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Montagu House, Whitehall

Buildings and structures demolished in 1950Former houses in the City of WestminsterHouses completed in the 19th century
Montagu House Samuel Scott 1750
Montagu House Samuel Scott 1750

Montagu House in Whitehall, Westminster, London, England, was the town house built by John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu (1690–1749), whose country seat was Boughton House in Northamptonshire.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Montagu House, Whitehall (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Montagu House, Whitehall
Great Scotland Yard, City of Westminster Covent Garden

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.506388888889 ° E -0.12638888888889 °
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Address

Ministry of Defence Library

Great Scotland Yard
WC2N 5BX City of Westminster, Covent Garden
England, United Kingdom
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Montagu House Samuel Scott 1750
Montagu House Samuel Scott 1750
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Civil Service Club
Civil Service Club

The Civil Service Club is a London social club, founded in 1953, for current and former members of the UK Civil Service and Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service. In advance of the wedding of the Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, RN, Duke of Edinburgh, which took place on 20 November 1947 at Westminster Abbey, the Home Civil Service and Foreign Service undertook a collection for the purpose of purchasing a suitable present to celebrate the royal nuptials. Two silver salvers were purchased, after which the balance of the Wedding Fund collected by the Home Civil Service and the Foreign Service was £14,037.The Princess Elizabeth was touched by the kindness of the gesture and made her wish known that the balance should be handed over with the express intention that it be utilised to establish a social facility for civil servants: ‘on condition that membership should be available to all grades and classes at a subscription within reach of all.’ A suitable premises was found at 13-15 Great Scotland Yard and the Civil Service Club in Great Scotland Yard was brought into being as a social centre for all civil servants, both serving and retired, and opened its doors on the morning of 2 February 1953 where it continues to operate to this day. Her Majesty The Queen is the patron of The Civil Service Club Originally the building was a horse-drawn Fire station. It has large windows at the front of the property which were originally the doors. In keeping with tradition, the building next door, on the way to Whitehall, is the Metropolitan Police horse stables. The club provides a bar with pub-style food, a dining room with silver service, several meeting rooms and accommodation for members. It a membership club for serving and former civil servants. There is a nickname "sanctuary", which refers to it being a safe place. A member can sit in peace without fear that any Member of Parliament can even enter the building.

Great Smog of London
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The Great Smog of London, or Great Smog of 1952, was a severe air pollution event that affected London, England, in December 1952. A period of unusually cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants—mostly arising from the use of coal—to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday 5 December to Tuesday 9 December 1952, then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.The smog caused major disruption by reducing visibility and even penetrating indoor areas, far more severely than previous smog events, called "pea-soupers". Government medical reports in the weeks following the event estimated that up to 4,000 people had died as a direct result of the smog and 100,000 more were made ill by the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract. More recent research suggests that the total number of fatalities may have been considerably greater, with estimates of between 10,000 and 12,000 deaths.London had suffered since the 13th century from poor air quality and diarist John Evelyn had written about "the inconveniencie of the aer and smoak of London" in Fumifugium, the first book ever written about air pollution, in 1661. However, the Great Smog was many times worse than anything the city had ever experienced before: it is thought to be the worst air pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom, and the most significant for its effects on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health. It led to several changes in practices and regulations, including the Clean Air Act 1956.

War Office
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The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). It was equivalent to the Admiralty, responsible for the Royal Navy (RN), and (much later) the Air Ministry, which oversaw the Royal Air Force (RAF). The name 'War Office' is also given to the former home of the department, located at the junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall in central London. The landmark building was sold on 1 March 2016 by HM Government for more than £350 million, on a 250 year lease for conversion into a luxury hotel and residential apartments. Prior to 1855, 'War Office' signified the office of the Secretary at War. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a number of independent offices and individuals were responsible for various aspects of Army administration. The most important were the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, the Secretary at War, and the twin Secretaries of State; most of whose military responsibilities were passed to a new Secretary of State for War in 1794. Others who performed specialist functions were the controller of army accounts, the Army Medical Board, the Commissariat Department, the Board of General Officers, the Judge Advocate General of the Armed Forces, the Commissary General of Muster, the Paymaster General of the forces, and (particularly with regard to the Militia) the Home Office.The term War Department was initially used for the separate office of the Secretary of State for War; in 1855, the offices of Secretary at War and Secretary of State for War were amalgamated, and thereafter the terms War Office and War Department were used somewhat interchangeably.