Marlborough House - celebrates 300th anniversary

To celebrate the 300th anniversary of the building of Marlborough House – home of the Commonwealth Secretariat and Commonwealth Foundation – the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma, is holding a reception for the Duke of Marlborough, historians, architects and other guests this evening (21 May 2009).

As part of the celebrations, a painting of the first Duchess of Marlborough, Sarah Churchill (1660-1744), will be unveiled. The Duchess, who was a close friend of Queen Anne, was the mastermind behind the building, and laid its foundation stone on 24 May 1709.

Ophelia Field, historian and author of ‘The Favourite: Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough’, said: “Sarah was an incredibly intelligent woman, and very charismatic. But she also had a very quick temper, and a lot of pride. The actual building of Marlborough House, as with all her projects, was quite a stormy business. She micro-managed the whole thing, and got extremely angry when things ran over cost.”

The painting, done by Charles Jervas, makes its return from its former temporary home in 10 Downing Street. It shows the Duchess with her hand touching her head, symbolising intellect.

The Duchess first secured the lease of the Marlborough House site from Queen Anne and, after falling out with her architect Sir Christopher Wren, supervised the completion of the house.

The building is home to paintings of the Duke's battles (Blenheim 1704, Ramillies 1706, Oudenarde 1708, Malplaquet 1709), and was built using red Dutch bricks brought to England as ballast in the troop transports that had carried soldiers for the Duke's army in Holland.

The house would be home to subsequent Dukes of Marlborough, princes, queens and kings until 1953.

In September 1959, Queen Elizabeth II allowed the house to become a Commonwealth centre, and in 1965 it became the home of the Secretariat and the Foundation.

Mr Sharma said: “We are proud to honour the memory of this remarkable woman, Sarah Churchill, and to thank Her Majesty The Queen, the Head of the Commonwealth, who allows us to work from this beautiful building.

“The Modern Commonwealth is 60 years old this year, and is proud to be a modern organisation helping the citizens of its member countries to face the challenges of their times. Equally, it is conscious of the legacies of history – and one such legacy is this great building, and all its associations. Our future direction is all the clearer for having an appreciation of the past.”

Some facts about Marlborough House:

Marlborough House has been the London residence of five Dukes and Duchesses of Marlborough, three dowager Queens, three Princes of Wales (the future Edward VII, George V and Edward VIII), and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, who became King of the Belgians.

In 1840 a wedding banquet for the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was held at Marlborough House by Queen Adelaide, who lived there after King William IV’s death.

In 1936 Edward VIII dined in the Delegates’ Lounge before announcing to his mother, Queen Mary, in her private apartments upstairs, his intention to marry Wallis Simpson, and thereafter to abdicate the throne.

The chimney-piece in the entrance hall is timber with a carved head of Apollo (possibly a reference to King Louis XIV of France – sometimes called the Sun King – whose forces were defeated by the Duke of Marlborough).

The wall paintings on the Ramillies Staircase (the Royal Staircase) are by Louis Laguerre, and show the second of the Duke’s victories, the Battle of Ramillies in 1706. Marlborough fell from his horse early in the engagement with the French, and when he was being remounted on a spare charger, a cannonball flew over the back of the horse and decapitated Colonel Bringfield, who was holding the stirrup. The decapitated officer is shown in the painting.

The paintings on the Malplaquet (or Visitors’) staircase are by Laguerre and show Marlborough’s final battle in 1709 where 24,000 of Marlborough’s men and between 12,000-15,000 French men died. The painting to the left shows peasant women stripping dead soldiers of their uniforms to be sold back to officers who reissued them to replacement troops.

After the Duke of Marlborough’s death in 1722, his body lay in state in the Green Room, which was hung with black velvet.

The vast table in the main conference room was a gift from Commonwealth governments in the 1960s, and has had to be enlarged at various times as the number of Commonwealth members has grown.

Marlborough House is home to 300 staff at the Commonwealth Secretariat, the international and independent secretariat which services the growing Commonwealth. It has been the venue for a number of independence negotiations and many Commonwealth conferences, including summit meetings of Commonwealth Heads of Government.

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