page_title: Longwood House
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Longwood House / History
context_page_description: Longwood House is a mansion in St. Helena and the final residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, during his exile on the island of Saint Helena, from 10 December 1815 until his death on 5 May 1821. It lies on a windswept plain some 6 km from Jamestown.
context_section_description: Longwood "was originally a farm belonging to the East India Company and was afterwards given as a country residence to the Deputy-Governor." It was converted for the use of Napoleon in 1815. The British government eventually recognised its inadequacy as a home for the former Emperor and his entourage and, by the time of his death, had built a new house for him nearby, which he never occupied. In February 1818, Governor Sir Hudson Lowe proposed to Lord Bathurst to move Napoleon to Rosemary Hall, a house that became available and was located in a more hospitable part of the island, sheltered from the winds and shaded, as Napoleon had preferred. But the revelations of General Gourgaud in London brought Lord Bathurst to the opinion that it was safer to keep Napoleon at Longwood, where an escape was harder to undertake. The building of the new house only began in October 1818, three years after Napoleon's arrival on the island.
  The will written by Napoleon at Longwood House is preserved in French National Archives.
caption: Napoleon's Last Will (1821)
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