A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV

by Justin McCarthy; Justin H. McCarthy

For a long time a strong feeling had been growing up among philanthropists and reformers of all kinds against the practice of impressment and against the discipline of the "cat," as the flogging instrument was commonly termed. The philanthropists and the reformers generally were met by the old sort of familiar argument. They were told that it would be utterly impossible to man a navy if the press-gang were to be abolished, and equally impossible to keep the Navy up to its work and in decent condition if seamen were no longer liable to the punishment of the lash. The innovators were asked whether they knew better how to raise and maintain an efficient Navy than did the naval authorities, on whose shoulders rested the responsibility of defending the shores of England from foreign invasion. Those who made themselves conspicuous by their advocacy of what were then beginning to be called humanitarian principles were roundly accused of want of patriotism, and it was often suggested that they were anti-English in their sentiments and their instincts, and were persons who would probably, on the whole, rather welcome the foreign invader than lend a hand to drive him back. The spirit of humanity and of reform was in the air, however, and in the reformed Parliament there were many men who had as good a gift of eloquence as the best of their opponents, and who could not be frightened out of any purpose on which they had set their minds and hearts. In 1835 the Government of Lord Melbourne brought in a measure for the abolition of the press-gang {267} system and for limitation of compulsory service in the Navy to a period of five years. This measure not only had its own direct and immediate beneficial effects, but it also did much to prepare the way for the abolition of flogging. Many years, indeed, had to pass before this latter reform could be accomplished, but it was clear that, when the manning of the Navy no longer brought with it its captures from the criminal classes, the time was coming for the gradual adoption of a system of discipline more in accordance with the principles of humanity and the character of a noble service. As we have seen in all previous experiences of reform, the forebodings of the anti-reformers proved to be utterly false alarms in regard to the manning and the discipline of the Navy. We have seen some foreign wars since the days of William the Fourth, and we have heard alarms of foreign invasion again and again. But the Navy, under its improved conditions, has never been in want of volunteers to man it, and the greatest lovers of peace have always proclaimed it to be the surest and best defence of the country. There were many leading men in the House of Commons since those days who persistently demanded a reduction in the Army on the very ground that England could safely defy any foreign foe so long as she had the bulwark of such a Navy.

[Sidenote: 1840—The new Houses of Parliament]

One great, solid, and picturesque memorial is destined to associate the reign of William the Fourth with the history of English architecture. We speak of the Houses of Parliament which stand on the banks of the river, and thus have the Thames on one side and Westminster Abbey on the other. The great range of halls, towers, and terraces, arches, squares, and court-yards, which, until comparatively recent days, were often described in common phrase as the New Houses of Parliament, owe their origin and their plan, although not their complete construction, to the reign of William the Fourth. On the evening of October 16, 1834, the old buildings in which the Lords and the Commons used to assemble were completely destroyed by fire. The fire broke out so suddenly on that evening and spread with such extraordinary rapidity that many of those {268} who were engaged in occupations of one kind or another in various parts of the buildings had much difficulty in escaping with their lives. The flames spread so fast that in an almost incredibly short space of time the two Houses of Parliament, and almost all the offices, residences, and other buildings attached to them, were seen to be devoted to hopeless ruin. For a while it seemed almost certain that Westminster Hall itself must be involved in the common destruction, and even the noble Abbey, with its priceless memorial treasures, appeared destined to become a mere ruin of shattered stones. The arrangements for the extinguishing of fires were rude and poor and inefficient in those days when compared with the systematized service which is employed in our own, and for a considerable time those who hurried to the spot, charged with the duty of combating the conflagration, appeared to do little better than get in each other's way and only give new chances to each fresh eruption. The tide in the river was very low, too, when the destroying work began, and it was hard indeed to bring any great body of water to bear upon the flames. As the tide rose, however, it became easy to make more effective efforts. At last it was found that Westminster Abbey might be considered perfectly safe. So was Westminster Hall, that noble historical enclosure, the Hall which saw the trial of William Wallace, of Charles the First, of Somers, and of Warren Hastings, the hall which celebrated the coronation of so many kings, which boasts of being the oldest chamber in Europe held in continuous occupation up to the present day, the largest hall in Europe unsupported by pillars. It was preserved, to be the grand entrance and vestibule to both the Houses of Parliament. But the chambers in which, up to that day, the Lords and Commons had conducted their legislative work were utterly destroyed.

[Sidenote: 1834—Burning of the old Parliament Houses]

At first it was assumed, as is almost always the assumption in the case of any great conflagration, that the work of destruction had been the outcome of an incendiary plot, and for a while a wild idea spread abroad that some modern Guy Fawkes had succeeded where his predecessor had {269} completely failed. But it was soon made clear and certain that the whole calamity, if indeed it can be called much of a calamity, had been the result of a mere accident. A careless workman, aspiring to nothing more than a quick release from his labor, and not destined to the fame of the aspiring youth who fired the Ephesian dome, had brought about the ruin which bequeathed to England and to the world the vast and noble structure of Westminster Palace. The workman was engaged in burning up a number of the old, disused wooden tallies which once used to be employed in the Court of Exchequer, and he heaped too large a bundle of them on the fire. At an unlucky moment a flame suddenly blazed up which caught hold of the furniture in the room, and in another moment set the whole building on fire, and then created the vast conflagration which wrought so much destruction.

We have expressed a certain doubt as to whether the burning of the old Houses of Parliament is really to be regarded as a national calamity, and the doubt is founded partly on the admitted fact that the chambers which existed before the fire were quite unequal in size and in accommodation to the purposes for which they were designed, and partly on the architectural magnificence of the buildings which succeeded them. The Lords and Commons found accommodation where they could while preparations were in progress for the building of new and better chambers, and a Parliamentary committee was soon appointed to consider and report upon the best means of providing the country with more commodious and more stately Houses of Parliament. The committee ventured on a recommendation which was considered, at the time, a most daring piece of advice. The recommendation was that the contract for the erection of the new Houses of Parliament should be thrown absolutely open to public competition. Nothing like that proposal had ever been heard of under similar conditions in English affairs up to that time. What seemed to most persons the most natural and proper plan—the seemly, becoming, and orderly plan—would have been to allow the sovereign or some great State {270} personage to select the Court architect who might be thought most fitting to be intrusted with so great a task, and let him work out, as best he could, the pleasure of his illustrious patron. The committee, however, were able to carry their point, and the contract for the great work was thrown open to unrestricted competition. Out of a vast number of designs submitted for approval, the committee selected the design sent in by Mr. Barry (afterwards Sir Charles Barry), the famous architect, who has left many other monuments of his genius to the nation, but whose most conspicuous monument, assuredly, is found in the pile of buildings which ornament the Thames at Westminster.

[Sidenote: 1840—The seating capacity of the Commons]

Only the mere fact that the selection of the design for the new building was made during the lifetime of William the Fourth connects the reign of that monarch with the history of Westminster Palace. It was not until the reign of Queen Victoria had made some way that the towers of the palace began to show themselves above the river; but the new principle which offered the design for the work to public competition, and the fact that Mr. Barry's design was chosen from all others, oblige us to associate the building of the new chambers with the reign of a sovereign whose name otherwise was not likely to be identified with any triumph of artistic genius. We must not set down to any defects in the architect's constructive skill the fact that the new House of Commons was almost as inadequate to the proper accommodation of its members as the old House had been. The present House of Commons does not provide sitting accommodation for anything like the number of members who are entitled to have seats on its benches. Even if the galleries set apart for the use of members only, galleries that are practically useless for the purposes of debate, were to be filled to their utmost, there still would not be room for nearly all the members of the House of Commons. But at the time when the new House was built, the general impression of statesmen on both sides seemed to be that, if the chamber were made spacious enough to give a seat to every member, the result would be {271} that the room would be too large for anything like practical, easy, and satisfactory discussion, and that the chamber would become a mere hall of declamation.

At that time almost all the business of the House, even to its most minute details of legislation, was done in the debating-chamber itself. The scheme which was adopted a great many years later, and by means of which the shaping of the details of legislative measures is commonly relegated to Grand Committees, as the Parliamentary phrase goes, had not then found any favor with statesmen. The daily work of the House was left, for the most part, in the hands of the members of the Administration and the leading members of the Opposition, or, in cases where the interests of a particular class, or trade, or district were concerned, to the men who had special knowledge of each subject of legislation. It was therefore argued, and with much plausibility, that to construct a chamber large enough to hold seats for all the members would be to impose an insupportable, and at the same time a quite unnecessary, strain upon the energies and the lungs of the comparatively small number of men by whom the actual business of the House had to be carried on. This argument was used with much effect, not many years before his death, by Mr. Gladstone himself, and there can be no doubt that it maintained itself against the many successive proposals which have been made from time to time for the enlargement of the representative chamber. In most other legislative halls, on the Continent or in the United States or in Canada, each member has his own seat, and finds it ready for his occupation at any time; but in the House of Commons on great occasions the ordinary member has to come to the House at the earliest moment when its doors are open, hours and hours before the business begins, in order to have even a chance of obtaining a seat during the debate, and a large number of members are fated, whatever their energy and their early rising, to sigh for a seat in vain. The question has been raised again and again in the House of Commons, and all manner of propositions have been brought forward and plans suggested for the {272} enlargement of the debating-chamber, but up to the present the condition of things remains just as it was when the new Houses of Parliament were opened in the reign of Queen Victoria.

[Sidenote: 1840—Ladies in the House of Commons]