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Rideau Hall

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Rideau Hall is the official residence of the Canadian Monarch (when in Ottawa) and of the Governor General of Canada;[1] serving in this capacity since Canadian Confederation in 1867. It is located on 79 acres (0.32 km2) of land at One Sussex Drive in Ottawa.

Unlike the residences of many other nations' heads of state (such as Buckingham Palace, the White House or the Royal Palace of the Netherlands), Rideau Hall is not located in a prominent, central location in Canada's capital city. The building's relative isolation gives it more the character of a private home.[2] To differentiate the Office of the Queen, or Governor General, from the residential functions of the hall, the building is often formally referred to as "Government House." For example, Royal Proclamations will finish with the phrase: "At Our Government House, in Our City of Ottawa..."[3]

When Queen Elizabeth II is in Ottawa, she holds audiences with ministers or visiting heads of state in the Small Drawing Room.[2]

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Rideau Hall, residence of the Governor General of Canada

History

The site of Rideau Hall and the original structure were chosen and built by stonemason Thomas MacKay, whom immigrated from Perth, Scotland to Montreal in 1817, and who later became the main contractor involved in the construction of the Rideau Canal. Following the completion of the Canal, MacKay built mills at Rideau Falls, making him the founder of New Edinburgh, which later became Ottawa. With his newly acquired wealth, MacKay built a stone villa on a site overlooking both the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers, which became the root of the present day Rideau Hall.[4]

Even before the building became a royal residence, the Hall received noted visitors, including Lord Sydenham, Lord Elgin, and Sir Edmund Head, all Governors General of the Province of Canada. It was said that Lady Head's watercolours of Barrack Hill – now Parliament Hill – inluenced Queen Victoria to choose Ottawa as the national capital. The day following his laying the foundation stone of the Parliament Buildings, on September 1, 1860, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII drove through the grounds of Rideau Hall.[5]

In 1864, after Queen Victoria chose Ottawa in 1858 as the new capital of the Province of Canada, Rideau Hall was leased from the MacKay family by the Crown, for $4000 per year, to serve as only a temporary home for the vice-regal until a proper Government House could be constructed in Ottawa. The original villa was enlarged to three or four times its size to accomodate the new functions, and once complete, the first Governor General of Canada, Viscount Monk, took residence. The additions were opposed by George Brown, as he claimed "the Governor Genereal's residence is a miserable little house, and the grounds those of an ambitious country squire." Prime Minister John A. Macdonald agreed, complaining that more had been spent on patching up Rideau Hall than could have been used to construct a new royal palace. The building was eventually purchased outright in 1868, for the sum of $82,000. The first foreign official visitors to the house were Grand Duke Alexis, son of the Tsar, Alexander II.[6]

Negative first opinions of Rideau Hall were a theme until the early part of the 20th century. Upon arrival at the house in 1872, Lady Dufferin said in her journal: "We have been so very enthusiastic about everything hitherto that the first sight of Rideau Hall did lower our spirits just a little!"[7] Various improvements were undertaken over the decades, however, seeing the first gas chandeliers and a telegraph wire put in, as well as the construction of the ballroom the same year,

File:John Diefenbaker with JFK 1961 crop.jpg
U.S. President John Kennedy (left) with Georges Vanier and Prime Minister Diefenbaker at Rideau Hall

When King George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrived at Rideau Hall on May 19, 1939, during their first Royal Tour of Canada, official Royal Tour historian, Gustave Lanctot, stated: "When Their Majesties walked into their Canadian residence, the Statute of Westminster had assumed full reality: the King of Canada had come home." The King, while there, accepted the credentials of Daniel Calhoun Roper as Ambassador from the United States, a task ever previously performed by only the Governor General.[1]

After the outbreak of World War II, plans were made for the King and Queen to reside in Canada. However, they were not to be established at Rideau Hall. The federal government, in 1940, purchased Hatley Castle, in Colwood, British Columbia, for use as a Royal Palace for King George VI and his family.[8] However, it was decided that the Royal Family leaving the UK at a time of war would be a major blow to morale, and they remained in Britain.

The Hall was designated as a classified heritage property by the Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office in 1986, giving it the highest heritage significance in Canada.

Today, the residence is used to officially receive foreign Heads of State, and both incoming and outgoing ambassadors to Canada. It is also the site of presentation for many Canadian awards, including the Order of Canada, the Order of Military Merit, and the Decorations for Bravery, customarily presented in the ballroom. It is also where the official ceremonies swearing in a newly chosen prime minister and his or her ministers take place, as well as the place where the writ of an election is dropped.

Architecture

The residence was built in 1838 to house Scottish stone mason and contractor Thomas McKay and his family, who occupied it until 1855. The architecture of the home is generally in Victorian and Edwardian styles.

Initially rented and seen as a temporary accommodation, the house has since been expanded numerous times, including the addition of an indoor tennis court in 1872, as well as an ice skating rink and a tobogganing slide, though the slide and tennis court no longer exist. The former tennis court is now the Tent Room, used for small to medium formal occasions. The main entrance, designed by David Ewart, chief Dominion architect, and completed in 1914, unified the front of the structure with a common Georgian architectural style built from limestone ashlar. The pediment bears the shield, supporters and crown of the Royal coat of arms, and is believed to be one of the largest in the Commonwealth.[9] This addition also included a Porte-cochere for formal arrivals and entrances; it was later fitted with permanent fanlights, under which glass doors are installed during the winter to provide an enclosed space in which to exit cars.

The Mappin Wing prior to the 1914 addition.

Over the summer of 2007 the main facade of Rideau Hall will undergo a major renovation by the National Capital Commission.

Art and decoration

Rideau Hall has long been a collection point of Canadian art and furnishings. As early as the first vice-regal inhabitants, the Hall has held pieces by prominant Canadian cabinet makers, such as Jaques & Hay of Toronto, James Thompson of Montreal, and William Drum of Quebec.[10] Originally, decoration was heavily Victorian, with many Rococo influences. Renovations, however, have turned the interiors into predominantly Georgian spaces.[6]

Today the rooms are furnished both with elements from the history of the residence as well as art and artifacts that showcase Canadian culture, including pieces by the Group of Seven's Lawren Harris, Emily Carr, and Bill Reid. The Long Gallery's Oriental decoration was re-established in the 1990s, putting back much of the furniture and artifacts that Lady Willingdon placed in the room after her tour of China. Under Vice-regal Consort Gerda Hnatyshyn, the Gallery was restored to a room of the Chinese period of the late 1920s, including five carpets given by the Hong Kong Bank of Canada. Another of the consorts, Princess Louise, painted apple branches on a 6-panel Georgian door in the first-floor corridor. Nora Michener, wife of Governor General Roland Michener, donated a collection of Inuit sculpture.[2]

There are portraits of the British governors general in the Tent Room, and portraits of the Canadian governors general (beginning with Vincent Massey) in the Reception Room. Portraits of the spouses of the governors general are found in the Drawing Room, which also contains all the heraldic shields of the governors of Canada, beginning with Samuel de Champlain, the first governor of New France. There are also paintings on loan from the Royal Collection. In the entrance hall is also the royal window; a stained glass window commemorating the 40th anniversary of Elizabeth II's accession to the Throne.[2]

The Royal Suite is on the second floor of Rideau Hall, an oval room that was once the Drawing Room of the original MacKay villa, and was subsequently used as a ballroom, studio, and study, before becoming the Queen's bedroom.[6] On this floor, as well, each room is named for a former British Governor; the descendants of these men were approached in the 1990s with a request for donations of historical memorabilia. The Devonshires, relations of the Duke of Devonshire, presented a Regency mirror used at Chatsworth House.[2]

Dominating the Ballroom is a Waterford chandelier, presented by the British Government, on Victoria Day in 1951, in gratitude for Canada's role in World War II. The sterling silver sets on display in the Dining Room are on loan from Buckingham Palace.[2]

During the tenure of Governor General Michaëlle Jean, Rideau Hall featured the exhibition "Body and Land", featuring select silkscreen prints from the artist's book The Journals of Susanna Moodie by author Margaret Atwood and artist Charles Pachter.

Grounds

The property has hosted a number of activities and events throughout its history as a royal residence. The earliest governors general added amenties such as a Curling rink, a skating pond, toboggan runs, tennis courts, and the like. Of the tobogganing, Lieutenant William Galwey, a member of the survey team that laid out the Canada/US border along the 49th Parallel, and which visited Rideau Hall in November, 1871, said: "It is a most favourite amusement at Government House. Ladies go in for it. I think they like rolling over and over with the gentlemen."[11]

A greenhouse and flower garden, which also contain many Canadian symbols such as a totem pole from British Columbia, provide flowers for the Hall and the other government buildings in Ottawa.

Under the tenure of Governor General Jeanne Sauvé the grounds of Rideau Hall were closed to the public. However, following her, Ray Hnatyshyn reversed this decision. Today an expanded visitors' centre has been established to facilitate tours. Each year the Governor General holds a New Year's Levee that welcomes guests from the public to attend and participate in skating, sledding, and refreshments. The event traces its roots back to the French royal government.[2]

Every time Rideau Hall receives a dignitary on an official visit, they are asked to plant a tree. As such, the grounds of Rideau Hall are filled with trees that have small plaques at their bases listing the name and position of the planter. These include The Queen Mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, Prince Charles, King George VI, and foreign dignitaries John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, and Vicente Fox to name a few. The grounds of Rideau Hall also contain many statues, emblems and other artifacts for the public to enjoy. Queen Elizabeth II has also planted trees on the Hall's grounds.

The grounds also host the Rideau Hall Cricket Association and Ottawa Valley Cricket Council, which continues the tradition of cricket being played in the royal residence's gardens, beginning when the cricket pitch was laid out by Lord Monck in 1866. Matches continue to be played at the Hall during summer weekends.[12]

Other Canadian official residences

See also


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Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Galbraith, William; Canadian Parliamentary Review: Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1939 Royal Visit; Vol. 12, No. 3, 1989
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Monarchy Canada: The Palace on the Rideau
  3. ^ Canada Gazette: Proclamation Designating July 28 of Every Year as "A Day of Commemoration of the Great Upheaval", Commencing on July 28, 2005
  4. ^ Hubbard, R.H.; Rideau Hall; McGill-Queen’s University Press; Montreal and London; 1977; p. 3
  5. ^ Hubbard, R.H.; Rideau Hall; McGill-Queen’s University Press; Montreal and London; 1977; p. 8-9
  6. ^ a b c Hubbard, R.H.; Rideau Hall; McGill-Queen’s University Press; Montreal and London; 1977
  7. ^ Lady Dufferin; Journal; June 27, 1872
  8. ^ Office of the Lieutenant Governor: Speech by Iona Campolo, Retired Heads of Mission Association's Gala Dinner, Royal Roads University, Hatley Castle, Victoria, BC, February 5, 2007
  9. ^ National Capital Commission: Rehabilitation Work at Rideau Hall - Front Façade of the Mappin Wing
  10. ^ Hubbard, R.H.; Rideau Hall; McGill-Queen’s University Press; Montreal and London; 1977; p. 12
  11. ^ Parsons; 49th Parallel; p. 130-31
  12. ^ Governor General of Canada: Rideau Hall Cricket Association
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