This wing at the northern end of the Palace of Westminster is one of several residences within the complex. The present Palace, as built by Sir Charles Barry (1795-1860) after a fire destroyed large parts of the old palace that had accumulated hereabouts during the previous nine-hundred years, provided for sixteen residences of which several, including the Speaker's, were very grand. Today there is a clearer distinction between the private accommodation and that used for official purposes, including entertainment of dignitaries who visit Parliament. Amongst the State rooms, reportedly, the Speaker's State Dining Room is one of the finest spaces in Barry's creation. The decoration is in the style that August Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52), who worked with Barry, developed for the decoration throughout the Palace although this was carried out after his death. The Speaker is the Chair of the House of Commons, elected by the MP's, but the position has a considerable variety of functions. It is typical of many of the elements of the United Kingdom's idiosyncratic democracy in having acquired the functions and the means by which they are fulfilled through precedents that have occurred and been developed over some seven hundred years. Initially the monarch, when he summoned the representatives of the communities about the kingdom as one element of his parliament, required them to appoint one of their number, with a little guidance from him, to speak for them at the occasional and brief parliamentary sessions. When the Commons became less ready to take their monarch's guidance in this appointment and their representative expressed views that he did not like the Speaker was, on occasion, severely ill-treated. The other attendees at the Parliament, the Lords spiritual and temporal, could speak for themselves as individuals, and also be ill-treated on occasion. Quite a late development in the Speaker's position, in the eighteenth century, was the requirement that he or she be independent from any faction or party in their chairmanship of the House. However, deriving from this independent and representative status and the primary standing, presently, of the Commons in the legislature, it is now the Speaker who represents Parliament.

O/S Co-ords:3032.7960
Source(s):

Westminster Palace and Parliament