month, no explanation having been required of me, nor any previous communication even made to me, upon the subject.

The purport of this letter from the Lords of the Treasury was to concur in a recommendation of the Commissioners of Woods, made in a Report to their Lordships on the subject of my remuneration in February, 1838, and to convey to those Commissioners the official sanction of the Government for acting upon it. The recommendation was to the effect that the sum of 25,000l. would be a fair and reasonable remuneration for the labour and responsibility to be imposed upon me in the superintendence, direction and completion of the intended edifice; and the Commissioners of Woods stated that they were of that opinion, after having given their best consideration to “all the circumstances of the case, the extent and importance of the buildings, the nature and description of the several works, the very large expenditure contemplated in my estimate, and the period within which it was proposed that such expenditure should be incurred.”