Is Whitehall full of civil servants?

To the British ‘Whitehall’ is not just an area of London, it is also synonymous with the bureaucracy of Government. Whether one wishes to describe the efficiency and unbiased nature of the government machine or its inefficiency and bias, one refers to ‘Whitehall’.


The reason why Whitehall has become so identified with civil servants and bureaucracy dates back to the reign of King Henry VIII in the 16th century. King Henry had tired of living in Westminster Palace as that building was increasingly being taken over for offices relating to Parliament and the Exchequer. He therefore acquired land on the banks of the river to the north of Westminster and from 1512 carried out extensive building works. Named Whitehall Palace because it was built of a stone lighter in colour than Westminster, the new edifice was designed for pleasure. In addition to comfortable living rooms and grand state rooms, the Whitehall Palace included gardens, orchards and a cockpit as well as a tiltyard.

The Whitehall Palace remained the principal residence of the Royal Family in London until 1688 when William III and Mary II came to the throne. William found the damp river air bad for his breathing so the Court moved to Kensington Palace. Ten years later a blundering Dutch washerwoman knocked over a lantern and set fire to Whitehall Palace. With all the men and equipment of the Court removed to Kensington, the fire raged unchecked through the 2,000 rooms of Whitehall and in a few hours the palace was a heap of smouldering ruins. Only the grand Banqueting House remained.

The destruction wrougt by the fire meant that there was suddenly a large amount of open ground belonging to the Crown available for redevelopment. At first a series of residential houses were erected and rented out, but before long the growing need for government offices near Westminster Palace began to be felt. Among those Whitehall houses was Wallingford House, owned by the Duke of Buckingham. This had been taken over by the navy as premises for central planning, the commissioning of ships and other necessary adminsitrative work. It was replaced in 1722  by the present Admiralty building, though there have been several alterations carried out since.

The next oldest of the government office buildings in Whitehall is the Paymaster General’s Office, built as a private house by John Lane in 1732, but much altered to accommodate offices. Dover House was built in 1754 and much altered in 1792. It was a private house until 1885 when the Government took it over and it is now the home of the Scottish Office. Built rather later, but entering government service earlier, was Gwydyr House which was erected in 1772. It was taken over by the government in 1842 and now houses the Welsh Office.

The first of the truly great purpose-built government offices in Whitehall is the Foreign Office, erected in 1868. Erected in grand Italian Renaissance style by the architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, the Foreign Office is generally held to have one of the most imposing entrance halls and staircases in all London. It was not meant to be that way. Scott wanted to build a Gothic masterpiece to rival the new Palace of Westminster then being completed in that style, but parliament refused after an extremely acrimonious series of debates dubbed by the Press ‘The Battle of the Styles’. Scott’s second suggestion of a Byzantine edifice was also rejected and in the end he had to accept the views of Prime Minister Palmerston who wanted an Italian style.

Next to be erected was the Ministry of Housing which was erected in 1898 in conscious imitation of Scott’s edifice. This was followed in 1957 by the Ministry of Defence, a massive complex which has the unusual distinction among government offices of having a pair of gigantic nude statues flanking its official entrance. Finally, in the later 20th century the pseudo-Tudor building for the Department of the Environment was added beside the Ministry of Defence. Among the other government offices along Whitehall are the old War Office, Horse Guards, Admiralty House and Arch and other, smaller buildings.

Exactly how many civil servants work in these various buildings along Whitehall is shrouded in secrecy. However, the size of the buildings would indicate they have a capacity for something over 50,000 office staff.