Nation and Empire in the Government Architecture of Mid-Victorian London: the Foreign and India Office Reconsidered Author(S): G

Home , Architecture of England, Matthew Digby Wyatt, William Coningham

Nation and Empire in the Government Architecture of Mid-Victorian London: The Foreign and India Office Reconsidered Author(s): G. Alex Bremner Source: The Historical Journal, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Sep., 2005), pp. 703-742 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4091720 Accessed: 17-08-2016 02:21 UTC

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This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Wed, 17 Aug 2016 02:21:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Historical Journal, 48, 3 (2005), PP- 703-742 ? 2005 Cambridge University Press doi:Io.IoI7/SooI8246Xo5004632 Printed in the United Kingdom

NATION AND EMPIRE IN THE GOVERNMENT ARCHITECTURE OF MID-VICTORIAN LONDON: THE FOREIGN AND INDIA OFFICE RECONSIDERED*

G. ALEX BREMNER

University of Edinburgh

A BSTRAC T. In 1856 the British government held an international competition for the design ofpublic offices to be located near J/hitehall and the houses ofparliament. Comprising a Foreign Offce and War Office, the project was radically altered in 1858 when the War Office component was abandoned and replaced with a new India Office. The controversy that surrounded this competition and its aftermath has attracted the attention of scholars for decades, not least for its importance to the history of Victorian architecture. The current study seeks a wider interpretation of this project by examining the way it became a conflict over ideas concerning British identity and nationhood. It is argued that, at a time when Britain had reached the relative height of its international power, these buildings were seen as a means of not only improving London's urban environment but also celebrating its unrivalled political and economic status. The

India Office, often neglected by historians, was significant in this regard, symbolizing the reach and authority of the British empire. Here the Foreign and India Office are reconsidered for what they reveal about British national/imperial self-perception and its representation in architecture during the mid- Victorian period.

I think I may safely enough venture to predict that so important a competition will now occasion no small amount of talking, and, quite as likely as not, of writing also. Building News, 1857

Department of Architecture, School of Arts, Culture and Environment, The University of Edinburgh, 20 Chambers

Street, Edinburgh, EHi IJZ. * An earlier version of this article received the Hawksmoor Medal from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (2002). I would like to thank Andrew Saint, Peter Mandler, Michael H. Port, Kate Crowe, and the anonymous referees for their assistance, comments, and criticisms. I am also indebted to the Gates Cambridge Trust; Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art for supporting the research, writing, and revision of the text. Figure 4 has been reproduced by kind permission of the National Archives, London, and Figure 6 by the India Office Archives, British Library, London.

703

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With Britain's rise to global pre-eminence following the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815) came significant changes in its civil and bureaucratic administration. By the middle of the nineteenth century a new mentality prevailed. Acute population growth, increased industrial development, the overcrowding of cities, martial incompetence, and an expanding territorial empire all led to the realization that the hitherto ad hoc, even ancient procedures regarding civil, military, and colonial organization in Britain required urgent reform.1 The increased demand on space to facilitate these reforms and their attendant bureaucracies was also fraught with difficulty. In turn came new, if debatable, attitudes toward metropolitan improvement - i.e., the cleansing and aggrandizement of the city through the building of sewers, the widening of roads, and the erection of grand and dignified public edifices. The buildings used to house the departments of foreign and colonial affairs (a collection of eight terraced houses on Downing Street) are a case in point. By the I850s these buildings had not only become wholly inadequate for these rap- idly expanding areas of government but were also in a ruinous state of repair.2 When the decision was finally taken in 1856 to abandon them in favour of a modern, purpose-built facility, the question of how this new building would (or should) embellish the metropolis became a leading consideration. It was acknowledged that such a building would have to be distinguished and imposing, asserting Britain's geo-political power in visual and spatial terms. For this reason, the project - which became known as the new Foreign Office - was seen by many as an unparalleled opportunity to improve the public image of the city.3 If London was indeed the capital of a worldwide commercial and territorial empire during this period, then how, if at all, such a high-profile public project reflected this condition is an important question. It has often been suggested by historians of British architecture that the new government offices complex in Whitehall was expressive of Britain's unrivalled political power during the nineteenth century. However, little scholarship exists that has cared to elaborate this assumption. Where it does, the analysis is either too heavily based on official sources or falls short in examining the wider issues that influenced contemporary estimations of the project.4 To date no study has adequately considered the full range of debate that involved these buildings, nor the themes concerning national

1 Britain's population doubled between 18oo and 1850, as did the percentage of its population living in towns and cities with over Ioo,ooo people. See R. Woods, The population history ofBritain in the nineteenth century (Cambridge, 1995), p. Io; F. M. L. Thompson, 'Town and city', in F. M. L. Thompson, ed., The Cambridge social history of Britain, I: Regions and communities (Cambridge, 1990), p. 8.

2 Parlianzenta, papers (I839), XIII, pp. 233ff; Builder, 26July 1856, p. 414. 3 For instance, the Building Necws noted that the project was one of the most important architectural works ever undertaken in England. See Building ew,s (BN), 15 May 1857, p. 476. 4 E. K. Morris, 'Symbols of empire: architectural style and the government offices competition', Journal of Architectural Education, 32 (1978), pp. 8-13; M. H. Port, Imperial London: civil government building in London, 1851-1915 (New Haven and London, 1995). See also N. R. Bingham, 'Victorian and Edwardian Whitehall: architecture and planning, 1869- 1918' (Ph.D. thesis, Bedford College, London, 1985), ch. I, passim.

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identity that were instrumental in shaping them as works of art in the public imagination. Moreover, the comparative neglect of the India Office as a significant, if belated, component of the project is indicative of the way the history of these buildings (including the Home Office and Colonial Office) has been all but reduced to that of the 'Foreign Office'. In orthodox terms, the history of the Foreign Office has been characterized as a dispute between 'Goths' and 'Classicists' - known as the 'battle of the styles' -and the now celebrated encounter between the then prime minister, Lord Palmerston (1784-1866), and the building's principal architect, George Gilbert Scott (1811-78). More specifically, this debate has been framed as an impasse between an older generation of classically indoctrinated intransigents, with steadfast ideas on the nature and purpose of public buildings, and a younger, more idealistic generation of rising professionals who sought to reconstitute the expressive vocabulary of British secular and religious architecture.5 Although these views have helped to make sense of a particularly vexed and complex situation, they have tended to narrow our view, forcing us to focus on the roles played by the various individuals involved and to regard the entire project as typifying a stage in the stylistic evolution of Victorian architecture. This tendency has restricted and therefore marginalized wider influences and implications that were often central to the conception of such projects, including the expression of national prestige. Extraneous influences such as the articulation of national identity are certainly observable in buildings, monuments, and urban planning schemes of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. Monuments such as the Imperial Institute (1887-93) and the Victoria Memorial (1901-12) epitomized a worldview that was shaped by nationalist and imperial concerns.6 However, there exists a longstanding assumption that this link or association between architecture and empire is not really apparent until the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century - the period now referred to as the 'age of empire'. It seems that this assumption is derived from the broader historical conclusion that the mid- nineteenth century was a period of 'anti-imperialism'.7 In comparison to the

5 The historiography of this interpretation may be traced back to well-known accounts such as Charles Eastlake's A history of the gothic revival (1872). For a detailed discussion of the encounter between Palmerston and Scott see D. Brownlee, 'That "regular mongrel affair": G. G. Scott's design for the government offices', Architectural History, 28 (1985), PP. 159-82. The best account of this debate in relation to the Foreign Office is ch. 20, '"Such was the battle of the styles"', in I. Toplis, The Foreign Office: an architectural history (London, 1987), pp. 200-7. 6 G. A. Bremner, '" Some Imperial Institute": architecture, symbolism, and the ideal of empire in late-Victorian Britain, 1887-93', Journal of the Society ofArchitectural Historians, 62 (2003), pp. 66-7; idem, '"Imperial monumental halls and tower": Westminster Abbey and the commemoration of empire, 1854-1904', Architectural History, 47 (2004), pp. 251-82; T. Smith, '"A grand work of noble conception": the Victoria Memorial and imperial London', in F. Driver and D. Gilbert, eds., Imperial cities: landscape, display and identity (Manchester, 1999), pp. 21-39. 7 This is known as the 'Bodelsen thesis'. See C.A. Bodelsen, Studies in mid- Victorian imperialism (Copenhagen, 1924; 2nd edn, 1960).

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184OS, 185os, and I86os, the late nineteenth century does indeed appear to be a chauvinistic phase in British history, characterized by 'jingoism' and other forms of conspicuous imperial ardour. But it does not necessarily follow that the mid- Victorian era was neither influenced nor shaped by imperial and/or colonial concerns. To be sure, the period 1839 to 1870 was one of frontier instability and vigorous debate over the methods and value of British colonial rule, but it must be remembered that these years also witnessed the recasting of Britain's future as an imperial nation. It was during this period that Britain openly acknowledged its 'duty' towards empire, recognizing its apparent responsibility as a force for good in the world, as well as its desire to extend (by force where necessary) its global trade networks.8 As historians have begun to argue, the changing context of Britain's political and economic status during this period necessitates a more detailed examination of the effects of empire on British national life.9 In this respect the new government offices project is revealing. Here architecture was seen to play an increasingly important role as one of the most imposing and visually prominent markers of cultural achievement, giving shape and substance to ideas that were otherwise immaterial. The purpose of the current study is to reconsider the Foreign and India Office buildings as artefacts that engaged with and reflected contemporary notions concerning British national and imperial identity. The intention of this approach is to point out the extent to which perceptions of British power and prestige were active in the minds of Britain's governing and educated elite during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. It is hoped that such an examination will propose an alternative means by which to measure and therefore demonstrate the concern for empire during this period. Traditionally, historians have focused on official government documents and/or dispatches in attempting to gauge the effects of and enthusiasm for 'empire' during this period. However, the current study argues that the creative arts are just as revealing in their own way, disclosing how a nation wishes itself to be represented and perceived (both to present and

8 The anti-imperialist myth of the mid-nineteenth century was broken down byJohn Gallagher and Ronald Robinson as early as 1953. For instance, see J. Gallagher and R. E. Robinson, 'The imperialism of free trade', Economic History Review, 6 (1953), PP. 1-15; idem (with A. Denny), Africa and the Victorians: the official mind of imperialism (London, 1961), pp. 1-26;J. S. Galbraith, 'Myths of the "little England" era' (first published I96i), in A. G. L. Shaw, ed., Great Britain and the colonies, 1815-1865 (London, 1970), pp. 27-45; G. Martin, '"Anti-imperialism" in the mid-nineteenth century and the nature of the British empire, 1820-i870', in R. Hyam and G. Martin, Reappraisals in British imperial history (London, 1975), pp. 88-120; J. Darwin, 'Imperialism and the Victorians: the dynamics of territorial expansion', English Historical Review, 112 (1997), pp. 614-42;J. Y. Wong, Deadly dreams: opium and the Arrow War (i856-186o) in China (Cambridge, 1998); D. G. Boyce, Decolonisation and the British empire, 1775-1997 (London, 1999), pp. 44-69; see also P.J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British imperialism (2 vols., London, 1993). 9 D. Powell, Nationhood and identity: the British state since 18oo (London, 2002), p. 94; C. A. Bayly, 'The second British empire', in R. W. Winks, ed., Oxford history of the British empire (OHBE) (5 vols., Oxford, 1999), v, p. 7I. For an account of the eighteenth century, see K. Wilson, The sense of the people: politics, culture and imperialism in England, 1715-1785 (Cambridge, 1998).

This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Wed, 17 Aug 2016 02:21:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE FOREIGN AND INDIA OFFICE RECONSIDERED 707 future generations) in spite of any problems or doubts it may have experienced at the administrative, economic, and/or diplomatic level. In what follows, these influences and implications are explored. Particular attention is given to the nature of the debate over style, and its reception in newspapers, pamphlets, journals, and other forms of public and professional literature. It is argued that through a specific reading of these sources (what they reveal about British national and imperial consciousness), a wider and more representative interpretation of the way both the Foreign and India Office buildings were understood outside official government circles can be reached. Such a reading is intended to demonstrate how these buildings were appreciated in ways over which neither the architects nor the government had control. As we shall see, part of the function of public and monumental architecture during this period was to present an idealized portrait of society. In this context architecture was seen as a form of cultural discourse in its own right, framed by questions concerning political economy and the expression of local, national, and imperial identities.

The events and circumstances that surrounded the government offices competition and its aftermath are well known. To recap briefly: the government invited designs for new Foreign Office and War Office buildings in September 1856. Considerable debate in the media, coupled with growing official indifference, caused the first phase of the competition to end in October 1857 with no action having been taken. The change to a tory government in February 1858 saw the appointment of a parliamentary select committee chaired by the conservative MP and president of the Ecclesiological Society, A.J. B. Beresford Hope (1820-87). Criticizing the 'injustices' of the competition, Beresford Hope's committee re- commended that the judges' decision be overturned and a new architect chosen.10 With this the War Office component was shelved and Scott (along with his gothic design) was appointed architect in November I858 (Fig. i). In January of the following year the India Office was included (taking the place of the War Office) and the former East India Company architect, Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820-77), engaged to assist in its design. However, Palmerston, who had little sympathy for gothic architecture, came to power again in June 1859 and so began the famous struggle between the goths and classicists, Scott and Palmerston. It ended a little over two years later, in July I86I, with the House of Commons voting in favour of Scott's revised classical design, which had been forced upon him by Palmerston, resulting in the building we see today.11

10 It was suggested that the new architect be chosen from one of the initial awardees. The competition had a total of seventeen awardees, three for the block plan proposals and seven each for the Foreign Office and War Office components. See Parliamentary papers (1858), xI, pp. 3-7. 11 For a full account of the government offices project see Toplis, The Foregn Office. For further reading see also C. Hussey, 'Foreign Office's threatened glory', Country Lfe, Feb. (I964), PP. 272-5;

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Fig. I. George Gilbert Scott's original design for the Foreign Office, 1857. (Source: Builder, Aug. 1857.)

At the time, anxiety over the 'appropriateness' of these buildings was under- standably high. It was widely appreciated that a project of this magnitude would not only reflect the 'taste' of the nation but also the artistic reputation of its capital. Even the 'capricious' Palmerston could see that such a complex of buildings would be 'for much more than Two Hundred Years' either 'an ornament or the contrary' to the metropolis.12 Thus, the 'question of style' became vexed and widely publicized. It polarized opinion and antagonized the role of public architecture in Britain, becoming not just a dispute over architecture but, in effect, a struggle for the expression of national character. Among the concerns that sparked this row was the proximity of the new buildings to well-known historic monuments. In justifying his decision to appoint Scott architect, Lord John Manners (1818-1906), then First Commissioner of Works, highlighted the sanctity of and reverence for Westminster Abbey and the houses of parliament (what he called the genius loci) as a leading consideration.la Essentially, the problem drew attention to the formal differences between the buildings clustered in and around Westminster and those beyond the western

G. Stamp, 'The nation's drawing-room: restoring the Foreign Office', Apollo, July (1992), pp. 23-29; M. H. Port, 'Government and the metropolitan image: ministers, parliament, and the concept of a capital city, 1840-1915', in D. Arnold, ed., The metropolis and its image: constructing identities for London, c. 1750-195o (Oxford, i999), pp. 101-26; A. Seldon, The Foreign Office: an illustrated history oftheplace and its people (London, 2000). 12 Palmerston to Scott, 26 July 1859, London, British Library, Palmerston papers (Private Letter Book), Add. MS 48581, p. 13. In his A history of the gothic revival Charles Eastlake described Palmerston as a man burdened with 'caprice and prejudice ... who had no sort of claim to connoisseurship'. 13 Parliamentary debates (1859), CLII, CO1l. 519.

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Fig. 2. Part of the site plan given to competitors. Marked here can be seen important buildings such as the Banqueting House and Horse Guards (centre left) as well as Nelson's Column, the National Gallery, and St Martin-in-the-Fields (right). The area emphasized by the dark line at the far left was part of the site being considered for redevelopment. (Source: Parliamentary Papers, XLI (Sess. 2, 1856).)

edge of the City of London - the dilemma being that the site for the new offices lay directly between the two. On the site plan given to competitors, significant landmarks such as Westminster Abbey, St Margaret's church, Westminster Hall, the hospital, and the new houses of parliament (all gothic) were shaded in at one end, and buildings such as Inigo Jones's banqueting house, the Horse Guards, Nelson's Column, St Martin-in-the-Fields, and the National Gallery (all classical) were highlighted at the other (Fig. 2).14 The advocates for a classical or Palladian style building were inclined to uphold traditional associations between civil society and architecture. They believed that the new building should emulate the works of those great English masters such as Jones, Wren, Gibbs, Vanbrugh, and Hawksmoor, as well as those eminent examples of 'acknowledged beauty' along Whitehall such as the Banqueting House and the Horse Guards. In a rebuke to Beresford Hope's claim that gothic was the 'national style', the Liberal MP William Coningham insisted that gothic architecture was, in fact, a European, medieval, and therefore 'barbarous' style, the time for which had evidently 'gone by'.15 Coningham, like many of his generation, recognized a time-honoured synergy between classical architecture and modern civilization. He believed, along with a number of influential architects, including William Tite, T. L. Donaldson, and Robert Kerr, that Italianate architecture had its own, more established claim to the representation of

14 See 'Plan no. 2' in Parliamentary papers (Session 2, 1857), XLI, p. 221. 5 Parliamentary debates, CLII (1859), col. 269.

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government.16 They pointed to prominent examples in London such as William Chambers's reconstruction of Somerset House (1775-96), a building that had recently been extended by the Office of Works architect, James Pennethorne (1801-71). Built in the tradition of those past masters, this building was considered the perfect model for public offices, and, with Pennethorne's additions, England's response to Napoleon III's new state apartments at the Louvre. Not only did its classical dignity represent what many considered to be a 'national style' but its imposing monumentality also gave a degree of permanence to the oft-alluded correlation between the British empire and that of ancient Rome.17 For many years Somerset House had been associated with civic, national, and imperial government and administration, with its programme of allegorical sculpture referring to British naval power and imperial ambition.'8 The classical style had also been widely employed throughout Britain's colonial empire, especially in gubernatorial buildings, and was the chosen language of civic architecture in the capital cities of Britain's major continental rivals, especially Paris.19 So entrenched had this tradition become by the mid-nineteenth century that Kerr was able to call it 'the usual recipe of English public buildings'.20 But the intellectual foundation of this mentality essentially belonged to the rationalist and utilitarian worldview of the eighteenth century. The regular and orderly principles of classical architecture were seen to symbolize and reflect civilized values including order, economy, and secular probity - values that were at the heart not only of English civil administration but also the interests and traditions of the City.21 This fact, according to one enthusiast, was evidence enough that London

16 William Tite (1798-1873) was a Liberal MP and architect of the recently completed Royal Exchange (1844). T. L. Donaldson (1795-1885) was co-founder of the RIBA and first professor of architecture at University College London. 17 J. Newman, 'Somerset House and other public buildings', inJ. Harris and M. Snodin, eds., Sir William Chambers: architect to George III (New Haven and London, 1997), p. I 14; and B. Bergdoll, European architecture, 175o-189o (Oxford, 2000), p. 67. For the relationship between empire and classical culture during the time of Chambers, see P. Ayres, Classical culture and the idea ofRome in eighteenth-century England (Cambridge, 1997), PP. 15-17. 18 J. Newman, Somerset House: splendour and order (London, 1990), pp. 15-29. 19 Buildings such as the new state apartments added to the Louvre and Tuileries palaces (1852-7) by Ludovico Visconti and H.-M. Lefuel had received extensive coverage in professional journals and were held up as leading models for public architecture by influential authorities in Britain. See Builder, ii Mar. 1854, PP. 129-31, I8 Mar. 1854, pp. 137-40, 5Jan. I856, pp. I, 7, II Apr. 1857, pp. 206-7. The winning designs of the original competition, those by H. E. Coe and H. H. Hofland (Foreign Office) and Henry B. Garling (War Office), were modelled on this example and that of the H6tel de Ville. See Builder, i Aug. 1857, pp. 434-5. Henry-Russell Hitchcock has noted that the New Louvre was well known to English architects and the interested public owing to the Paris International Exhibition of 1855. He has also suggested that close contact between British and French administrators during the Crimean War would have pointed up the inadequacies of Downing Street accommodation. See H.-R.

Hitchcock, Architecture: nineteenth and twentieth Centuries, ed. N. Pevsner (London, 1958), p. I59. 20 Robert Kerr, in J. Fergusson, History of the modern styles, 3rd edn, revised by R. Kerr (2 vols., London, 1891), 1, p. 293; T. Metcalf, An imperial vision: Indian architecture and the British Raj (London, 1989), pp. 8-16. 21 Not only had the City's financial sector developed an architectural identity based on the stable and familiar forms of the classical tradition but the evolving connections among political patronage,

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(including Westminster) was a city built upon an architecture of 'practical effectiveness', an architecture that called to mind 'the monuments of Roman greatness, and even suggest[ing] a comparison between that people and the English nation '.22 The advocates for a gothic style building were also keen to press their case, only in a more radical way. Playing on popular themes of an idealized national past, this 'enthusiastic, romantic-class', as Kerr disdainfully described them, sought to link architecture and identity directly.23 For the leading gothic protagonists, it was inconceivable that a Renaissance-style palazzo be built so close to the great 'national' structures of Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, and that 'gorgeous palace which Sir C. Barry has joined to them.'24 George Gilbert Scott's proposal generated much enthusiasm for its marrying issues of propriety in architecture with those of progress and identity. If the new government offices were an unparalleled opportunity to improve the public image of London, then the arguments of Scott and other revival theorists proved seductive in presenting architecture as a vital and revolutionary force in the transformation of modern English society. Despite submitting a design that was more French and Italian than English, Scott emphasized this point in his competition statement by pointing out the apparent failure of English classical architecture to connect 'with our own country'. It had fallen short, he argued, because it had demonstrated 'little or no progress or development'.25 'Going from generation to generation with a purely exotic style - a style which never warms up in us one spark of enthusiasm or generous emotion', he asked, 'how can we wonder that our public buildings are the dull, lifeless masses they generally are, and that the public takes no kind of interest in them?'. For Scott, gothic architecture provided a way out of this apparent inertia. Its ability to adapt to contemporary circumstances, coupled with its distinctly native associations, would facilitate the bridging of the gothic revival from the religious to the secular domain.26

financial influence, and the rise of the 'gentlemanly' middle classes had also established classicism as the style of choice for London clubs. See I. S. Black, 'Spaces of capital: bank office building in the City of London, 1830-1870', Journal of Historical Geography, 26 (2000), pp. 355ff. 22 Remarks on a national style in reference to the proposed Foreign Office (London, I86o), p. 8. This pamphlet was one of several that were published just prior to the new session of parliament where a decision was expected regarding the final form of the new offices. This decision was not taken untilJuly 1861. See Parliamenta~y debates (1861), CLXIV, cols. 507-39. Palmerston had earlier made a similar distinction by asking where in London gothic architecture was to be found. In his defence of classicism he cited buildings such as the Bank of England, the Mansion House, the East India House, the Royal Exchange, Somerset House, the Customs House, the British Museum, the National Gallery, University College, etc. - all located in and around the old City of London. See Parliamentary debates (1859), CLV, col. 933. 23 For a discussion on gothic culture in mid-century Britain see C. Brooks, The gothic revival (London, 1999), pp. 292-309. 24 Saturday Review, 23 May 1857, p. 474. See also BNr, 29 May 1857, p. 547. 25 See Scott's statement published in BJ'; 14 Aug. 1857, pp. 852-3. 26 Scott had also argued that the gothic style was used freely in secular and domestic architecture during the middle ages. See G. G. Scott, Remarks on secular and domestic architecture, present and future

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He was supported in this view by other interested enthusiasts. In the third week of May 1857, over a month before the designs were judged, a public lecture on the competition was given at Binfield House by the Rev. Charles Boutell, honorary secretary of the Architectural Museum and the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society.27 The objective of Boutell's lecture, it seems, was to seize the initiative in favour of the goths by attempting to persuade the judges of the incontrovertible merits of modern gothic architecture.28 Attended byJohn Ruskin and several prominent members of the architectural firmament, Boutell began his lecture by noting the importance of the present competition in relation to the widely felt desire for 'the improvement of great cities'. The result of these efforts, he argued, would be measured by their national objectives, that is, by how they would 'enhance the greatness and reputation of the English name'. The point of Boutell's reasoning was to broadcast the idea that it was a patriotic duty to im- press England's buildings with a distinctly national and historic character. This concern for the development of a more relevant, expressive, and therefore meaningful architecture (one that could be identified with a particular time and place) had grown in popularity by the I850s. The young John Pollard Seddon (1827-1906), for instance, put the question to an audience gathered at the South Kensington Museum in January 1858: 'May our national character ... be read upon our works ?' Adapting Ruskin's aphorism that buildings were 'sermons in stone', Seddon sought to promote the idea that a country's architecture should be interpreted as its 'history' in built form (Fig. 3). Like Scott, he claimed that architecture over the past 300 years had lost its way because it was no longer 'national' in its formation or expression. It had neglected its duty in communi- cating the greatness and progress of Britain. Criticizing what he considered to be the pointless, arcane traditions of classical ornament, he noted: Our own day, our own wars in the Crimea and in India, are at least as fertile as any other; and our children will thank us more for telling them what did happen amongst us - how our cavalry charged at Balaclava, how our Indian officers kept at bay whole rebel hosts and wrought just vengeance on them - than that we should waste our time in telling them what we think the Greeks thought about Venus and Mars.29

(London, 1857). Like Pugin, he was not entirely uncritical of revivalist architecture, especially its earlier phases. See G. G. Scott, A plea for the faithful restoration of our ancient churches (London, 1850). 27 This lecture was paraphrased in retrospect in BN, 12 June 1857, pp. 613-15. Reporting on his second lecture less than a week later, the Builder noted that 'His purpose was to excite sympathy for the Gothic and national style, and antipathy to what he considered the exotic character, monotony, and general barrenness of invention common to the designs called "Anglo-Classic".' Builder, 23 May 1857, p. 283. 28 This was certainly the impression gained by one correspondent in the Builder (I7 Sept. 1859, p. 622). 29 J. P. Seddon, 'Ancient and modern architectural ornament contrasted', BN, 29 Jan. 1858, pp. 109-12. This statement is somewhat ironic as one of the reasons given for abandoning the project in the first place was that the Indian Mutiny was considered too important to waste money on new public offices. In the wake of the Mutiny, however, it was clear that a new 'India Office' would have to be established.

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Fig. 3. The kind of architecture Seddon espoused: Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward's Venetian Gothic proposal for the Foreign Office (1857). As the lower storeys of the building illustrate, they intended to decorate the fagade with high-relief sculpture depicting national and historic events. (Source: Builder, Oct. 1857.)

Seddon was not alone in his condemnation of public architecture in Britain. Commenting on the competition entries, the Building News complained: we consider all ornament, as far as possible, should have reference to the purposes of the structure, and be characteristic ... Thus, groups and emblems would illustrate the various countries of the world - treaties such as that of Penn with the Indians, those for the abol- ition of the slave trade, the surrender of the sons of Tippoo Saib, the intercourse between Runjeet Sing and the Governor General of India would afford materials for high reliefs ... These are things which speak to the eye and the intellect, but a countless series of vases wearies, and is tolerable only in a garden.30

Such grievances pointed to an anxiety over the function of architecture as a public art in Britain. For revivalist architects in particular, if the dignity of the nation was to be reflected in its public buildings then a style that echoed truly national ideals was required. Writers and critics such as the Oxford historian and

30 BN, 22 May 1857, p. 502. T. S. R. Boase has noted that subjects of this nature had already influenced and were acceptable to popular taste by the early nineteenth century. See T. S. R. Boase, 'The decoration of the new palace of Westminster, 1841-1863', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 17 (1854), p. 342.

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antiquary Edward A. Freeman (1823-92) agreed. Freeman was a committee member of the Oxford Architectural Society and among the more outspoken advocates of the gothic revival movement. With Scott's design (and the gothic cause) threatened by Palmerston's return to power inJune 1859, Freeman penned two articles in which he raised the stakes of the revivalist argument considerably.31 Amalgamating the key issues as he saw them, Freeman sought to reaffirm the claim of the gothic style by giving it a wider and more scholarly contour. Like Boutell before him, Freeman reiterated a number of prejudices that had been present in revivalist theory since at least the 182os, especially those developed by John Henry Parker and the university architectural societies.32 He reminded his readers that gothic architecture came 'from that century which is the turning point of our history. In the thirteenth century our national architecture took its definite shape, alongside of our laws, language, and political institutions.'33 He argued that gothic architecture grew out of a certain kind of racial temperament, the so-called 'Teutonic', and was not only the outward expression of English identity but also a ready and palpable source of historical continuity.34 However, despite Freeman's intentions to shore up the revivalist cause, there was one fundamental point he overlooked: Scott's design was neither 'English' nor 'Teutonic'. Only months after Scott's appointment, Parker, president of the Oxford Architectural Society and a 'valued friend' of Scott, attacked his design for its foreign or 'Lombardic' overtones.35 Others, however, were not so ped- antic. Following Parker's logic, a leader in the Building Nfews sought to remind the 'archaic Gothicists' that if English and Italian gothic were 'both children' of Byzantine architecture, having reached the provinces of Anjou and Poitou (once 'English possessions') via Venice on its way to England, then they were as foreign to one another as 'two members of the same family'. This could just as easily apply, it was added, to Normandy and Calais, Guinea, Tangier, Malta, India, and even Hong Kong. What was needed was an architecture of intrinsic beauty

31 David Brownlee has noted that Scott himself had made extensive comments on the draft version of at least one of these articles (Vational Rev iew, Jan. i86o) and assisted in having the other one (Times, 19 Oct. 1859) published. See Brownlee, 'That "regular mongrel affair"', n. 89, p. 181. "2 J. M. Frew, 'Gothic is English: John Carter and the revival of the gothic as England's national style', Art Bulletin, 64 (1982), pp. 315 19; S. Bradley, 'The Englishness of gothic: theories and in- terpretations from William Gilpin to J. H. Parker', Architectural History, 45 (2002), pp. 325-46. 33 Times, 19 Oct. 1859, pp. 10-11. 34 'We, as Teutons', he implored, 'prefer to cleave to Teutonic architecture; as Englishmen, we select by special preference its English variety ... Gothic architecture is the architecture of the Teutonic race ... The architecture of England arose alongside of her laws, her constitution, her language. They are all the work of that wonderful thirteenth century, which made England what she still is.' National Review, IO (186o), pp. 24-53. For an account of Freeman's liberal racialism see C.J. W. Parker, 'The failure of liberal racialism: the racial ideas of E. A. Freeman', HistoricalJournal, 24 (1981), pp. 825-46. "5 Gentleman's Magazine,Jan. (1859), pp. 62-5. He was not the only one; see also letter to editor signed 'Archaeologist' in the Times, i Dec. 1858, p. 12. Palmerston also made this point in parliament on Ii Feb. 5859. Parliamentary debates (1859), CLII, cols. 27I-2.

This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Wed, 17 Aug 2016 02:21:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE FOREIGN AND INDIA OFFICE RECONSIDERED 715 and usefulness, one eclectic in spirit, not one based on 'narrow and jealous notions '.36 Looking for a more profound rationale in apology for the northern Italian character of Scott's design, the chairman of the Government School of Art at Birmingham, Sir Francis E. Scott (no relation), suggested that Italian gothic of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was perfectly consistent with the idea of government offices in London. 'Throughout the Peninsula', he claimed, architecture during this period was 'thoroughly in harmony with the genius of self- government and the commercial spirit'.37 Gothic architecture was 'the chosen style of free and popular communities'. Wherever gothic art arose it 'kept pace with the acquisition of popular rights, and the growth of public liberty'. In fact, he concluded, 'the life, the soul, the meaning of Gothic Art is Liberty! '.3 But his apologia was too little too late, having no effect on Palmerston's decision to force Scott to change his gothic design to a classical one. It is worth noting that Scott was no purist either. Like G. E. Street, William Butterfield, and numerous other contemporaries, he was rather more catholic in his approach than either Parker or Freeman seemed willing to accept. In both his original competition statement and his evidence before Beresford Hope's select committee, Scott had argued that English gothic should merely form a point de depart in the development of a new architectural style.39 In the years leading up to the competition, he had acquired an appreciation for continental gothic, particularly French, and had begun to experiment with its use.40 Apart from his Ruskinian sympathies, some of the reasons underlying this newfound appreciation can be gauged in the evidence he gave before Beresford Hope's committee. On the fourth day of hearings he was asked by the backbench MP and Halifax manufacturer, Colonel Edward Akroyd (for whose estate he had designed a church, All Souls' (1856-9)): 'Have you any views of what is or ought to be the national style of architecture ?' Scott's reply was straightforward: 'My individual opinion is, that it should be founded on Gothic architecture, as being the indigenous style, I will not say of England alone, but of that family of nations in which the modern civilization of Western Europe is vested; the Teutonic family; in each of the countries inhabited by the civilized nations of modern Europe. '41

36 BN, 2 Dec. I859, p. 1075. 37 F. E. Scott, Shall the new Foreign Office be gothic or classic? A plea for theformer (London, 186o), pp. 4-5- 3s Here he claimed: 'Is not that pre-eminently the style of LIBERTY ... in which unlimited vertical elevation and lateral extension are equally in harmony with the natural development of its principles of construction?' Ibid., p. 39. 39 B, 14 Aug. 1857, pp. 856-7. 40 See G. G. Scott, Personal and professional recollections, ed. G. Stamp (Stamford, 1995), pp. 204-12. He noted of his competition design that 'It so happens that the Italian cities contain numerous examples of street palaces of the date I have taken for my style, and that from these many useful lessons may be learned, which may be engrafted with advantage upon a more northern stock.' Times, 14 Feb. 1859, p. 6. 41 'Report from the Select Committee', Parliamentary papers (1858), xI, p. 7'.

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Importantly, this view was neither new to revivalist thinking nor to Scott himself.42 It had gained a following through the writings and theories of the university architectural societies, and critics such as Ruskin and Freeman. Scott knew Freeman's History of Architecture (1849) well.43 The one feature that seems to have appealed most to him was Freeman's attempt to penetrate the underlying causes of architecture by tracing through its development the effects of race, climate, and national character.44 In his numerous writings, as well as in his Royal Academy lectures, Scott spoke of gothic architecture as not only the 'indigenous style of our race' but also as 'the native architecture of our own family of nations'.4 It was this very concept - a concept that would later be developed by James Fergusson into the 'ethnography' of architecture - that informed his reply to Akroyd's question. For Scott, and a growing number of his revivalist colleagues, the gothic style in its 'developed' state had become a symbol of progress and civilization, a style common to those nations 'wholly or partially of Germanic origin, in whose hands the civilisation of the modern world has been vested'.46 As his original design for the Foreign Office demonstrated, Scott considered northern Italy as part of the 'family' too. Although Freeman was no 'imperialist',47 and Scott did not connect architecture with the idea of empire in any direct or specific way,48 it is clear that both considered the gothic style (with all its historic and cultural associations) appropriate for a building that was to represent the genius and authority of the British nation.

42 He had already said as much in his first lecture at the Royal Academy in 1855. See G. G. Scott, Lectures on the rise and development of mediceval architecture (2 vols., London, 1878), I, p. 17. 43 In A plea Scott describes Freeman's History as a 'masterly outline' (p. 7). 44 Influenced greatly by the idealist currents in German historiography and philosophy, Freeman's views on architecture were distinguished by his attempt to identify and correlate particular styles of architecture with specific cultural attributes. He considered gothic 'beyond all comparison' the noblest effort of the art of architecture. It contained that distinct 'vertical principal' which, in itself, he believed, was the hallmark of the ever advancing drive to progress that distinguished the 'northern genius' of the Teutonic and Christian races. See E. A. Freeman, History of architecture (London, 1849), pp. 295-320. For a discussion of Freeman's History ofarchitecture see W. R. W. Stephens, The life and letters ofEdward A. Freeman (2 vols., London, 1895), I, pp. 132-8. 45 Scott, Remarks, pp. 262-3. In some instances Scott's ideas are very close to those of Freeman. For example, see Scott, Lectures, I, pp. 5, 7, 17, 217-19, 275, 11, pp. 292-3, 309, 315. 46 Scott in Parliamentary papers (1858), xI, p. 71. 47 Freeman's objection to what became known as Imperial Federation was made clear much later in an article on the topic which appeared in Alacmillan's Mlagazine (April 1885). He did, however, entertain thoughts that there might be some kind of ovfzurotnreia (fellowship in civic rights) or a 'taking up of citizenship at pleasure' between places such as Great Britain, the United States of America, and Australia. See letter to Goldwin Smith, 19 Aug. 1888, in Stephens, Life, p. 384. 48 Despite this, it is worth pointing out that Scott was very much aware of the nature and extent of Britain's colonial empire. He had designed the Anglican cathedral at StJohn's, Newfoundland (1847), as well as a funerary monument to the governor of Victoria, Sir Charles Hotham (1857-8). While working on the India Office he was also engaged to design a funerary monument in Calcutta to Lady Charlotte Canning (1864). See A. Trumble, 'Gilbert Scott's "bold and beautiful experiment", part I: The tomb of Sir Charles Hotham in Melbourne', Burlington Magazine, Dec. (1999), PP. 739-48.

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III

If appeals to nationhood and the representation of cultural identity were made time and again in relation to the design of the new government offices, then where might we find more specific references to empire and Britain's position as a worldwide political power ? Some of this we have already seen in Seddon's call for a more explicit and communicative public architecture. This plea, however, was not entirely new. It must be remembered that ideas relating to the expression of 'national character' and, indeed, 'empire' in public architecture had been re- hearsed in one form or other over twenty years earlier in the rebuilding of the houses of parliament (destroyed by fire on 16 October 1834).49 If the liberties secured under the parliamentary system were a source of national pride, so too, it was claimed, should be the buildings in which those liberties were enshrined.50 The 'Royal Commission for Promoting and Encouraging the Fine Arts in the Decoration of the New Houses of Parliament' was established in November 1841 to coincide with this objective. Following the example of state patronage set by Ludwig I of Bavaria, its mandate was to encourage the development of a distinctly 'English' school of art that would focus on events of national and historical significance.51 Led by luminaries such as the Prince Consort, Charles Eastlake, Sir Robert Peel, and a host of other distinguished peers and statesmen, the commission's aim was not only to make suggestions for the embellishment of the new palace of Westminster but, in so doing, to elevate the moral and intellectual character of the nation through what were considered the instructive and inspi- rational capacities of art. Fundamental to this aim was the political economy of artistic endeavour, what the Art Union described as the progress and encourage- ment of the 'welfare of the social state by the exhibition of great actions'.52 With this noble view in mind, the first report from what became known as the Fine Arts Commission (1842) suggested that the 'Hall of Conference' between the two main chambers of the new building be decorated with scenes depicting 'the acquisition

49 For instance, see W.J. Rorabaugh, 'Politics and the architectural competition for the houses of parliament, 1834-1837', Victorian Studies, 18 (1973), p. I66; M. Port, 'The houses of parliament competition', in M. H. Port, ed., The houses of parliament (New Haven and London, 1976), pp. 20-52; A. Fredericksen, 'Parliament's genius loci: the politics of place after the 1834 fire', in C. Riding and J. Riding, eds., The houses of parliament: history art architecture (London, 2000), pp. 99-IIi; R. Quinault, 'Westminster and the Victorian constitution', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (TRHS), 2 (I992), pp. 79-104- 5o H. Brougham, 'The new houses of parliament', Edinburgh Review, 65 (1837), P. 174; A. Alison, 'The British school of architecture', Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 40 (1836), p. 228. 51 For a study on the wider influence of Ludwig's example on British art and the new houses of parliament, see E. L. Winter, 'German fresco painting and the new houses of parliament at Westminster, 1834-1851', HistoricalJournal, 47 (2004), pp. 291-329. "5 Art Union, June (1842), p. 138. Eastlake identified this as the 'employment of individuals selected for the execution of great works of public ornament and patriotic commemoration'. Eastlake was an acknowledged authority on the history of art in England and was appointed secretary of the Commission. He later became president of the Royal Academy (1850o) and director of the National Gallery (1855). A full account of the Commission and its objectives can be found in Boase, 'The decoration', pp. 319-58.

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of the countries, colonies, and important places constituting the British Empire '.53 It was envisaged that great tableau-style frescos would appear around the Hall illustrating Lord Clive at the Battle of Plassey, William Penn's treaty with the American Indians, the colonization of Australia, and even the yet-to-be ratified Treaty of Nankin (29 August 1842). Scenes elsewhere in the building were to include Lord Cornwallis receiving the 'Sons of Tippoo as hostages', the death of General Wolfe, the death of Major-General Abercromby (The Royal Gallery), Sir Walter Raleigh landing in Virginia (The Royal Antechamber), CaptainJames Cook in 'Otahetie', English authorities prohibiting sati, and the emancipation of African slaves (Central Corridor). However, shortly after Prince Albert's death in December 1861, the Fine Arts Commission was wound up and many of the great murals envisaged were never realized, including those mentioned above.54 Nevertheless, we see in the idea at least a form of national self-consciousness that both recognized and celebrated Britain's role in the unfolding of world history. It demonstrated the growing desire in Britain for state intervention in the practice and promotion of artistic production (fine art, architecture, industrial design), supporting what was loosely described as a 'national school' of arts and manufactures. One of the dis- tinguishing features of this endeavour was its attempted politicization of art. Reconstructing the houses of parliament (both as a building and as a receptacle for art) not only presented an opportunity to create and showcase national talent but also to represent national honour and distinction.55 Here the concept of empire was understood and ennobled as a species of high liberal endeavour, a concept that carried within its paternalistic assumptions the notion of a society that saw the merit and validity of its cultural principles (commerce, Christianity, liberal justice) revealed through their apparent extension beyond the British Isles.56 This same inspired aim emerged at the earliest stages for the design of the new Foreign Office. Among the principal witnesses called to attend the select committee hearing on government architecture in July 1856 was the then assistant secretary to the treasury, Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan (1807-86). Trevelyan was

53 Parliamentar3 papers, xxv (1842), p. 15. 54 Boase, 'The decoration', pp. 349-58. Although most of the initial murals were abandoned, some depicting imperial themes were executed much later. These included John Cabot and his sons receive the charter from Henry VII to sail in search of new lands by D. W. Eden (191o) and Queen Elizabeth commissions Raleigh to sailfor America, 1584 by A. K. Lawrence (1925-7). D. Cannadine, 'The palace of Westminster as palace of varieties', in Riding and Riding, eds., Houses of parliament, p. 23. 55 It was this broad objective that initially led Eastlake to suggest that 'The place, always being open to the public, might contain a selection of subjects from British history, especially such as relate to warlike achievements, the vastness of the empire, and great commercial and civil events; subjects calculated to inspire the citizens with loyalty, patriotism, and enterprise.' Art Union, Sept. (1844), p. 290. 56 For precedents of this idea in British historical painting, seeJ. Conlin, 'Benjamin West's General Johnson and representations of British imperial identity, 1759-1770: an empire of mercy?', British Journalfor Eighteenth-Century Studies, 27 (2004), pp. 37-59. See also W. Vaughan, '" God help the minister who meddles in art": history painting in the new palace of Westminster', in Riding and Riding, eds., Houses of parliament, p. 236. See also J. P. Parry, 'The impact of Napoleon III on British politics, 1851-1880', TRHS, II (2002), pp. I48-69.

This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Wed, 17 Aug 2016 02:21:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE FOREIGN AND INDIA OFFICE RECONSIDERED 719 a man who had vast experience with the organization of government. He had previously worked as a writer and administrator for the East India Company (1826-38) and, along with Sir Stafford Northcote, was central in reporting in 1853 on the reformation of Britain's permanent civil service. An outspoken critic of the old Downing Street offices, he was eager to see them demolished. His vision was clear:

At one end we should have the ancient Palace of Westminster bringing down our historical associations from the times of the early Saxon kings, and at the other we should have the Palace of Whitehall carrying them on to the revolution ... I consider that we have a very important national duty to perform in this respect; this city is something more than the mother of arts and eloquence; she is the mother of nations; we are peopling two continents, the Western and the Southern Continent, and we are organising, Christianising and civilising large portions of two ancient continents, Africa and Asia; and it is not right that when the inhabitants of those countries come to the metropolis, they should see nothing worthy of its ancient renown.57

Like others before him, Trevelyan was keenly aware of London's significance as the metropolis of a burgeoning global empire. His experiences in India had no doubt revealed to him the role that architecture could play in the service of the state, representing as it did the command and benefits of European civilization.5s He considered the proposal to erect new government offices in London a 'remarkable opportunity' and, like the buildings in which he had worked in Madras and Calcutta, could readily imagine them teeming with the servants of a reformed bureaucratic and imperial state. But Trevelyan's vision is revealing in other ways. It clearly conveys a self- assured sense of identity and mission that extended to include Britain's unique position as the metropolis of a liberal and progressive world empire. Although the terms 'nation' and 'empire' during this period were used interchangeably, the idea of a wider and therefore inclusive 'British Empire' had acquired new political significance by the early I850s.59 This idea was not understood or

57 Parliamentary papers, xiv7 (1856), p. 23. 58 Trevelyan was certainly alive to the significance that the architecture of great cities played in the public imagination. In a letter to The Times concerning the issue of British retribution in India, Trevelyan noted that Delhi had 'been a great city ... to which the attributes of supreme power [were] attached; and, instead of indulging in the vulgar triumph of destroying what must soon be restored, why should we not appropriate the traditionary associations of the place and make them contribute to the renown of our power ? The Palace, that sink of iniquity and rallying point of every hostile influence, should be rased [sic] to the ground, and a strong citadel ... erected over the ruins of it. This would contain our magazines, artillery, treasury, and the barracks of the European troops; and it might be called Fort Victoria, as a counterpart to Fort William and an emblem of the final establishment of our power in the interior of India. ... As Delhi and its imperial associations cannot be obliterated, they ought to be strongly occupied on our own behalf, so that it may be apparent to all India who is master.' The letters of lndophilus to 'The Times' (London, 1858), pp. 9-1o. 59 For instance, consider the debate and reform of colonial government in Canada and New Zealand. See R. Koebner and H. D. Schmidt, Imperialism: the story and signficance ofa political word, 184o-r96o (Cambridge, 1965), PP. 50o-80.

This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Wed, 17 Aug 2016 02:21:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 720 G. ALEX BREMNER invoked as a coherent political principle; nor would it become the superficial emblem of a nationalist ideology as in l'Empire of Louis Napoleon.6o It remained rather more flexible, ensuring a suppleness of meaning that would allow competing or allied notions of identity to coexist and overlap.61 Thus, despite the disparity between liberal theories of empire and the actual practices of British territorial expansion, the idea of empire in British politics was often contrasted with ancient and continental models, clothed in a garb of liberal rhetoric and employed as a mark of national distinction.62 It was reckoned as the natural outgrowth of Britain's impulse to civilize and propagate self-government, and therefore an idea worthy of representation in the arts.63 With this in mind, Trevelyan's comments may be seen as an appeal to national pride or 'belonging' in its own right. His vision was an affirmation of the political, cultural, and religious mission to which Britain had been called, a mission that could be reflected at the heart of empire through the grandeur and economy of public architecture. It was a notion that affected opinion in the media as well. Despite the controversy that had begun to embroil the competition by May 1857,64 the Illustrated London News was willing to offer Palmerston and Sir Benjamin Hall its most 'sincere and hearty acknowledgements', claiming:

Great Britain is the richest empire on the globe: she has one imperial metropolis, and one small quarter of the general capital devoted to her public offices; if, therefore, there are any ten acres on the globe that ought to be covered with externally imposing and conveniently constructed public edifices, they are those adjoining Whitehall.65

Associations of this kind were considered important because the terra sancta of Westminster was seen as the locus of Britain's liberties and the spring of those 'regulated freedoms' that had overspread the civilized world. The new houses of

60 R. Koebner. 'The emergence of the concept of imperialism', Cambridge Journal, 5 (1952), p. 733f; Koebner and Schmidt, Imperialism, pp. 27-80; R. Koebner, Empire (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 288-97. 61 For the complex and stratified nature of British imperialism, see E. P. Sullivan, 'Liberalism and imperialism: J. S. Mill's defence of the British empire', Journal of the History of Ideas, 44 (1983), PP 599-617; Boyce, Decolonisation and the British empire, ch. 3, PP. 44-69. 62 Parry, 'The impact of Napoleon III', pp. 168-9. For political conceptions of empire see U. S. Mehta, Liberalism and empire: a study in nineteenth-century British liberal thought (Chicago, 1999). For a more general account of the relationship between constitutional liberty and British national identity see H. S. Jones, Victorian political thought (London, 2000), pp. 43-73; and J. W. Burrow, A liberal descent: Victorian historians and the English past (Cambridge, 1981). For a broader discussion of the civilizational perspective in mid-Victorian thought see Peter Mandler, "'Race" and "nation" in mid-Victorian thought', in S. Collini et al., eds., Histor, religion, and culture: British intellectual history, 1750-1950 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 224-44. For further discussion of the relationship between the British empire and national identity seeJ. Stapleton 'Political thought and national identity in Britain, 1850-1950', in

Collini et al., eds., Histor,, religion, and culture, pp. 245-69. 63 This is a perspective that Krishan Kumar has called 'imperial or missionary' nationalism. See K. Kumar, The making of English national identity (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 32-5. 64 Concerns were being raised about the probable cost of the new offices, the legitimacy of the competition, and the appointment of the judges. See Toplis, The Foreign Ofice, pp. 32-44. 65 Illustrated London News (ILJ), 9 May 1857, p. 424. See also Builder, I Nov. 1856, p. 589; BN, 20 Feb. 1857, p. 177.

This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Wed, 17 Aug 2016 02:21:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE FOREIGN AND INDIA OFFICE RECONSIDERED 721 parliament were worthy of emulation, reported the Building News, for 'powerful in associations and sympathies, ... and inviting the constitution of one grand medieval city', they were 'the seat of the legislature and executive of this great empire '.66 During the exhibition of designs at Westminster Hall in May 1857, Beresford Hope published a pamphlet entitled Public ofices and metropolitan improvements. As the competition had yet to be judged, his essay was clearly an attempt to influence the outcome. But, as the title suggests, the competition was understood as something more than just a new set of government buildings; it was also about the wider and more general question of London's public image. This was, Beresford Hope observed, 'one of the most pressing questions of the day'. Aware of the changes and improvements that had taken place in the capital cities of continental Europe, especially in Louis Napoleon's Paris, he warned: 'No person now will dare to narrow the issue to be tried ... to the architectural grandeur of the Public Offices taken by themselves. A far graver question vibrates in the balance, that of the artistic future, of the richest and largest city in the world. '" As far as Beresford Hope was concerned, London had already suffered enough injustices at the hands of 'private greed and public corruption'. 'The Sibyl is again at our door', he implored, 'and shame to us if we try the second time to chaffer.' He did not stop there. In a separate pamphlet published only a few weeks later, he observed:

For the better administration of the government of the British empire, we are about to erect such Offices as never before were possessed by any nation. It is felt, that for carrying on the public affairs of an empire whose branches reach from Europe into Asia, Africa, America, and Australia, and whose commerce extends to every corner of the globe ... Surely, as far as architecture can do it, the feeling should be given that they [the new offices] all form one great whole, containing the entire presiding mind of the nation- its inquiring and deliberative Understanding, - and its executive Will. These buildings are in fact the scull [sic] of the British Empire. It may fairly be said that the ruling powers are the brain of the nation - Parliament forming one lobe, the executive the other, and the Queen connecting the two. It may be of no direct practical consequence to make the said scull [sic] one instead of two masses of building; but it would be far more impressive as a single whole - the unity within shown also without.68

Beresford Hope's affection for the gothic style was well known. He seems to have inherited his deep interest in and subtle understanding of the wider implications of architecture from his father, the art collector and connoisseur, Thomas Hope (1769-1831). As an MP and president of the Ecclesiological Society, Beresford Hope would also have understood architecture's capacity as an

66 BN, 8 May 1857, p. 441. 67 A.J. B. Beresford Hope, Public ofices and metropolitan improvements (London, 1857), PP. 3-4. 68 'A Cambridge Man' (A.J. B. Beresford Hope), The new palaces of administration: an eamrnest appeal to thepublic, and the committee (London, 1857), PP. 5-9. Westminster, claimed the Building News, was the one place in England 'which is, as it were, consecrated to English architecture'. It was where 'our national traditions still live', and where the institutions of England's forefathers connected most visibly with the present day. BN,, Io Dec. 1858, p. 1213.

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instrument of socio-political change.69 Thus, unlike Freeman and Scott, he was indeed apt to see a direct connection between architecture and Britain's imperial mission. His influence during the early phase of the government offices project was significant. As chairman of the 1858 select committee, he was instrumental - along with his high tory colleague, Lord John Manners - in having Scott appointed. Much of what he wrote about architecture tended towards the inclusive, and was based on theories that drew freely from concepts of evolution - what he and his colleagues called 'development'.70 It was through this idea that the high Victorian relationship between architecture and identity was able to achieve a wider, 'imperial' significance. Like Ruskin, Beresford Hope was keenly aware of the advances that British culture (society and religion) had made through global extension.7 His ideas on the relationship between national identity and architecture were couched in a theory that both recognized and celebrated the pre-eminence of Britain's worldwide cultural and political influence. In this sense, the re-establishment of gothic architecture in public buildings had become a matter of political economy for Beresford Hope and his cronies. In the same way that the Fine Arts Commission had sought to elevate the 'national character' through historical painting, the new Foreign Office represented an opportunity, perhaps the greatest opportunity of all, to give prominence to an architecture through which the moral, religious, and political sentiment of the state could be made aesthetic. The coalescence of ideas concerning architecture, the city, nation, and empire in the comments by Trevelyan, Scott, Beresford Hope, Freeman, Seddon, and others is both important and revealing. It shows that a relationship between Britain's national reputation and the design of public architecture was readily conceivable in mid-nineteenth-century England, and that this relationship was couched within a wider conceptual framework relating to notions of national genius. This relationship was reflected in the design mottoes employed by many of the competing architects. These mottoes included phrases such as 'Rule Britannia', 'Arcana Imperii', 'Nationale', 'Pro Regina et Patria semper', 'Potentatus et gloria', 'S. P. Q. L.', 'Rome was not built in a day', and 'England

69 One of the principal objectives of the Ecclesiological Society was to promote and therefore encourage 'proper', i.e. Anglican, church design in Britain's colonies. The society not only saw it as their responsibility to advise architects and clergymen engaged in preparing plans for churches in the colonies but also produced a series of pattern books 'chiefly for the sake of the colonies' known as the Instrumenta Ecclesiastica. See Ecclesiologist, 3 (May 1844), pp. 116-17. 70 E.g. G. E. Street, 'The true principles of architecture and the possibility of development', Ecclesiologist, Io (June 1852), pp. 247-62. 71 Ruskin's ideas on the association between the arts and British colonial expansion would be made public during his inaugural lecture as Slade Professor at Oxford in 1870. SeeJohn Ruskin,' Lectures on art' (inaugural course delivered at Oxford in Hilary Term, 1870), in E. T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, eds., The complete works ofJsohn Ruskin (London, 1904), pp. 40-3. This lecture, the young Cecil Rhodes would later note, 'made a forceful entry into my mind'. E. Boehmer, Empire writing: an anthology of

colonial literature, i87o0--918 (Oxford, 1998), p. 16. See also 'Mr Hope's essay on the present state of ecclesiological science in England', Ecclesiologist, 4 (Mar. 1847), pp. 85-9I1.

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expects every man to do his duty.'72 As with the houses of parliament, the new government offices were evidently something more than just a building. They were metaphoric of a greater civic and national self-perception, calling to mind thoughts and feelings appropriate to Britain's national prestige. This was in many ways perfectly normal. By the 185os, Britain's status as a great international power was virtually axiomatic. As John Darwin has argued, mid-Victorian Britain boasted an expansionist capability which, in scale and ambition, far outstripped its contemporary rivals. Although opinions differed with regard to public policy, especially between tories, liberals, and radicals, those on the colonial frontier were armed with an aggressively interventionist ideology deeply rooted in public opinion and considered universalist in application.73 In other words, predominant social and economic forces such as free trade, utili- tarianism, evangelical Christianity, and anti-slavery were each capable of mobil- izing important sectors of public opinion behind overseas expansion."4 Though these forces did not form any coherent or overarching 'imperialist' policy, they were certainly key in shaping a sense of identity among Britain's educated, middle-class elite. It was precisely this image of British ascendancy that many believed the public buildings of London ought to reflect. As with art, there was a growing expectation that public architecture should rise above mere utilitas to engage with and record in some way the current of national feeling. For some, this was possibly the most important contribution the new government offices could make.75

This brings us to the second and most interesting phase of the project. On io May 1857 the great sepoy revolt or 'Indian Mutiny' began. Eighteen months later the political consequences of this uprising had transformed the complexion of the government offices project entirely.76 What began as a scheme comprising a new War Office and a new Foreign Office was now to include an India Office. If, as Beresford Hope had anticipated, the new government offices were to reflect the 'presiding mind' and 'executive will' of British imperial administration, then the inclusion of this new building was a significant development indeed. By the middle of the nineteenth century India had been a part of Britain's national self-conception for well over 150 years.77 At least since Plassey (1757), it

72 For the idea of patriotism in British politics during this period see D. Brown, Palmerston and the politics offoreign policy, 1846-855 (Manchester, 2002), pp. 2o-48; Parry, 'The impact of Napoleon III', passim. "3 Darwin, 'Imperialism and the Victorians', p. 627. Cf. n. 8; see also C. C. Eldridge, England's mission: the imperial idea in the age of Gladstone and Disraeli, 1868-M88o (London, i973). 74 Darwin, 'Imperialism and the Victorians'. 75 BN, 8 May 1857, P. 441. 76 D. Williams, The India Office, 1858-1869 (Hoshiapur, i983), PP. i33-4. 77 J. P. Greene, 'Empire and identity from the glorious revolution to the American revolution', in P.J. Marshall, ed., OHBE, n, pp. 208-30. See also Sullivan, 'Liberalism and imperialism', pp. 6o5ff.

This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Wed, 17 Aug 2016 02:21:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 724 G. ALEX BREMNER had played a pivotal role in Britain's imperial ambition and the rise of the so-called 'second' British empire."78 The importance of India to Britain's understanding of itself as a worldwide imperial power undoubtedly affected its response to the events of 1857. So sudden and shocking was the revolt that it precipitated the wholesale reformation of Anglo-Indian government."79 The East India Company, which had been at the centre of British involvement in the south Asian region since I6oI, was abolished and administrative control of India handed directly to the newly formed Council of India. Officially ratified in August 1858, the transfer of power from 'John company' to the British crown gave London a very public and pre-eminent standing in the administration of empire, with the India Office becoming the new command centre of Anglo-Indian affairs. The addition of the India Office is therefore crucial to an understanding of the government offices project as a group of buildings that signalled a new order of British global supremacy. However, virtually every scholarly account of the new government offices all but ignores the incorporation of this building.80 The principal reason for this, it seems, is that to architectural historians the 'Foreign Office' has become a syn- onym for the project as a whole. Scholars have tended to view the India Office as a mere appendage rather than a significant component in its own right.81 To be sure, the India Office arrived late on the scene. It was not part of the original brief and was therefore ancillary to much of the debate and controversy that surrounded the reconstruction of the Foreign Office. Moreover, no supplementary competition was held after the War Office component had been dropped: Scott, in conjunction with Matthew Digby Wyatt (who had been surveyor and architect to the East India Company since 1855), were simply appointed by the new secretary of state for India.82 But these mitigating factors should not detract from the

78 C. A. Bayly, Imperial meridian: the British empire and the world, 178o-183o (London, 1989). 79 For a discussion on British perceptions of the Indian Mutiny see B. S. Cohn, 'Representing authority in Victorian India', in E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger, eds., The invention of tradition (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 178-9; andJ. M. MacKenzie, 'Empire and metropolitan cultures', in A. Porter, ed., OHBE, III, pp. 280-2. This feeling comes across strongly in the third paragraph of Trevelyan's letter to The Times titled 'Retribution - Delhi'. See Letters of Indophilus, pp. 6 7. 8o Although Ian Toplis gives the India Office some scholarly attention, the only dedicated studies of this building as a work of architecture remain Lavinia Handley-Read's 'Legacy of a vanished empire: the design of the India Office', Country Life, July (1970), pp. 110-12, and John Cornforth's 'The old India Office', Country Life, Nov. (1987), pp. 164 9. Anthony Seldon also gives the India Office some attention but, again, his book is titled 'The Foreign Office'. Seldon, The Foreign Office, pp. 16-21, 79-86. For a more general discussion of the building see M. C. C. Seton, The India Office (London, 1926), pp. 265 71; Williams, The India Office, pp. 129-48. 81 It is interesting to note that in several of Scott's original block-plan designs the India Office is shown as a closely related but entirely separate building. It was not until 1861 that he and Wyatt merged the two buildings together. See National Archives (NA), London, WORK 30/898-902, 979. 82 India Office Records (IOR), London, British Library, C/I, pp. 457-8, 504-5. Initially, only Scott was appointed, but after vigorous protestations from Wyatt the Council decided to engage Wyatt to oversee the 'internal arrangements' of the new building. Scott and Wyatt were on good terms and agreed to work together. See Toplis, The Foreign Office, pp. 79-82; Scott to Wyatt, 17 Dec. 1858, IOR, L/SUR/5/8/6.

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Fig. 4. Block plan showing final arrangement of the India Office and the Foreign Office (1862). The India Office is indicated by the shaded area at bottom left. The Foreign Office is marked by an outline directly above, while the future Colonial and Home offices are shown as broken lines to the right. (Source: The National Archives, WORK 30/1078-82.) importance of the India Office as a building erected specifically for the purpose of administering Britain's Indian empire. It should not follow that because the India Office corresponded stylistically with the Foreign Office (for the sake of 'unity')83 that it contributed nothing to the way the new buildings were perceived and understood. With the attention of the architectural media focused firmly on Scott's appointment, it is little wonder that the addition of the India Office transpired almost without notice.84 No act of parliament was required to obtain the site until 1861 and the building was erected using Indian rather than exchequer revenues.85 For this reason construction of the India Office was largely the responsibility of the secretary of state and his Council, not the Office of Works (Fig. 4).8 As mentioned, the single most significant consequence of the Mutiny was the thoroughgoing reformation of Anglo-Indian government. But despite the degree of Indian hostility betrayed by the Mutiny, Britain's right to rule India went essentially unexamined.87 As The Economist observed, the question was not whether the English should be in India but whether India was to be governed as a 'Colony or as a Conquest'. To abandon India now, it was declared, 'would be to commit a far worse sin against the millions of Hindoos than against our own

83 IOR, C/I, p. 456. 84 A small article did appear in The Times, 6 Jan. 1859, p. 6. 85 Act 24 and 25 Victoria, Cap. xxxIIi (1861). 86 IOR, C/I, pp. 454-6. See also Parliamentary papers (1864), II, pp. 319-21. 87 T. R. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 28-65.

This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Wed, 17 Aug 2016 02:21:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 726 G. ALEX BREMNER nation'. 'It is no game of ambition we are playing in India', it was further remarked, 'but ... the most urgent duty a nation can ever undertake. We are preserving for the Hindoos social law, social morality, and keeping open their only access to a deeper civilisation. 88 From the ashes of Company rule emerged a tighter and more centralized form of administration, reaffirming London as the pivot of responsibility for Britain's empire in Asia. British involvement in India had always been a metropolitan concern and was intimately woven into the commercial and administrative fabric of the city.89 But as Bernard Cohn has argued, the Government of India Act (1858) was significant for its declaration of a new political order.90 The implications of this act were clear, institutionalizing responsible government of India so 'that the direct superintendence of the whole empire might be placed under one executive authority'.91 By de-sanctifying and thus obliterating Mughal rule after the Mutiny, the British government was able to establish a new structure of political authority in India, the ritual centre of which was Queen Victoria as sovereign of Great Britain (empress of India from 1877).92 Part of this process was the assuaging of India's 'ancient aristocracy', thus incorporating its loyal princes as pillars of a new imperial establishment.93 With this in mind, the populist view of periodicals such as The Economist masked a profound tension, even anxiety, concerning British rule in India. The Mutiny had put paid to attempts by the previous generation of British administrators and liberal reformers to mould Indian society along English lines. In this sense, the Government of India Act was a watershed moment and can be interpreted as a compromise between a steadfast resolve to reassert control and the need to ensure a less interventionist and more accountable form of government. As John Stuart Mill (1806-73) would later acknowledge in his essay on government, it was an issue that occupied the very heart of the conflict between direct rule and representational government: that reconciliation between 'order' and 'progress'. The new act was a gesture - rather an assurance - from the highest authority that the 'rights' of native Indians would be upheld before the law and their 'customs' and other traditions respected.94 But Britain's control over India was to remain imperial, a fact that could not be denied. It was this fundamental dilemma that in the end placed the reins of power in the hands of an elected crown representative, thus exposing the governance of India to closer parliamentary scrutiny.

88 Economist, 26 Sept. 1857, p. 1062, and 2 Jan. 1858, p. 4. 89 Williams, The India Office, p. 7. See also H. V. Bowen, "'No longer mere traders": continuities and change in the metropolitan development of the East India Company, 1600oo-834', in H. V. Bowen, M. Lincoln, and N. Rigby, eds., The worlds of the East India Company (London, 2002), pp. 19-32- 90 Cohn, 'Representing authority', p. 179. 91 Quoted from Parliamentary debates ((1858), cxux) in H. Verney Lovett, 'The home government, 1858-I918', in H. H. Dodwell, ed., The Cambridge history ofthe British empire (9 vols., Cambridge, 1932), v, p. 21o. 92 F. W. Buckler, 'The political theory of the Indian mutiny', TRHS, 5 (1922), PP- 7I-o00. 93 D. A. Washbrook, 'India, I818-I860: the two faces of colonialism', in Porter, OHBE, ni, p. 420o. 94 For instance, see the Royal Proclamation in Parliamentary papers (1908), LXXIV, pp. 2-3.

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The importance of London in these reorganized channels of British imperial power was significant. As we have already seen, Westminster had long been understood as a place central to the liberal idea of English constitutional authority. Locating the new India Office in this area therefore had clear practical and ideological implications. Though somewhat ironic, investing supreme authority over Indian affairs in key metropolitan institutions such as parliament and the Council of India worked to buttress not only Britain's moral and political influence in India but also its perceived sense of imperial obligation. These implications were not lost on those charged with erecting the new building. As early as April 1858, during the debates over the transfer of power from company to crown, Lord Ellenborough had intimated the importance of obtaining a site for the new India Office that was commensurate with its political significance. The most appealing location was that originally set aside for the War Office, adjacent to the new Foreign Office. The long recognized difficulties associated with the administration of Indian 'home' government no doubt influenced Ellenborough's desire to secure this site. With the old Court of Directors located over three miles away at East India House in Leadenhall Street, and the offices of the Board of Control situated on Canon Row, ease of communication between the two had been less than efficient.95 Therefore, in choosing the Whitehall site, the principal intention of the Council was to unite and amalga- mate these two institutions under the one roof, thus alleviating many of the problems that had plagued the old 'double system' of administration.96 The potential for artistic treatment offered by this site was also appreciated by the Council. If Whitehall was where the machinery of a reformed bureaucratic and imperial state was to be concentrated, then it was here that the new India Office would take pride of place as one of its most powerful and conspicuous institutions. At a meeting of the governing Council in December 1858, it was noted by the secretary of state, Lord Stanley, that 'it is ... an advantage that we shall by selecting this site, contribute to the Architectural effect of the General group of Govt. Offices'.97 Much like Trevelyan's vision of a new Fort Victoria at Delhi, the India Office would be London's own 'emblem of the final establishment of British power in India'. These considerations were also acknowledged by the building's architects. Although Scott and Wyatt left very little record of their ideas for the India Office, they did articulate a basic vision. Writing to the secretary of state in April 1859, they noted that their intention was to express what they described as the 'national importance' of the new building, especially as it was to be erected 'upon one of the most commanding sites in the Metropolis' and in correspondence with 'structures of equal grandeur and extent'.98

95 Ellenborough to Mangles, 12 Apr. 1858, PRO/3/I2/9; see also Economist, 13 Feb. 1858, p. 166. 96 The history of these changes is covered extensively in Williams, The India Offce, pp. 1-148. 97 Meeting of the Council of India held on Wednesday 22 Dec. 1858, IOR, C/I, p. 455. See also minute by Stanley, 15 Dec. 1858, IOR, L/SUR/6/I, p. 6. 98 See Digby Wyatt and Scott to the secretary of state in council, 7 Apr. 1859, IOR, L/SUR/2/3, p. 239.

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Fig. 5. Venetian splendour: the west front (StJames's Park) of the India Office. At the perimeter of the central block can be seen life-size sculptures of India's governors general.

Looking at the building today, the 'grandeur and extent' of Scott's achievement can be readily appreciated. The way his monumental fagade runs along Charles Street, down past the statue of Clive, on to St James's Park and around the tower to connect with the Foreign Office makes for a compelling and stately image (Fig. 5). But behind this imposing dignity resided other, equally intriguing structures. In November 1867, under the general terms of his employment, Wyatt prepared a number of sketches detailing the new building's communication system. The most striking aspect of these sketches is what they suggest about the new office and its administrative intentions. Wyatt's sinuous diagrams give the impression of an intricate neural network (Fig. 6). The communication lines they represent were designed to put the secretary of state in direct contact with other members of the Council and their senior civil servants, permitting what one Board of Control administrator described as 'hour by hour' consultation on matters of 'the most immediate urgency'.99 This was a degree of speed and efficiency that the old messenger system between the Board of Control and Leadenhall Street simply did not allow. In the first floor plan illustrated here, one can see the extent of this network and its connections between the various offices by means of messenger boxes, bells, and speaking tubes. The ease with which this network facilitated the 'immediate and constant' transmission of information around the new building was in many ways symptomatic of the government's

99 Williams, The India Office, p. 24; Economist, 13 Feb. I858, p. 166.

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Fig. 6. Sketch plan by Matthew Digby Wyatt illustrating communication lines on the first floor of the new India Office, 1867. (Source: India Office Records, British Library.) firm commitment to the increased efficiency and centralized control of crown authority in India.100 The reach and effectiveness of this authority was made complete in 1874 when India was connected to England via overland and sub- marine telegraph cables (Fig. 7). Thus, if the new government offices were to be the 'scull' of the British empire, then Wyatt's sketches suggest the India Office to have been its brain. Wyatt's crowning glory, however, was the magnificent cortile or 'Durbar Court', as it later became known (Fig. 8). Wyatt seems to have viewed the opportunity to create such a space at the India Office as a means of reinstating the long-lost splendours of the English courtyard. In the time of 'Inigo Jones, Wren, Gibbs, and Chambers', he remarked in 1862, 'Cortiles and loggias, colonnades and arcades, were not banished as profligate waste of ground and money.'101 Although Wyatt was perhaps overstating the eclipse of the courtyard and loggia in British architecture, it is not surprising that his cortile would become the most remarkable example of its kind in nineteenth-century London. It is perhaps all the more remarkable given that Wyatt still remains one of the least understood architects of the Victorian period.102 Exceedingly ornate, the cortile was composed

100 For a thorough examination of the means and methods by which the East India Company acquired efficient control over the Indian subcontinent see M. Edney, Mapping an empire: the geographical construction ofBritish India (Chicago, 1997). 101 M. Digby Wyatt, 'On the present aspect of the fine and decorative arts in Italy, with especial reference to the recent exhibition in Florence', Journal of the Sociey aofArts, 24Jan. 1862, p. 149. 102 Little has been written on Matthew Digby Wyatt and his approach to design. The most sub- stantial study is N. Pevsner, Matthew Digby Wyatt: thefirst Cambridge Slade Professor of Fine Art (Cambridge, 1950). See also 'The Cole circle', in N. Pevsner, Some architectural writers of the nineteenth century (Oxford, 1972), pp. 157-67.

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Fig. 7. Map showing the various telegraph lines that had been laid between Britain and India by 1874. (Source: F.J. Goldsmid, Telegraph and Travel (London, 1874).)

Fig. 8. India Office cortile by Matthew Digby Wyatt. (Source: Builder, Oct. 1867.)

This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Wed, 17 Aug 2016 02:21:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE FOREIGN AND INDIA OFFICE RECONSIDERED 731 in an Italianate style typical of his predilection for Renaissance decor. It recalled his designs for the Italian court at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and reflected a wider theoretical perspective in which Italianate classicism was considered the most applicable style for the 'complex requirements' of a 'highly artificial social system'.103 But as appropriate as Italianate classicism may have seemed to the needs of modern British society, it was not the only style Wyatt felt comfortable using. He was a more flexible, even eclectic architect than this. Only a few years earlier he had opted for a florid, Islamic-style architecture in his design for the courtyard at the East India House Museum (1858).104 The exotic forms of this courtyard became something of a spectacle in mid-nineteenth-century London, attracting over 175,00ooo visitors between 1858 and 186I.105 Such a style would not have been out of place in the new India Office, a building that was, after all, intended for the administration of a large Islamic population. But Wyatt, of course, felt somewhat compelled to conform to Scott's overall design, not to mention Palmerston's instructions from on high. Either way, his final design was intended to articulate above all else his basic vision concerning the development of a modern and socially responsive architecture. By means of his numerous writings and lectures, Wyatt had become a champion of the concept of cultural progress through the embracing of industrial technology.106 Architectural components, in whatever style they might be forged, were considered by Wyatt as part of an integrated and mechanically determined process. He believed that technological advancement in the arts and architecture was what had made nations great, and it was with this idea in mind that he saw the realization of Britain's true potential.107 Despite Nikolaus Pevsner's claim that Wyatt was a 'weakly flamboyant' architect, his design for the India Office cortile demonstrates a remarkable

103 M. Digby Wyatt, 'Renaissance ornament', in O. Jones, ed., The grammar of ornament (London, 1856), p. 127. 104 As his sketch books show, Wyatt was also a great admirer and student of gothic architecture. See 'Album of 259 designs', Rare Books, Prints and Drawings, Yale Center for British Art, B1975.2.705. 105 J. Sweetman, The oriental obsession: Islamic inspiration in British and American art and architecture, 1500oo-1920 (Cambridge, 1988), p. 164. 106 Pevsner, Matthew Digby Wyatt. Apart from his immediate colleagues in the Henry Cole circle, Wyatt shared this view with contemporary theorists such as James Fergusson. See P. Kohane, 'Architecture, labor and the human body: Fergusson, Cockerell, and Ruskin' (Ph.D. thesis, Pennsylvania, 1993), PP. 144-7. 107 'What glories may be in reserve', Wyatt had noted in 1851, 'when England has systematized a scale of form and proportion - a vocabulary of its own, in which to speak to the world the language of its power, and freedom of thought and feeling.' M. Digby Wyatt, The industrial arts of the nineteenth century (London, 1851), p. 20. He also noted that 'whenever the aesthetic tendencies of nations have de- manded the embodiment of some great transitional phase of imagination, the fitting artist has seldom failed to erect correspondent monuments, thereby setting up beacons by which after ages, in looking back over the intervening sea of time, have been enabled to recognise the great features of physical and mental eccentricity, stamped on every crumbling relic of tower, tomb, temple, basilica, mosque, church, god, saint, or prophet' (p. v).

This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Wed, 17 Aug 2016 02:21:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 732 G. ALEX BREMNER sensitivity towards a mode of architectural expression that corresponded with his vision of a progressive, industrialized Britain - both literally and metaphorically. His elaborate tile designs for the ceilings of the upper and lower loggias are particularly fine examples of Arabesque/proto-Renaissance pattern motifs, designs that were not only appropriate for such a building but also influenced by his travels in Italy and by his friend Owen Jones (18o9-74).1os Most likely manufactured by Maw & Co. of Shropshire, these tiles were viewed by Wyatt as more than just a convenient decorative material. As manufactured components, they were part of his overall design philosophy. He believed that the production and active incorporation of such materials would revolutionize the art of building in Britain, carrying the nation to even greater heights of civilized refinement. It is possible to discern in Wyatt's vision a kind of quasi-nationalist rhetoric. In describing the contribution that industrialists had made to Britain's economic prosperity, he pre-empted observations on the state of the nation by social com- mentators such as Samuel Smiles by drawing attention to what he called the 'wisdom, energy, courage, and devotion' of the country's 'chief industrial organ- izers'. He viewed the career of manufacturers such as Herbert Minton (in the same way Smiles would ofJoshia Wedgwood) as equal to that of any great soldier or sailor.1'9 In an age of social progress and commercial development - 'a period hitherto without a rival in the great history of civilisation' - Wyatt believed it was these men who had allowed Britain to excel in the eyes of the world, having led the way in the 'innumerable conquests of mind over matter'.11 In this sense, the India Office was the perfect arena for Wyatt to showcase an architecture that would represent Britain's national vitality, both imperial and industrial. However, perhaps the most revealing contribution Wyatt made to the new India Office was his elaborate programme of figurative sculpture. Britain's aims and aspirations in Asia were clearly represented in the depiction of these figures. It has long been assumed that Scott alone was responsible for the exterior treatment of the India Office. Wyatt, however, was heavily involved, not just in the 'grouping and outline', as Scott later noted,111 but also more specifically. Although he was in constant consultation with Scott, Wyatt seems to have been in charge of the sculptural decoration for the entire building, including the cortile, interior spaces, and faCade.112 The cortile, in particular, is famed for its sculptural representation of the 'striking incidents' and 'heroes of recent historical renown'

10s Pevsner, Mlatthew Digby i, vatt, p. 8. See also Wyatt's various designs in his Specimens of the geo- metrical mosaic of the middle ages (London, 1848) and his sketches of mosaics from a church in Ravello, southern Italy, in 'Album of 259 designs', p. 66. See also O. Jones, Designsfor mosaic pavements (London, 1842). 109 For Smiles on Wedgwood, see S. Smiles, Self-help (London, 1908 (first published 1859)), pp. 104-10. 110 M. Digby W\yatt, On the influence exercised on ceramic manufactures by the late Mr. Herbert Minton (1858), London, British Library, BL 7947.c. 45. See also Wyatt, Specimens, pp. 19-2I. 111 Scott, Recollections, p. 2oo. 112 See Wyatt's letters and notes in IOR, L/SUR/2/5, L/SUR/2/6, and L/SUR/5/8/6.

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Fig. 9. The marquis of Cornwallis receiving the sons of Tipu as hostages for the treaty of1792, Theodore Phyffers. Ground floor spandrel, India Office cortile, c. 1868. associated with the British empire in India.1a3 Its walls are sumptuously adorned with figures in both bust and full-figure form, including 'celebrated worthies' such as Admiral Watson, Lord Macartney, Havelock, Clyde, Hastings, Minto, Wellesley, Cornwallis, and Clive.114 In each corner are bas-relief panels representing significant events in Anglo-Indian history. These include 'Sir Thomas Roe's treaty with the Mogal', 'The Marquis of Cornwallis receiving the sons of Tippoo as hostages for the treaty of 1792', 'The Peishwa ceding the Poonah provinces in 1818', and 'The Grant of the Dewanny to Lord Clive' (Fig. 9)."11 The upper-storey spandrels are also embossed with the names of principal Indian cities. Initially, this programme was to illustrate what Wyatt called the 'chief Indian invasions', including four large bas-relief panels depicting Alexander the Great in combat, the siege of Somnath by the Sultan Mahmud Ghazni, the Tartars crossing the Indus, and the landing of Lord Clive 'after the Black Hole'. He had also planned to include portrait busts of Queen Elizabeth I (original company charter), Sir Thomas Smythe (first chairman of the East India Company), and Captain James Lancaster (commander of the first English ex- pedition to India in 1591).116

113 Builder, 26 Oct. 1867, p. 782. 114 Ibid. See also 'Names of Indian "worthies" for busts for new India Office', IOR, L/SUR/2/6, pp. 116-22. 115 IOR, L/SUR/2/5, pp. 394-6. 116 'Working out of sculpture titles &c. for India Office', IOR, L/SUR/5/8/6.

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This theme was continued inside the building where life-size statues of past governors general were placed in 'conspicuous positions' along with other decorative motifs referring to British imperial authority."7 Here could be found such works as Spiridion Roma's famous painting The east offering its riches to Britannia (1778), the old council room chimneypiece (1730) by the Flemish sculptor Michael Rysbrack, as well as numerous plasterwork details modelled on Indian fruits and flowers. Rysbrack's chimneypiece had been the centrepiece of the council room at East India House. It was an ornament that drew the attention of the Company's many visitors, not least for its fine detailing and craftsmanship. One such visitor, recalling the large bas-relief panel above the mantle, described a scene in which Britannia, 'seated on a globe, on a rock by the sea-shore, look[s] towards the east', receiving 'female figures, emblematic of India, Asia, and Africa, presenting the different productions of their climes'.118 On the surround- ing walls were portraits of Fort St George, Bombay, St Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, and Fort William. The retention of such ornament was important. Although the advent of the India Office marked a new chapter in the history of Anglo-Indian government, these works (all from East India House) signalled a desire to maintain a sense of continuity between old and new - between the East India Company and the Council of India, between East India House and the new India Office, and, more importantly, between the past and future of British imperial government. The new building was no longer 'teeming with ... precious stuff and stones, tigers, elephants, howdahs, [and] hookahs', as Dickens had once characterized East India House, but the heritage of Britain's longstanding relationship with India was still everywhere present, now carried predominantly in the architecture rather than its accessories.119 Thus, instead of extinguishing the memory of Company rule all together, there was a concerted attempt to show that Britain's connection with India actually meant something, that the design and decoration of the new premises (both inside and out) was merely the turning of a page in what was generally considered an honourable and illustrious history.120 The building's exterior is no less impressive. As one former occupant put it, 'instead of gargoyles', statues of India's eight governors general, from Lord William Bentinck to Lord Charles John Canning, are located at intervals across the St James's Park facade. Above these, running along the attic, are situated large allegorical figures representing the principal rivers of India, the Ganges and the Indus, as well as the country's major geographical regions (Fig. 10).121 Beneath the upper-storey frieze can also be found panels festooned with motifs

117 I. Digby \Wyatt, 2 Dec. 1864, IOR, L/SUR/2/5, p. 394- 118 Anon., London and its environs in the nineteenth centur', illustrated by a series of views from original drawings by Thomas H. Shepherd, with historical, topographical and critical notices (London, 1829), pp. 43-4. 119 C. Dickens, Dombey and son (London, 2002 (first published 1848)), p. 46. 120 J. Kaye, 'The house that John built', Cornhill Magazine, July (186o), pp. 113-21.

121 Seton, The India Office, p. 266, and E. Walford, Old and new London: a narrative ofits history, itspeople, and its places (London, 1880), pp. 390-4. A full list of the sculpture that Wyatt had originally proposed

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Fig. Io. Allegorical figures representing the principal rivers and regions of India. Charles Street, India Office, c. 1867.

Fig. 11. Festooned panel containing the insignia of the Order of the Star of India. First floor fagade, Charles Street, India Office, c. 1867. representing the Order of the Star of India (instituted in 1861) and the queen's royal monogram (Fig. II). If one looks closer still, paired peacocks can be found at each corner of the protruding facade. Such detail illustrates the care with which

for the interior and exterior elevations of the India Office can also be found in IOR, L/SUR/2/5, pp. 394-6, 436-41. See also ILN, 6 Oct. 1866, pp. 340-1.

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Fig. 12. Carved peacocks. StJames's Park front, India Office, c. 1867. the ornamental motifs were chosen. The peacock, for instance, was a bird native to India and one that had longstanding royal and imperial associations (Fig. 12). Wyatt continued this animal theme on the Charles Street facade where he placed relief sculptures depicting some of the most characteristic and sacred fauna of the Indian subcontinent, including the tiger, the Brahman bull, and the elephant (Fig. 13). On the south side of the great quadrangle, opposite the entrance, one is confronted with even more figures. Here Wyatt placed fourteen statues (each eight feet, six inches high) mirroring the 'European powers' depicted on the Foreign Office. These statues represented the principal Asian 'tribes' including the 'Ghoorka, Sikh, Afghan, Burmese, and Maharatta', as well as portraits of those princely rulers who remained loyal to Britain during the revolt of 1857 (Fig. 14).122 Although this embellishment had much to do with age-old tropes regarding the spread and maintenance of European civilization, it also had a lot to do with presenting an image (albeit filtered) of India to the metropolis and illustrating the seriousness with which the British government, through the new Council of India, took its responsibilities. The figures that had adorned East India House were much less sophisticated, extolling merely the 'civilizing' tendencies of commerce and Christianity; as if all one had to do was promote trade in 'rude parts' and social enlightenment would follow.123 This was a worldview entrenched in

122 Builder, 14July 1866, p. 527; IOR, L/SUR/2/5, pp. 436-41. 123 RichardJupp, the architect of the late eighteenth-century alterations to East India House, wrote of the pediment carvings that 'The Sentiment of this Composition is that a Nation can only be truly prosperous, when it has a King who makes Religion and Justice the Basis of its Government, and a Constitution, which, while it secures the Liberties of the People, maintains a due Subordination of the several Ranks of Society, and where the Integrity of the People secures to each Individual those

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Fig. 13. Frieze depicting sacred and characteristic fauna of India. Upper level, Charles Street entrance, India Office, c. 1867.

Fig. 14. Portrait figures representing those Indian rulers who remained loyal to the British during the revolt of 1857. Great quadrangle, India Office, c. 1867.

Advantages which Industry creates and cultivates.' Quoted from: 'The description and dimensions of the new front to the East India House, Leadenhall Street, by Richard Jupp Esq. architect, Messrs. Pinder & W. Norris, masons' (London, 1799), in B. and N. Kitz, 'Mr. Jupp builds the India house', IOR, MSS. Eur. D 1131/2, n.d., p. 12. For a further account of these sculptures see Anon., London and its environs, pp. 43-4, 63-4-

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Fig. 15. Detail illustrating motif containing a Christian crucifix and a Muslim crescent superimposed. First floor spandrel, India Office cortile, c. 1867. Note again the Star of India motifin the frieze above.

eighteenth-century notions of political economy, and one that was clearly no longer tenable with respect to India. It was also entirely self-referential, based on the apparent efficacy of western values through commercial exploitation. The sculptural programme of the new India Office, on the other hand, was far more subtle and varied. There were still images that recalled the power of European civilization but there were also many that seemed to acknowledge the complex, diverse, and changing relationship that Britain now. had with its Indian empire. One peculiar example of this can be found on the spandrel panels of the first- floor arcade in the cortile. Juxtaposed in a way that would seem inconceivable today, the Christian crucifix and the Muslim crescent are superimposed one upon the other. Flanked also by the sacred lotus flower of Hinduism, this motif seems to suggest the promise of a tolerant and pluralist society (Fig. I5). Given the 'adequate causes' of the Mutiny to which opponents of liberal reform in India pointed, among which religious tampering was one, it might seem strange to find such overt sacred symbolism on this kind of building. But this, as some would have claimed, merely reflected the reality of the situation. Although renewed missionary zeal followed in the wake of the Mutiny, based on a belief that the

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'savage and unnatural character' of the Mutiny was the 'product of Heathenism and false religion', many among the administrative ranks of the new government wished to stamp out evangelism in India. It was widely believed that Christian missionaries might provoke rather than ease tensions and that Christianity ought to remain only, as Stanley put it, 'the religion of Europe'.124 This unlikely motif, therefore, seems to signify not the triumph of Christianity over the 'Mahommedan' but the queen's declaration that new respect be accorded the religions and customs of India. It is also interesting to note with respect to the building's exterior that, unlike the Foreign Office, the architectural formation of the India Office is reminiscent of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Venetian palazzi. This is especially the case with the St James's Park front.125 Although the Venetian manner had already become popular in London by this time - having been used in the designs of the Carlton Club and the Army and Navy Club - its employment here seems singularly appropriate. Like the Venetian empire before it, British imperium had become synonymous with political and economic power, maritime supremacy, and the just and stable reputation of its institutions.126 Considering the care and subtlety with which the ornament for the building was chosen, it is difficult to believe that such allusions did not resonate in the minds of Scott and Wyatt. However, in the final analysis, Wyatt's decorative programme tends to present a narrative schema shorn of all inconsistency and contention. It recasts the rather sporadic, opportunistic, and complicated manner in which the British amassed and ruled their Indian empire, conveying instead the image of a natural, even seamless rise to power all but complete in its illusion. Confined by the imposing and regulated forms of the architecture, the names and events symbolized the orderly control that Britain now exercised over the Indian subcontinent. As Sir John Kaye, one time secretary of the Political and Secret Department, would later note:

It was a pleasant notion to decorate the new office with the marble effigies ... of the great men who from time to time have served Mr. Company .... It is truly what may be called a 'Walhalla' of heroes, - for Indian statesmanship is for the most part, heroic ... It is truly a great thing to remember that Mr. Company's system fostered all this heroic growth. What a chapter might be written upon this gallery of marble soldiers and statesmen! What truly

124 A sense of this missionary zeal can be found in the monthly publication of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts known as the Mission Field. See 'The Indian Mutiny and Christian missions', Mission Field, 3 (Feb. 1858), pp. 25-7. See also Metcalf, Ideologies, pp. 45-9. It is interesting to note, however, that both LordJohn Manners and Beresford Hope were exponents of the missionary cause. For instance, see Manners's speech before the SPG meeting on i6 Dec. 1857 in the Mission Field, 3 (Jan. 1858), pp. 14-19. 125 This association has been identified elsewhere by Jan Morris. See Heaven's command: an imperial progress (London, 1973), p. 265. 126 Wyatt had visited Venice in 1846 and later developed an appreciation for the architecture of Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570). See his comments on Sansovino and Venetian architecture in Jones, ed., Grammar of ornament.

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The India Office was finally completed in 1868 and the cortile was first used by Benjamin Disraeli on 19July 1867 to entertain the sultan of Turkey on a state visit to London. The secretary of state and his council took up residence the following year.

Throughout this article we have seen how notions concerning British national identity played an important role in the way the new Foreign and India Office buildings were perceived, debated, and publicized as works of architecture. As grand monumental structures, planned for the heart of the nation's governing sector, these buildings were seen as an opportunity to epitomize Britain's acknowledged status as a great international and imperial power. Forming part of a wider vision to enhance London's metropolitan image, they each engaged the public imagination in ways that exposed deep-rooted if competing ideas relating to the artistic expression of national genius. But if the Foreign Office and India Office were two distinct buildings, erected for entirely different administrative purposes, their peculiarities were ultimately diminished by the political implications associated with their juxtaposition. At first glance one might be inclined to associate the Foreign Office more with ideas concerning international relations, and the India Office with those pertaining to the establishment and maintenance of empire. The Foreign Office, for instance, was to be adorned with figures representing the 'art of diplomacy' and those countries with which Britain had established foreign relations, including Italy, France, and the United States. This theme was continued inside the building, where figures personifying the five most important nations from each quarter of the globe (Asia, Africa, America, and Europe) were depicted in the dome above the Grand Staircase. On completion of the building in 1868, the Art Journal applauded its distinction and originality, noting that it was 'admirably qualified to command the becoming respect of all foreign personages'. This was important, it was added, because 'here foreigners of high rank ... accustomed in their own countries to associate splendid displays with national power and influence ... would attach no slight importance to every circumstance connected with the edifice'.128 But, as Lords Ellenborough and Stanley had recognized a decade earlier, this apparent 'power and influence' was undoubtedly enhanced by the physical proximity of the Foreign Office to the new India Office. Combined, the two buildings presented an image of authority and prestige that foreign diplomats could not have failed to appreciate, signifying as they did the true nature of Britain's worldwide political, economic, and military prowess. Thus, in the minds

127 J. Kaye, 'The house that Scott built', Cornhill Magazine, Sept. 1867, pp. 362-3.

128s Art Journal, 7 (1868), p. 225.

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of the Victorian elite, the new government offices became, as Beresford Hope would later note, 'a kind of national palace'.129 From an iconographic point of view these associations obviously complicate our understanding of the Foreign and India Office as two separate buildings. Although they have been treated discretely here (physically and functionally), their relationship does indeed point up certain ambiguities regarding the idea of nationhood. For example, the character of the debate over style suggests that the distinction between nation and empire in certain aspects of the public imagination was itself varied and/or nebulous. It reaffirms the thesis that identity was rooted at least partially in an appeal to ethno-cultural origins rather than in predominantly abstract principles of government and/or civilization; that, in fact, the two (romantic and rational) overlapped and were often compounded in an attempt to justify a particular idea or course of action. As we have seen, public perception of the project was less discriminatory in this respect than any easy division of the two buildings might imply. Although some chose to couch the debate in limited or parochial terms, particularly with regard to the Foreign Office, it is clear that many identified the project as a whole with Britain's wider power and influence. The way in which imperial themes were associated time and again with both buildings suggests that the 'empire' was not considered an independent phenomenon divorced from the progress of Britain itself. In fact, it suggests quite the opposite; that Britain owed something of its political leverage and development to its acknowledged imperial status. In this sense, the two ideas (nation and empire) were inextricably linked, literally and figuratively. To insist on a strict division between these themes and the two buildings would be to misread or underestimate the extent to which many Britons recognized their nation's global reach and how this worked to compound notions of national and imperial identity in the mid-Victorian imagination. They were seen as corresponding aspects of the same basic desire to express and immortalize Britain's place in world history - a motive that was considered only proper and 'appropriate' for such a conspicuous group of public buildings. Again, their physical conjunction reaffirms this understanding. That the office for British foreign affairs could form a single complex of buildings with an office for the administration of Britain's Indian empire (and later the Home Office and Colonial Office) suggests a great deal about how the British government viewed the nature of its diplomatic and administrative responsibilities. As if meshed in a mutually dependent embrace, both these arms of government were intimately entwined with the political and economic interests of the state. This intersection was symptomatic of the way architecture was able, and even expected, to bear meaning. Although economy was a factor governing the design and construction of these buildings, especially given the renewed climate of public accountability that characterized the Office of Works during this period, it should not obscure the influence that other, more immaterial concerns had on the development of

129 Parliamenta~y papers (1877), xv, p. 30.

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British public architecture. The debate as it unfolded outside the prerogative of parliament - in pamphlets, professional journals, and the popular press - was concerned to a much larger extent with issues of an ideological and sentimental nature, issues that engaged not only with the meaning of style but also with the idea of London as the centre and 'first city' of the British empire. This was particularly so with the India Office. Here Britain's changing sense of obligation and duty led to the creation of a purpose-built facility that consciously marked the imperial status of both the nation and its metropolis. In this respect, the India Office was undoubtedly London's most 'imperial' building of the mid- Victorian age. Moreover, its advent and the ideas that shaped it highlight the effect that Britain's imperial experience had on the transformation of the metropolis itself. British imperial history has long been concerned with how European colonialism affected the peoples and places of the non-European world, but the examples of the Foreign and India Office buildings discussed here add further weight to the understanding that this was a two-way process, as much in the I860s as in the so-called 'age of empire'.

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