Images of Speaker Walpole and his house

By the time of the fire in 1834 the Speaker was living on site in a substantial Gothic mansion built by Wyatt in 1807 which replaced the Speaker’s earlier residence. Its fine facade overlooked the Thames and it extended along the north-east side of Cloister Court into what had been the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft. The Chapel of St Stephen, where the Commons sat, was directly above. When he entertained to dinner, the Speaker’s chair was therefore directly beneath his ‘official’ chair in the Chamber above.

Charles Manners Sutton was the Speaker at the time of the fire. The historical collection of Speakers’ portraits, begun by his predecessor Speaker Abbott, was saved as the building burned. In 1859 when Speaker Denison moved in to the newly-completed Speaker’s House, the picture collection was once again displayed, and the tradition of each new incumbent’s portrait being added to this collection has continued ever since.

This is the meeting of the First Reformed Parliament on 5 February 1833, following the passing of Earl Grey’s Reform Bill the previous year. The legislation radically altered the constitution of the Commons, providing a redistribution of seats to take account of demographic changes – for example enfranchising heavily populated towns which had been unrepresented previously. This important occasion was recorded by Sir George Hayter in a large canvas (in the National Portrait Gallery), for which this is an early study, and was the last painting of the Commons before the building was destroyed by fire a year later.