Political history, especially that of nations other than my own, is not one of my strengths, but I do try to keep learning. It was a quote from Agatha Christie’s novel, The Secret of Chimneys, that prodded me to read up on English politics in the early 1900s.
The Honourable George Lomax, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, appears in both The Secret of Chimneys, published in 1925, and The Seven Dials Mystery, published in 1929. In an early chapter of Chimneys, Lomax has cornered Lord Caterham on the steps of his club to talk Caterham into hosting a political weekend party. During his long-winded speech, he interjects: “Not that I approve of women in politics—St. Stephen’s is ruined, absolutely ruined, nowadays.” Naturally, I had to find out what St. Stephen’s was.
George Lomax was referring to St. Stephen’s Chapel, located in the Westminster complex along the Thames. Although mainly a memory by the 1920s, it is a fascinating part of England’s history.
The first Westminster Abbey and Westminster Palace was built by King Edward the Confessor. Unfortunately, due to his poor health in December of 1065, Edward was unable to attend the church’s consecration and died soon after. If this date sounds familiar that’s because Edward’s successor, Harold II, was defeated in 1066 by William the Conqueror, ending England’s Anglo-Saxon era and beginning the Norman era.
Edward’s remains are interred in Westminster Abbey, although that was not the Abbey he commissioned as it was rebuilt sometime after 1245. The oldest structure remaining today is Westminster Hall, a part of the palace, which was built between 1087 and 1100. If you saw photos or videos of the Lying-in-State of Queen Elizabeth II, you saw Westminster Hall.
It was Henry III who directed the creation of St. Stephen’s Chapel, inspired by the chapel used by the Kings of France at their royal compound. These things take time, however, and it was another King Edward who completed the Royal Chapel of St. Stephen in 1297. You probably know more about this Edward than you think because he was the guy who took home the Stone of Scone from Scotland and put it under the chair recently used for King Charles’ coronation. He also spent time battling Robert the Bruce.
St. Stephen’s Chapel was used by the royal family who were in residence at Westminster Palace for centuries. Henry VIII was even one of those residents when he was married to Catherine of Aragon. When Westminster Palace burned down in 1512, the Palace at Whitehall became the royal residence, but government business continued to be conducted in Westminster buildings.
Henry’s break with the Catholic Church removed a lot of structures from religious use. During the brief reign of Henry’s son, Edward VI, the Chapel became the debating chamber for the House of Commons and remained so for almost three hundred years. The limited space was never intended for such a purpose, however, and they did modify the interior over the years.
One change was to lower the ceiling to make it easier to hear who was speaking. A lucky side benefit of the remodeling was room to add a balcony so citizens, including women, could attend sessions and witness debates. In the 1770s, however, women were banned from the public balconies, just as they were already banned from politics in general.
Further remodeling of the interior to vent heat from the crowded House floor created an opening in the ceiling for drawing hot air into the attic. In the early 1800s, up to 25 tickets a day were distributed that allowed women to sit up in the attic around the vent and listen to what was being debated below. They still couldn’t vote – or even see what was happening – but they could take notes and share what they heard with other women.
In 1834, there was a devastating fire at that destroyed both Houses of Parliament. All that was left of the House of Commons was the crypt below St. Stephen's chapel, which is still there today. It was restored as the Chapel of St. Mary Undercroft and is used for the weddings and baptisms of notables.
Parliament occupied temporary quarters until their new, larger, halls were completed in the mid-1800s. The architect included an entranceway to the House of Commons called St. Stephen’s Hall which was erected on the site of the former Chapel. That House of Commons would be the one with which George Lomax was familiar. If you visit Westminster today, you won’t see George's House because it was bombed during the second World War, although the Hall was mainly spared.
The suffragettes started Votes for Women in the beginning of the 1900s, and the first woman was elected to the House of Commons in 1918. Constance Markievicz won the election, but as she was a Sinn Féin member and in prison at the time, she was not seated. The first woman to actually take a House seat was Nancy Astor, an American woman married to Englishman Waldorf Astor.
If George Lomax was serving in Foreign Affairs during the 1920s, St. Stephen’s Chapel would have been gone for decades, although having women in the House of Commons was still quite a new development. I found it odd that the House was still known as St. Stephen's, but a Baedeker Handbook for Travellers published in 1923 says, "St. Stephen's is still often used as a synonym for the House of Commons."
I certainly can’t agree with George’s assessment of women “ruining” Parliament, but I do love old buildings and traditions, so I can sympathize with his wish to hang on to the ghost of St. Stephen’s. Who knew that this one sentence in The Secret of Chimneys would lead me down such a rabbit hole and teach me so much about the House of Commons?
History is such fun!
Houses of Parliament, St. Stephen's Hall Interior, London, England. England London, ca. 1890. [Between and Ca. 1900] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002696922/.