Somerset House, London, UK.  London’s Best Places to Visit. Home to Royal Academy and The Great Institutions.

Demolition of the old house, between the Strand and the River Thames, began in 1775 and continued in stages as the new Somerset House was constructed around it. When the new building rose from the rubble, the Royal Academy, which had been one of the last occupants of the old Somerset House, became one of the first occupants of the apartments which fronted the Strand, providing tangible continuity between the old and the new.

• Timeline
• 1547 Edward Seymour, Lord Protector and Duke of Somerset, starts building a palace for himself on the banks of the Thames
• 1552 Seymour is executed at the Tower of London; ownership of his palace, nearly complete, passes to the Crown
• 1553 Aged 20, Princess Elizabeth moves to Somerset House; she lives there until 1558, when she’s crowned Queen Elizabeth I
• 1603 Anne of Denmark, wife of James I of England (James VI of Scotland), moves to Somerset House, which is renamed Denmark House in her honour
• 1604 The Treaty of London, ending the 19-year Anglo-Spanish War, is negotiated and signed at Denmark House
• 1609 Anne of Denmark invites Inigo Jones and other architects to redesign and rebuild parts of the palace; work continues until her death in 1619
• 1625 Charles I is crowned king; his wife, Henrietta Maria of France, commissions Jones and others to undertake more construction and renovation work, including a lavish new Roman Catholic chapel completed in in 1636

• 1642 The English Civil War begins; soon afterwards, General Thomas Fairfax takes over the palace as the headquarters for the Parliamentary Army
• 1649 The Civil War ends and Charles I is executed; Parliament tries and fails to sell Denmark House, but successfully sells its contents for the then-huge sum of £118,000
• 1652 Inigo Jones dies at Denmark House
• 1660 After Charles II, her son, is crowned king at the start of the Restoration, Henrietta Maria returns to Denmark House; more new construction follows
• 1665 The Plague sweeps London; Henrietta Maria moves back to France, where she dies in 1669
• 1666 The Great Fire of London destroys much of the City of London, but stops just short of Denmark House
• 1685 Charles II dies and his wife, Catherine of Braganza, moves into Denmark House; Sir Christopher Wren oversees yet more construction and renovation work

• 1693 Catherine of Braganza leaves Denmark House, the last royal to live in the palace
• early 1700s Denmark House is used as grace-and-favour apartments, offices, storage and stables
• c.1750 Canaletto paints two views from the terrace
• 1775 After decades of neglect, the original Somerset House is demolished; architect William Chambers immediately starts work on its replacement
• 1779 The Royal Academy of Arts becomes the first resident of new Somerset House in what’s now known as the North Wing
• 1780 The Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries take up residence in the North Wing; Somerset House hosts the first Royal Academy Exhibition
• 1786 The Embankment Building, known today as the South Wing, is completed; the East and West Wings are completed two years later
• 1789 The Navy Board completes its move to Somerset House and eventually occupies one-third of the site; the Stamp Office, responsible for taxing newspapers and other documents, joins the board in the South Wing
• 1795 William Chambers, then aged 72, retires; James Wyatt replaces him as the building’s architect
• 1801 The new Somerset House is deemed complete, its construction having cost a mammoth £462,323
• 1829 Sir Robert Smirke starts work on King’s College, which opens in 1831 and is finally completed in 1835
• 1836 The General Register Office, responsible for births, deaths and marriages, is established here
• 1837 One year after the final Royal Academy Exhibition at Somerset House, the academy moves to Burlington House on Piccadilly
• 1849 Having merged in 1834, the Stamp Office and the Board of Taxes join with the Board of Excise to form the Inland Revenue, which remains in residence for more than 150 years
• 1856 Seven years after James Pennethorne started work on its design, the New Wing is completed
• 1857 The Royal Society moves out of Somerset House to join the Royal Academy of Arts at Burlington House; the Society of Antiquaries follows 17 years later
• 1864 Work begins on the Victoria Embankment, designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette; the embankment is completed in 1870
• 1873 The Admiralty leaves Somerset House; its offices are taken over by the Inland Revenue
• 1940s Near the start of World War II, the Inland Revenue temporarily moves out of Somerset House; the Ministry of Supply takes its place

• 1950 Sir Alfred Richardson starts a two-year project to rebuild the Navy Staircase, known today as the Nelson Stair, which had suffered terrible bomb damage in 1940
• 1970 After 134 years at Somerset House, the General Register Office moves out
• 1989 The Courtauld Institute of Art moves into the North Wing
• 1997 The Somerset House Trust is established to preserve and develop Somerset House for public use
• 2000 The River Terrace opens to the public for the first time in more than a century; the Hermitage Rooms and the Gilbert Collection both open; then, in December, Somerset House installs a temporary ice rink for the first time
• 2001 American band Lambchop plays the first gig in the Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court; a full programme of shows follows in 2002 and continues today as the Summer Series
• 2009 London Fashion Week takes place at Somerset House for the first time
• 2011 The HMRC (formerly the Inland Revenue) closes its offices at Somerset House

The Royal Academy of Arts

George III, described as an “enthusiastic if undiscriminating collector and patron of the arts”, provided invaluable patronage for the three learned societies. When old Somerset House was relinquished by the Crown, the King reserved to himself the right to appropriate sufficient space in the new building for the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Society, and the Society of Antiquaries.

The Great Exhibition Room

The most important part of the building for the Royal Academy was its Exhibition Room. Situated at the top of the steep, winding staircase, it was roughly 53 x 43 feet and 32 feet high including the lantern, and was described by Joseph Baretti as, “undoubtedly at that date the finest gallery for displaying pictures so far built.” It was here that George III was given a preview of the first Royal Academy Exhibition held at his command in 1780. 

 Year by year, the exhibits increased. There were 547 in 1781, 1,037 in 1801, and 1,165 in 1821, so that the pictures had to be hung almost from floor to ceiling and with the frames touching one another. From 1832 onwards there was talk of the Royal Academy moving to more spacious rooms in what is now the National Gallery, which was being built at the north end of Trafalgar Square. Accordingly, the last exhibition at Somerset House was held in 1836.

 When the Academy moved, the most valuable decorations were taken down and reused in their new quarters. Later they were moved to Burlington House, the Royal Academy’s present home, where the ceiling paintings by Benjamin West and Angelica Kauffmann can now be seen in the entrance hall. The Academy’s old rooms at Somerset House were occupied by the Department of Practical Art, or Government School of Design.

The Royal Society

In 1776, they discovered they were to share the building to the east of the Strand entrance with the Society of Antiquaries, and complained to William Chambers that the accommodation would be inadequate; that the library would be too small and that there would be no room for the Society’s museum.

One of the first discoveries announced to the Society in its new quarters was that of a new planet, first observed by William Herschel in 1781. He wished to call the new planet Georgium Sidus in honour of the King, but other astronomers disagreed and today we know the planet as Uranus. Fellows of the Royal Society were keen to prevent war and politics interfering with the advancement of scientific discovery.

During the Napoleonic Wars of 1796-1815, the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, used his influence both in England and France to ensure that explorers of the two nations were not obstructed by the conflicting armed forces, and that French scientists should continue to be elected Fellows of the Society. When Sir Humphry Davy became president in 1820, the Society became oriented more towards pure scientific enquiry, to which ends, George IV founded two Gold Medals.

After the Royal Academy left Somerset House in 1837, the Royal Society remained there until 1857 when it joined the Academy at Burlington House.

The Society of Antiquaries

In 1776, the Antiquaries heard about the proposed new building at Somerset House, they decided to apply to George III, their Patron, for rooms there. After some intense lobbying by the President, the Reverend Dr Milles, the Society’s request for accommodation was favourably considered, and the King was, “most graciously pleased to order that the Society be accommodated with apartments in the new buildings at Somerset House.”

The resident Secretary of the Society was accommodated in the attic with three rooms “with deal dadoes, and Sienna marble and Sicilian jasper chimney-pieces”. The basement was hotly contested between the Royal Society and the Antiquaries, who were eventually allowed a kitchen, cellar, two vaults, and a privy. However, the lobby, originally intended for the footman in waiting, had to accommodate the Antiquaries’ porter as the Royal Society had taken possession of the Porter’s Lodge!

In the 1850s there was a proposal to move the Royal Society and the Antiquaries from Somerset House but, when the Royal Society moved out in 1857, the Antiquaries decided to remain, taking the opportunity to secure sole use of the disputed rooms, until they joined the other two learned societies at Burlington House in 1874.

The Navy Board

When the Admiralty moved into new premises in Whitehall in 1725, it was decided that the Navy Board, over whom the Admiralty had responsibility, should move to a site much closer; from Seething Lane behind the Tower of London to new offices at Somerset House. Chambers proposed to house the Navy Board on the west side of the south wing of the new building, in the part facing the river, with the Seamen’s Waiting Hall in the centre of the building providing an imposing entrance.

The related Sick and Hurt, Navy Pay, and Victualling Offices were to occupy the range of buildings on the west side of the courtyard. By 1789 the move was completed and, for nearly a century, more than a third of Somerset House was home to the various branches of the Navy Board.

 General Register Office

In 1836 the General Register Office was created to set up a comprehensive system for the registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths and appoint the first Registrar General based at Somerset House. It was not until 1970, after slightly less than a century and a half at Somerset House, that the General Register Office moved out.

Principal Probate Registry

 The Inland Revenue Stamp duty on documents, including newspapers, was only one of many revenue-raising methods administered by the Stamp Office, one of the government departments which moved to the new Somerset House in 1789. In 1834 the Stamp Office united with the Affairs of Taxes and in 1849 Stamps and Taxes joined the Excise to form a new Board of Inland Revenue. The Board of Inland Revenue today still occupies the east and west wings of Somerset House.

To read more of the history of Somerset House, visit their fascinating site.

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