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Once the jail of a banished royal, Chequers rich history dates back to Elizabethan times but its treasures are unfortunately not open to the public. Key Facts about the House Chequers is located near Ellesborough in Buckinghamshire, England. Chequers was built in the 16th century by William Hawtrey. There has been a house on the site of Chequers since the 12th century. Chequers has been the private country retreat of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 1921. History of the House Chequers Court is known for its important role in British political life. Located just 41 miles from Downing Street this 16th century country house and estate was given to the nation of Great Britain in 1917 by Sir Arthur Lee and has been the official country seat and private retreat of the Prime Minister since 1921. Chequer’s origins are somewhat ambiguous. It is known that the house as it stands today was built, or at least extensively remodelled, by William Hawtrey in 1565.

Hawtrey’s name appears in the reception room of the house and his initials and the date of 1565 are carved into the brickwork in various places on the house’s exterior. What sort of building stood on the site of Chequers before Hawtrey’s remodelling is largely unknown but the dating of building materials suggests that there has been a house on this site since the 12th century. The name ‘Chequers’ may come from the house’s first resident, Elias Ostiarius, whose name indicates that he was an usher of the Court of the Exchequer. This original house passed through many generations of this family before being passed into the Hawtrey family line. In the same year Hawtrey completed his renovations, Chequers earned its place in the great tomes of English History when it became the prison of a banished royal, the great-granddaughter of Henry VIII, Lady Mary Grey. Queen Elizabeth I herself ordered Lady Mary Grey’s confinement herself when it was learned Lady Grey had married without her family’s consent.

For two years, between 1565 and 1567, Hawtrey guarded Lady Grey in an attempt to ensure she would have no descendents who could, in future, challenge the throne. The room in which Lady Grey was confined has been kept in its original condition. Chequers passed through many families in subsequent years including the Wooleys, Crokes and Thurbanes and the Russells. John Russell, owner of Chequers in 1715, was the grandson of Oliver Cromwell. In 1832, the house was still in the possession of the Russell family and it was Sir George Russell who commissioned architect William Atkinson to modernize the house in gothic style by removing Hawtrey’s original Tudor paneling and windows, plastering the exterior and redecorating the interior in a neo-gothic style. Chequers was briefly owned by the Astley family and leased by the wonderfully named Clutterbucks before being taken on a long lease by a Mr Arthur Lee and his wife, an American heiress, Ruth Lee.

With the advice of Reginald Bloomfield and the work of Bertram Astley, the Lees brought Chequers back to its original Elizabethan style. The external Gothic additions made by the Russells were removed and the Tudor features reinstated and the interiors were remodeled using many imported and reproduction 16th and 17th century antiquities. In the East wing of the house sits the magnificent Hawtrey Room which Bloomfield restored with imported 16th century paneling and reproduction heraldic glass. Above this room is the Great Parlour which features a chimney place brought by Lord Lee from one of his houses in Ipswich and an Elizabethan-style frieze and plasterwork. The Great Hall was also completely remodeled by Bloomfield who added a plaster ceiling copied from the residence of Paul Pindar, an alabaster fireplace and a 17th century screen that forms a passage on the south side. A few years before the outbreak of World War I the Lees purchased Chequers and allowed the house to be used as a hospital during wartime. Following the war the Lees, who were by this time the Lord and Lady of Fareham and childless, left the house to the nation.

On 8 January 1921 the Lees handed over the house to then Prime Minister David Lloyd George. A stained glass window in Chequers has the following inscription “This house of peace and ancient memories was given to England as a thank-offering for her deliverance in the great war of 1914–1918 as a place of rest and recreation for her Prime Ministers for ever.” During the Second World War, Winston Churchill declined to use Chequers as his country retreat due to security concerns and when not in London resided in Ditchley in Oxfordshire until late 1942 when security measures had been put in place. Chequers hosted the leaders of the 24th G8 summit’s spouses in 1998 and in 2014 was visited by Queen Elizabeth II. What Makes Chequers Very Famous? Chequers has played host to important political figures and celebrities from all over the world since it became the official country retreat of the Prime Minister in 1921.

The family who donated Chequers to the nation, the Lord and Lady of Fareham, recognised the huge political change of the twentieth century and pre-empted a situation where the elected Prime Minister of Great Britain may not have the means to fund his own country house. Chequers is symbolic of Lord and Lady Fareham’s vision of a fairer political system, where a lack of wealth or an aristocratic background would not disqualify potential future leaders. Further Research Chequers | estate, England, United Kingdom | Britannica.com estate, England, United Kingdom Globe Theatre Chequers, formally Chequers Court, country house, administrative and historic county of Buckinghamshire , England , situated 30 miles (50 km) northwest of London, the official country residence of the prime ministers of Great Britain. The estate is about 1,500 acres (600 hectares) in extent. Chequers owes much of its present character to the remodeling, in 1565, of its predecessor. In the 19th century the exterior was plastered and the interior redecorated in neo-Gothic style.

In 1917 Viscount Lee of Fareham made provision, with parliamentary approval, for the house to become a weekend retreat and place for prime ministers to entertain guests. Since 1921, when David Lloyd George became the first prime minister occupant, his successors have usually spent time there during their terms of office, and ministerial weekends at Chequers have become a part of British political life. Chequers, Ellesborough, Buckinghamshire, Eng. prime minister the head of government in a country with a parliamentary or semipresidential political system. In such systems, the prime minister—literally the “first,” or most important, minister—must be able to command a continuous majority in the legislature (usually the lower house... Corrections? Updates? Help us improve this article! Contact our editors with your feedback. MEDIA FOR: You have successfully emailed this. Error when sending the email. Try again later. Edit Mode Submit Tips For Editing We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind. Encyclopædia Britannica articles are written in a neutral objective tone for a general audience.

You may find it helpful to search within the site to see how similar or related subjects are covered. Any text you add should be original, not copied from other sources. At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context. (Internet URLs are the best.) Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval. Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions. Submit Thank You for Your Contribution! Our editors will review what you've submitted, and if it meets our criteria, we'll add it to the article. Please note that our editors may make some formatting changes or correct spelling or grammatical errors, and may also contact you if any clarifications are needed. Uh Oh There was a problem with your submission. Please try again later. Close Date Published: August 14, 2008 URL: Access Date: January 18, 2017 Share True or False: United Kingdom Quiz - By aelsle Did you know? The name of the Royal household was changed in 1917 to the Windsors.

George V, eager not to be associated with Germany during World War I, got rid of the Royal name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Chequers Estate is an official residence of the prime minister. It's the prime minister's official country residence. The four constituent countries of the United Kingdom are individually represented at the Olympics. England, Scotland, and Wales compete as Great Britain. Northern Irish athletes can compete for either Team GB or the Republic of Ireland. The United Kingdom is a part of the EU, G8, and UN Security Council. The UK is a member of all three bodies. However, despite being in the EU, it does not subscribe to the eurozone, or the Schengen open border Agreement. The first King of the United Kingdom was George II. George II was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland. The two countries were unified under his grandson, George III. Two current MPs in the House of Commons have been prime minister. David Cameron MP and Gordon Brown MP both sit in the Commons. The monarch is Commander-in-chief of the British Armed Forces. Queen Elizabeth II remains the titular head of the country's military. The northernmost point of the Republic of Ireland is farther north than all of Northern Ireland.

The uninhabited Inis Trá Tholl (Inishtrahull Island) lies at 55.43°N. The northernmost point of Northern Ireland is Rathlin Island, at 55.3°N. The southern-most point in the United Kingdom is Land's End, Cornwall. The Isles of Scilly lie farther south than Land's End. Queen Elizabeth II's title prior to ascension was HRH the Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh. After her marriage to Prince Philip, he was given the title Duke of Edinburgh, which made the princess the Duchess of Edinburgh. The UK has a national association football league. Each of the UK's four constituent countries have their own football leagues. The general election of 2010 resulted in a victory for the Conservative Party. No party gained overall control of the House of Commons. The Conservatives govern in coalition. The UK has a national ice hockey league. The Elite League is the UK-wide top-division ice hockey league. The longest-serving prime minister in British history served in the 19th century. The longest-serving prime minister is Robert Walpole, who served from 1721 to 1742—in the 18th century.

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There are MPs in the House of Commons who refuse to take their seats. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. The full title of the foreign minister is the 'Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs'. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. Two current MPs in the House of Commons have been prime minister. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. The general election of 2010 resulted in a victory for the Conservative Party. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. The first King of the United Kingdom was George II.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. Queen Elizabeth II's title prior to ascension was HRH the Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. The longest-serving prime minister in British history served in the 19th century. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. Chequers Estate is an official residence of the prime minister. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. The Scottish Parliament is said to sit at Holyrood.

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Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. The official residence of the finance minister is 11 Downing Street. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. The Speaker, John Bercow MP, is a Conservative MP. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister while still Earl of Home in 1963, and served as such for four days before resigning his peerage to stand for election as an MP. report this ad BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | What are grace-and-favour homes? What are grace-and-favour homes? Political reporter, BBC News Mr Prescott kept Dorneywood and his flat at Admiralty House John Prescott has given up his grace-and-favour country pile, Dorneywood. BBC News looks at the range of rent-free homes which can be doled out to senior ministers.

They are meant to provide a retreat from the toils of office but grace-and-favour homes have brought nothing but trouble for successive ministers. Bad headlines might as well be on the property spec for these plush, rent-free apartments and country piles - whether it is John Prescott's croquet, Lord Irvine's ï¿½200-a-roll wallpaper or the periodic stories about alleged ministerial squabbles over who gets the perks. Council tax troubles The prime minister has some of the classiest accommodation in England to share out between senior ministers - some owned by the taxpayers, others by charitable trusts. Despite giving up Dorneywood, Mr Prescott has kept his grace-and-favour apartment in Admiralty House, near Trafalgar Square, London. Earlier this year he had to apologise when it emerged the taxpayers had been paying his council tax bills on the property - he said it was a mistake and reimbursed the money. Officially, ministers only pay council tax on their official residences if they are their primary homes - otherwise the costs are met by the state. Most of the properties are also taxed as a "benefit in kind". Downing Street is exempt, as are homes where ministers, such as Northern Ireland secretaries, have to live for security reasons.

'Away from the hubbub' Former Chancellor Ken Clarke said Dorneywood had a real purpose as a venue for talks with foreign dignitaries and departmental away days - although ministers also enjoyed using it. Geoffrey Howe, former deputy prime minister and chancellor, said the current fuss about Dorneywood was "rather sad". "Provided government is sensibly run and sensibly managed, official residences are useful places," Lord Howe told the BBC News website. Lord Howe said he had not used Dorneywood as much as he had his previous residence, Chevening, when he was foreign secretary. At Chevening, he held talks with French ministers about Britain's budget rebate and unpublicised discussions with members of the ANC. "You can get away from the hubbub and you can have confidential meetings there," he said. But what about the homes themselves? 10 DOWNING STREET The best known grace-and-favour home, traditionally reserved for the prime minister. In fact, Tony Blair lives next door at No 11 because he has a larger family and Chancellor Gordon Brown uses the flat in No 10.

Sir Robert Walpole was the first prime minister (although he did not officially take the title) to live in No 10 when he moved there in 1735. The house was offered as a personal gift by George II - Walpole rejected the offer but accepted the house as the official residence for holders of the post of first lord of the Treasury. No 11 Downing Street has been the official home of the chancellor of the Exchequer since 1828. The two houses, including the offices below the apartments, are valued at ï¿½23.6m. CHEQUERS The prime minister's official country retreat is in Buckinghamshire and under Tony Blair has played host to foreign leaders and celebrities such as Sir Elton John, Bryan Adams, David Bowie and daytime TV duo Richard and Judy. It was bequeathed to the nation in 1917 by Sir Arthur Lee, an MP and director-general of food production. The house is maintained through a trust but also gets money from the government to meet upkeep and staff costs, which totalled ï¿½393,000 in 2001/2.

DORNEYWOOD The 21-room Queen Anne-style house in Buckinghamshire was built in 1920 and is set in 200 acres of parkland. It boasts paintings and furniture from the government art collection. The estate was given to the National Trust by industrialist Lord Courtauld-Thomson in 1947 as a country home for a senior member of the government. The upkeep is met by the Dorneywood Thomson Endowment Trust Fund but the government pays the cost of official entertainment. It is unclear which minister will become Dorneywood's next official resident. ADMIRALTY HOUSE Mr Prescott holds one of the three apartments in Admiralty House, which together are valued at ï¿½7m. Admiralty House was built in the 18th century as a home for the First Lord of the Admiralty, it was used for that purpose until 1964. Winston Churchill lived there when he held the post from 1911 to 1915 and again from 1939 to 1940. The upkeep costs are paid by the departments whose ministers have run of the apartments.

Lately, Mr Prescott's neighbours have been Margaret Beckett and Geoff Hoon, but the recent reshuffle means they are both moving out. Defence Secretary Des Browne and Chief Whip Jacqui Smith are both tipped to be offered one of the flats. CHEVENING Margaret Beckett has followed previous foreign secretaries in taking up the 3,500 estate in Kent. It was left to the nation in 1967 by the seventh Earl of Stanhope on condition that it was used by the prime minister, a Cabinet minister or a descendant of King George VI. The Prince of Wales initially accepted the offer in 1974 but later declined. Lord Carrington became the first foreign secretary to occupy the house in 1979. Like Dorneywood, Chevening is maintained by a trust, with the government only paying for official entertainment costs. ONE CARLTON GARDENS Mrs Beckett has moved into this flat, another traditional residence of the foreign secretary. It was built by John Nash in 1830-3 and was briefly home to the exiled Louis Napoleon (later Napoleon III of France).

The flat was acquired on lease from the crown estates for Ernest Bevin when he served as foreign secretary in the 1945 Attlee government. BELGRAVIA Traditionally the home secretary, who needs special security protection, has lived in a grace-and-favour home in Belgravia. Former Home Secretary David Blunkett moved out of South Eaton Place earlier this year, four months after his resignation. The ï¿½3m house is reportedly being sold. The Home Office says it is vacant but no decision has been made about its future. Officials say new Home Secretary John Reid does not have an official residence. LORD CHANCELLOR'S APARTMENTS Former Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine caused outrage when he spent ï¿½650,000 on Pugin wallpaper in his official apartments in the House of Lords. The running costs have been met by the House of Lords, rather than by the government. But the soon-to-be elected new speaker of the Lords will take over part of the residence for meeting visiting parliamentarians. There will be overnight accommodation but it will not be an official residence.

HILLSBOROUGH CASTLE The late 18th-century mansion plays home to Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain while he is in the province. In 1985 the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald. The Institution of Prime Minister | History of government The Institution of Prime Minister — No 10 guest historian series , Prime Ministers and No. 10 “How the power of Prime Ministry grew up into its present form it is difficult to trace precisely.” In 1841 a former Prime Minister, Viscount Melbourne , explained the above to Queen Victoria . Details of the lives of individual Prime Ministers have been recounted in numerous biographical studies, but less is known about the history of the premiership as an institution. This article provides an historical overview of how the British Prime Minister’s Office came into being, its subsequent development and the staff attached to it. Sir Robert Walpole and the origins of the premiership The so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 helped produce a new power-balance within the English constitution.

Monarchs became more dependent upon Parliament to obtain tax revenues and pursue their favoured policies, while the House of Commons was establishing its dominance over the House of Lords. This changed constitutional structure created a potential opening for a politician who could deliver control of Parliament for the monarch. One man in particular, operating from the position of a Member of the Commons, not the Lords, managed to exploit this opportunity: Sir Robert Walpole . The title ‘prime minister’ was originally a term of abuse rather than a description of an official role. It implied that an individual subject had risen improperly above others within the royal circle, and had echoes of a political institution imported from France, England’s great enemy. When Robert Harley, a favourite of Queen Anne (1702-1714), was impeached in 1715, one of the charges against him was that he was a prime minister. The prevailing view at this time was that monarchs should be their own prime ministers. The historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote that Walpole was ‘as much the first modern Prime Minister we should recognize as Adam was the first man’.

Walpole had a long tenure as First Lord of the Treasury (1721-1742) and became the dominant figure within government from around 1730. His ability to carry crown business through Parliament ensured the support of first George I and, from 1727, George II . Their backing enabled Walpole to influence official appointments and gave him access to money, both of which could be traded for support in Parliament. He exerted further influence over public business by avoiding the use of the large, full Cabinet of around a dozen senior figures for serious business, preferring to operate with an inner circle of five or fewer key supporters. Moreover, through his control of the Treasury Walpole was able to extend his power throughout the country and help ensure that parliamentary elections – in which only a tiny proportion of men (and no women) could then vote – produced the desired outcome. However, the idea of an official office of Prime Minister remained taboo.

In 1741, when the nature of his government was under attack, Walpole told the Commons “I unequivocally deny that I am sole and prime minister.” A controversial public figure, he was targeted by a literary grouping whose members – including John Gay, Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift – labelled themselves the ‘Scriblerus Club’. In Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels Walpole was parodied as ‘Flimnap, the Treasurer’; while in Gay’s musical play the Beggar’s Opera, a highwayman character, Robin of Bagshot, had aliases including ‘Bob Booty’ – a nickname which became attached to Walpole, playing on his reputation for corruption. There was an attempt to impeach Walpole after his fall from power in 1742, but the parliamentary ‘Committee of Secrecy’ set up to investigate his financial activities could not construct a case against him. As later became the norm for Prime Ministers, the ultimate sanction deployed against him was not legal, but political: removal from office.

The institution of Prime Minister is entrenched In the decades that followed the fall of Walpole it was not always clear whether there was a Prime Minister at any given time, because the post was not yet firmly established in practice nor officially recognised. But other political leaders built upon the methods Walpole pioneered, usually acting in the role of Prime Minister while officially holding the post of First Lord of the Treasury, as he had. From the late-eighteenth century the office of Prime Minister gradually became accepted and then entrenched as a permanent fixture of British government. In 1778, during the American War of Independence, the Prime Minister Lord North wrote to George III that: ‘in critical times, it is necessary that there should be one directing Minister’. In 1803, during the gap between his two premierships, William Pitt the Younger told Lord Melville of the need for an ‘avowed and real Minister, possessing the chief weight in the Council, and the principal place in the confidence of the King’. By 1805 The Times newspaper was beginning to use the phrase ‘Prime Minister’ in this sense and around this time it began to be employed in parliamentary debates.

The office of Prime Minister was widely accepted as a political reality by the mid-nineteenth century. But official acknowledgement of this development was slower to take place. In 1878 William Gladstone – who served as Prime Minister on four separate occasions – remarked: ‘upon the whole, nowhere in the wide world does so great a substance cast so small a shadow; nowhere is there a man who has so much power, with so little to show for it in the way of formal title or prerogative’. Yet in the same year a significant development occurred when Benjamin Disraeli used the term ‘Prime Minister’ when signing the Treaty of Berlin. The list of government ministers printed in Hansard, the official record of parliamentary debates, seems to have first used the title Prime Minister in 1885. An early internal reference to the Prime Minister was included in the minutes of the first meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1902. The 1904 edition of the Imperial Calendar (the predecessor to the Civil Service Yearbook) referred to Arthur Balfour as ‘Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury’; in the previous edition he was merely ‘First Lord of the Treasury and Lord Privy Seal’.

Then in December 1905 the Prime Minister was granted a place in the official order of precedence. The first statutory reference to the Prime Minister came in the Chequers Estate Act 1917, which specified Chequers as a prime-ministerial residence. Public recognition of the existence of a ‘Prime Minister’s Office’ in the Civil Service Yearbook came as recently as the 1977 edition. The British premiership has gradually taken on a more official existence over the last three centuries, but remains largely informal in character, with many of its powers matters of convention rather than law. In the words of the Cabinet Manual, published in October 2011, ‘The Prime Minister has few statutory functions but will usually take the lead on significant matters of state’. Where once the very existence of the premiership was a subject of controversy, more recently the manner in which the office is used has become the main focus of discussion. Turning points and phases In 1974 Robert (Lord) Blake, Oxford academic and biographer of Benjamin Disraeli, identified three ‘turning points’ in the history of the premiership.

The first came in 1782–1784 with a ‘change…from a monarch who was the real head of the executive, an active political force concerned with the day-to-day issues of government to a monarch with a veto – the right to dismiss the Prime Minister and so the right to prevent the implementation of policies he disliked’. The second and most significant change was the shift ‘from the King’s government to party government’ which became apparent in 1834–1835. Third was a movement from ‘government by parties based on parliament to government by parties based on nation-wide organizations’, which began with the expansions in the franchise by the reform acts of 1867 and 1884. Subsequent key moments in the office have been identified by the historian Peter (Lord) Hennessy.

They include: 1870: the Prime Minister acquires the sole right to call Cabinet meetings; 1881: ‘Questions to the PM’ are introduced in Parliament, an ancestor of today’s weekly ‘Prime Minister’s Questions’; 1903: The establishment of the Prime Minister’s absolute right to remove ministers from office; and 1918: the Prime Minister gains from the Cabinet as a whole the right to request the dissolution of Parliament by the monarch, triggering a general election. It is also possible to identify at least two longer historical phases in the history of the premiership. The first ran from the early-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Nearly all Prime Ministers have held the post of First Lord of the Treasury. Until the mid-nineteenth century this role involved direct control of the Treasury and responsibility for financial policy. If First Lords sat in the Commons, they combined this office with that of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In 1803 William Pitt the Younger saw it as natural that the first minister should “be the person at the head of the finances.” During this first stage Prime Ministers were also departmental ministers who used their Treasury power-base to achieve control over government. The start of the second phase can be traced to a decision made by Sir Robert Peel , when he became Prime Minister for the second time in 1841. Peel delegated day-to-day oversight of Treasury business to a separate Chancellor of the Exchequer. Holders of this post came to be important figures within government in their own right. The long-term consequence of this arrangement was to cut off the premiership from this departmental function. It was now more focused on overall government coordination and leadership, particularly through the Prime Minister’s role as chair of the Cabinet. Cabinet had origins in the late-seventeenth century and by the mid-nineteenth century established itself as the supreme collective decision-making body within government. A dominant office? From Walpole’s time onwards observers have frequently accused either individual Prime Ministers or the office itself of excessive dominance within government.

In 1806 the incoming Prime Minister, Lord Grenville , described his immediate predecessor, William Pitt the Younger, as having led ‘a Cabinet of cyphers and a government of one man alone…[a] wretched system’. One critic of the Duke of Wellington as Prime Minister from 1828-30 called him a ‘Dictator’. Sidney Low argued in 1904 that for ‘the greater part of the past half century…The office of premier has become more than ever like that of an elective President’. David Lloyd George was described by Harold Laski in 1920 as ‘virtually the President of a State’. In the 1960s John Mackintosh held that the ‘position and power of the Prime Minister has been the focal point of modern Cabinets’; and Richard Crossman that ‘the post war epoch has seen the final transformation of cabinet government into prime ministerial government’. Similar claims have been made up to the present; but there have always been opposing views. In 1775 Dr.

(Samuel) Johnson, who had once been associated with the movement attacking Walpole for being excessively strong, complained that under Lord North ‘government had too little power…there was now no Prime Minister’. In his 1876 novel, The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope depicted the character of the Duke of Omnium describing how, as premier, ‘I never felt before that I had to lean so entirely on others as I do now’. Two years later Gladstone wrote: “The head of the British Government is not a Grand Vizier. He has no powers, properly so called, over his colleagues.” In 1899 the former Prime Minister Lord Rosebery wrote that “a Prime Minister who is the senior partner in every department as well as president of the whole, who deals with all the business of government, who inspires and vibrates through every part, is almost, if not quite, an impossibility.” In 1976 the former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson , reflected that few premiers “except in wartime and rarely then, could dictate to their Cabinets.” unless they consulted with senior ministers. It is unlikely that this clash of views about the premiership will ever fully be resolved.

Aides to Walpole and his successors While the post of Prime Minister is filled by only one person, the institution of the premiership is a group enterprise. Premiers have relied on staff ever since Walpole initiated the role. The basic functions of his staff were those that many future Prime Ministers would continue to require. A number of MPs helped him manage votes in the Commons. In the Lords the same task was performed by Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, who secured the support of the bloc of 26 Bishops. Gibson, who was labelled ‘Walpole’s Pope’, also advised Walpole on wider Church issues. The Treasury assisted Walpole with issues of policy, administration and election management. He constructed a communications operation to promote himself publicly, including using control of the post office to prevent the distribution of critical works, bribing authors not to write them, and producing, printing and circulating newspapers, journals and poems praising Walpole and attacking his enemies. The physical location of the office of the premiership was established at this early point. In the 1730s the celebrated architect William Kent built new offices for the Treasury and renovated No.10 Downing Street, which became the official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury.

Kent designed corridors to link the two buildings, providing Walpole with easy access to his Treasury staff. From the 1960s the Cabinet Office was based in the area previously occupied by the Treasury, creating the same convenient physical proximity. Support staff continued to be important for Walpole’s successors. In the first phase of the premiership, when Prime Ministers were normally in direct control of the Treasury, one of their most important aides was the Secretary of the Treasury, who combined various key roles. They included recording decisions at Treasury meetings and ensuring they were put into effect, enforcing parliamentary discipline, advising on policy, organising election campaigns and predicting the outcomes, managing the distribution of patronage, and providing personal assistance to the premier. Another significant aide has been the secretary to the Prime Minister. One early holder of this position was the young Edmund Burke, who worked for Lord Rockingham during his first spell as Prime Minister (1756-1765). In 1806 public funding was established for one secretary, with a second added in 1812. One Prime Minister’s secretary, Edward Drummond, inadvertently performed the ultimate service when an assassin mistook him for Sir Robert Peel in 1843.

Drummond was shot in the back and died five days later. Other staff included Francis Bonham, who helped Peel in his handling of the Conservative Party within Parliament and nationally in the 1830s and 40s, foreshadowing the role of the No.10 Political Secretary. John (Lord) Acton, the eminent historian, helped Gladstone with various tasks from developing his overall policy to liaising with Queen Victoria. Ever since Walpole’s era aides have been deployed on media management. Alfred Austin, a pro-Conservative journalist, wrote anonymous articles in the press to help Lord Salisbury promote his ideas, as well as providing him with political advice. In recognition of his efforts Austin was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, despite being notorious for bad verse. Over time the tasks these individuals performed became more formalised, regularised and specialised. Developments in staffing Some of the basic kinds of support provided to Prime Ministers have not changed radically over time, but there have been significant structural shifts. The pressure involved in military combat has been an important influence.

During the Napoleonic wars the support team for the first minister was substantially restructured, including in 1805 the creation of the role of Assistant Secretary to the Treasury, a forerunner to the Whitehall departmental Permanent Secretary. This post enabled its occupant – who did not hold a seat in the Commons – to focus on administrative issues without being distracted by parliamentary business. In 1916 Lloyd George introduced a number of innovations intended to help win the First World War. He established a team of aides, each charged with overseeing particular policy areas. Formally labelled the ‘Prime Minister’s Secretariat’, it was known colloquially as the ‘Garden Suburb’ because its members were housed in huts erected on the lawn behind Downing Street. It was scaled down and abolished after the war. Lloyd George also introduced a secretary to take minutes at meetings of the War Cabinet he established. In the years before 1916 the only written account of Cabinet discussions was the letter drafted by the premier for the monarch. There were sometimes misunderstandings amongst ministers about what precisely had been agreed. To end this unsatisfactory arrangement, Lloyd George inaugurated the post of Cabinet Secretary and the body that would become the Cabinet Office.

Both would prove crucial in supporting the Prime Minister as chair of the Cabinet and in various other initiatives. The role of Cabinet Secretary became part of popular culture in the 1980s through the portrayal of the fictitious holder of the office, Sir Humphrey Appleby, in the television series Yes, Prime Minister. Though some of Lloyd George’s methods fell into disrepute after he left office in 1922, his use of aides in wartime proved influential. In 1940 Winston Churchill set up a Prime-Ministerial support team called the Statistical Section. The central purpose of the Section was to keep him informed about the allocation of resources involved in the Second World War. It was led by the physicist Frederick Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell), nicknamed ‘The Prof.’ Indeed Lloyd George’s ‘Garden Suburb’ can be seen as a forerunner of the Policy Unit, set up by Harold Wilson in 1974 and still part of No. 10 today. Another development in staffing involved the emergence of the permanent Civil Service as the core of the office of Prime Minister. In the early days of the premiership there was no clear division between political and administrative staff.

Senior ministers – including premiers – received assistance from individuals known as ‘men of business’, who combined functions later associated with junior ministers with those that would today be attributed to civil servants. By the mid-nineteenth century there emerged a permanent, impartial Civil Service which, by the late 1920s, became the most important source of support for the Prime Minister within No.10, comprising his or her private office of official private secretaries. From the 1960s onwards this trend was to some extent reversed with the appearance of special advisers, who combined party political and civil-service functions. They were similar to the ‘men of business’ of the eighteenth century. From the twentieth century onwards a variety of units were set up to provide services to the Prime Minister, located either at No. 10 Downing Street or in the Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall. They included the Press Office (which can be traced back to the appointment of a press secretary, George Steward, in 1931), the Political Office (1964), and the Policy Unit (1974). This proliferation of prime-ministerial units and offices involved an expansion in staff numbers.

The upward trend was only gradual at first, but accelerated during the second half of the twentieth century, with premiers bolstering their staff to support them in major policy projects, such as reversing economic decline, improving public services and communicating with the public. By 1997 the total number of staff at No.10 had risen substantially, to around 200 by 2000. The prime-ministerial team by this point included substantial numbers in the Cabinet Office as well as No. 10, with a grand total of 782 in 2005-2006. Since this peak, though direct comparison of figures is not possible, the number of staff has substantially reduced. But the growth that had taken place, coupled with the increased use of special advisers, prompted speculation that an informal ‘Department of the Prime Minister’ had been established. If such a body were ever officially established, the British premiership could be said to have clearly entered a new, third phase.

Edited by History & Policy Further reading Andrew Blick and George Jones, Premiership: the development, nature and power of the office of the British Prime Minister (Imprint Academic, Exeter, 2010) Michael Foley, The British Presidency (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2000 Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The office and its holders since 1945 (Penguin, London, 2001) Paul Langford, ‘Prime Ministers and Parliaments: the long view, Walpole to Blair’, The Annual History of Parliament Lecture, 2005, Parliamentary History, 25 (2006), pp.382-94 Tony Blair advising David Cameron on Middle East - Telegraph Tony Blair advising David Cameron on Middle East Tony Blair has been advising David Cameron on the Middle East peace process, it emerged last night. Tony Blair and David Cameron have discussed the Palestinians' bid to be recognised by the United Nations as a full member Photo: AP/PA Follow The former prime minister was invited to Chequers for talks in July, sources said. The two men discussed the Palestinians' bid to be recognised by the United Nations as a full member.

Mr Cameron will discuss the Palestinian claim at the UN General Assembly in New York this week. Mr Blair is the official envoy to the Palestinians of the "Quartet", which comprises the UN, the European Union, Russia and the US. As well as visiting the Prime Minister at his country residence, he has spoken to Mr Cameron on the telephone on the Palestinian issue. Related Articles Mr Blair has a country home in Buckinghamshire not far from Chequers. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, has said he speaks to Mr Blair regularly. It is understood that Mr Hague and Mr Blair spoke this week about the UN process. They are understood to have met in New York yesterday at the request of Mr Cameron. The United States is threatening to veto Palestine's application for statehood and Germany and the Netherlands oppose it. Spain, France and Sweden, however, are in favour. Mr Blair said yesterday: “The Palestinians are perfectly entitled to take their case to the UN, perfectly entitled to have the UN hear it.

"The real point, however, is whatever happens at the UN, we are in a better place to get a Palestinian state if we also have a revived negotiation.” One of the main stumbling blocks to peace is that Israeli settlers continue to build on land which the Palestinians claim as their own. Mr Cameron's choice of guests at Chequers has been scrutinised before. Earlier this year, it was disclosed that Andy Coulson visited the Buckinghamshire house in March. The former editor of the News of the World had resigned from his post as the Prime Minister's head of communications two months earlier. Chequers has been the official country residence of the British prime minister since it was handed to the nation in 1921 under the terms of the Chequers Estate Act 1917. The Chilterns AONB - Map categories Map categories Map categories Chequers Chequers, or Chequers Court, is a country house near Wendover, the official country residence of British Prime Ministers since 1921.

The original house probably gained its name in the 1100’s because it may have been built or inhabited by an individual named Elias Ostiarius,and the name “Ostiarius” meant an Usher of the Court of the Exchequer. His coat of arms included the chequer board of the Exchequer so it is likely he named his estate after his arms and position at court. Another explanation sometimes offered is that the house is named after the Chequers Trees that grow in its grounds. Also known as Wild Service Tree, it produces small berries which are called Chequers. There has been a house on the site since the 12th century, but the present 16th century house was not well documented in its early years. In 1565 one William Hawtrey restored and enlarged the house, and after completing the house, had the dubious honour of guarding a royal prisoner at Chequers, Lady Mary Grey, younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, who had married without her family’s consent and was banished from court by Queen Elizabeth 1 for two years. In 1715 the then owner of the house married a John Russell, a grandson of Oliver Cromwell.

The house is well known for this connection to the Cromwells and still contains a large collection of Cromwell memorabilia. In the 19th century the Russells made modern alterations to the house in the gothic style,and towards the end of the 19th century the house passed through marriage to the Astley family. They let the house to the Clutterbuck family, who loved it so much that when they left in 1909 they had a very similar house built in Bedfordshire. Following the Clutterbucks’ departure the house was taken on a long lease by Mr Arthur Lee. He and his American wife Ruth were in need of a country home and Chequers suited them. They commenced a huge process of restoration and when the last of the ancestral owners died in 1912 they bought the property. During World War 1 the house became a hospital and then a convalescent home for officers. It was reinstated as a home following the end of hostilities and the childless Lees formed a plan. Following the war a new breed of politician was entering government.

These men did not have the country houses of previous prime ministers in which to entertain foreign dignitaries, or relax from the affairs of state, so after lengthy discussions with David Lloyd George, the then Prime Minister, Chequers was given to the nation as a country retreat for the serving Prime Minister by the Chequers Estate Act 1917. Arthur and Ruth Lee, by this time Lord and Lady Lee of Fareham, left Chequers on 8th January 1921. You can read more about the benefits that it was hoped Chequers and the surrounding countryside would bring to prime ministers here . Further Information Chequers: The Prime Minister’s Country House and its History by Dame Norma Major, published by Collins in 1996. Grid Reference

Question: What estate, presented to the British nation in 1917, is the official residence of the Prime Minister?
Answer: Chequers