Continuing our series on parliamentary buildings, Dr Kathryn Rix looks at the accommodation provided for the newspaper journalists who reported on the proceedings of the nineteenth-century House of Commons.

The history of parliamentary reporting in the 19th century has two connected strands: the history of Hansard, and the history of reporting by the newspaper press, whose accounts of Commons debates formed the basis for Hansard’s volumes for much of the nineteenth century. One interesting way to trace the growing significance of the press in reporting proceedings in the Commons is through changes to the use of space within Parliament’s buildings.

From 1771 onwards, press reporting of Commons debates had been tolerated, even though it technically remained a breach of privilege to report what was said in the chamber. However, the reporters had to compete with members of the public for space in the strangers’ gallery. On a notable occasion in May 1803, public interest in a speech by William Pitt on the war with France was so great that the reporters were unable to get seats and some could not even find standing room. In protest, the press decided not to report Pitt’s speech. This prompted the Speaker to arrange with the Serjeant at Arms that in future the reporters would be admitted to their usual seats in the back row of the gallery ahead of the public. They paid a fee of three guineas per session for this.

The old Commons chamber was notoriously cramped and the gallery was no exception, particularly as the press presence there grew. With increased public interest in reading reports of debates, there were twice as many reporters using the gallery in 1833 as in 1803. The gallery’s most famous occupant was probably the young Charles Dickens, who reported in the early 1830s for his uncle’s publication, the Mirror of Parliament, a rival to Hansard which appeared from 1828 until 1841. Dickens also wrote for the newspapers, including the True Sun and the Morning Chronicle.  He later recollected having ‘worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery of the House of Commons’.

Like many fellow reporters, Dickens took notes during his ‘turn’ in the gallery using shorthand. The length of turns ranged from a few minutes to an hour. It depended on the debate’s importance, the number of reporters each publication had available and how close it was to the newspaper’s printing deadline. With few facilities for them in the Commons, reporters typically walked the mile or so back to their newspaper offices to write up their reports. This provided a convenient excuse for a Times reporter accused by the Irish leader Daniel O’Connell in June 1832 of misreporting one of his speeches. As well as blaming the chamber’s poor acoustics, the reporter claimed that his notebook had been damaged by rain while he was walking back to his office. O’Connell responded that this was

‘the most extraordinary shower of rain I ever heard of, for it not only washed out the speech I made from your note-book, but washed in another and an entirely different one’.

The destruction of much of the old Palace of Westminster by fire in October 1834 provided an opportunity to remodel Parliament’s facilities. MPs temporarily moved into the chamber previously used by the House of Lords. A dedicated reporters’ gallery with its own separate entrance was created within this space in 1835. Unlike the gallery in the old chamber, which had been opposite the Speaker’s chair, the reporters’ gallery in the temporary chamber was behind the Speaker’s chair. This meant that rather than seeing MPs’ backs as they turned towards the Speaker, reporters would now see their faces, making it easier to work out who was addressing the House and what was being said. Facilities for the reporters were also enhanced by the provision of ‘a desk or a slab in front’ of them for their notebooks.

This improved accommodation for the press provided a practical demonstration of its perceived importance – particularly in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act – in communicating parliamentary proceedings beyond the confines of the Commons chamber. As one contemporary observer, Charles Greville, remarked, it was

‘a sort of public and avowed homage to opinion, and a recognition of the right of the people to know through the medium of the press all that passes within those walls’.

There were, however, some teething troubles. The position of the reporters’ gallery meant that almost the whole of the front bench on each side of the chamber below could not be seen. In addition, the presence of a screen, topped with a canopy, between their gallery and the Speaker’s chair meant that reporters sometimes found it difficult to hear the Speaker putting the question for debate. This left them struggling to work out what the ensuing discussion was about. These issues were rectified when alterations were made in 1836 to improve the temporary chamber’s ventilation and acoustics. The reporters’ gallery was lowered and brought forward, and the obstructive screen and canopy were replaced with a lower screen. This meant that the Speaker was ‘completely within the view and hearing of the reporters’.

As with other features adopted in the temporary chamber, such as the second division lobby and the ladies’ gallery, the separate reporters’ gallery also became a feature of the new Commons chamber designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin. Recognising its importance, the former Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel and his Whig successor Lord John Russell both personally checked the acoustics in the reporters’ gallery when the new chamber had its first trial run on 30 May 1850. The ‘immense loftiness’ of the new chamber’s lavishly decorated ceiling prompted concerns from the press about the ease of hearing and reporting debates. One of the key modifications after this trial run was to insert a false ceiling under Barry’s carved and gilded roof to improve the acoustics. Thus, as one historian of the reporters’ gallery has noted, MPs ‘willingly spoiled the architectural beauty of their House so that the reporters might hear their debates’.

Although the acoustics within the chamber may have been enhanced for their benefit, the reporters only had limited facilities outside the chamber. Thomas Wemyss Reid, who became the Leeds Mercury’s London correspondent in 1867, described the

‘two wretched little cabins, ill-lit and ill-ventilated, immediately behind the Gallery, which were used for “writing out”. But one of these was occupied exclusively by the Times staff, and the other was so small that it could not accommodate a quarter of the number of reporters’.

From late afternoon onwards, reporters were also allowed to use one of the Commons committee rooms for writing up their reports.

The other facilities for the press at Westminster were somewhat lacking. Reid remembered ‘a cellar-like apartment in the yard below, where men used to resort to smoke’, and a ‘filthy’ ante-room to the reporters’ gallery, where Mr Wright provided refreshments for the reporters. Wright ‘always had a bottle of whisky on tap, a loaf or two of stale bread, and a most nauseous-looking ham’. Reid recollected with disgust the widely believed story that each night, Wright took the ham home ‘to his modest abode in Lambeth … wrapped in a large red bandana which he had been flourishing, and using, during the evening, and for greater security placed it under his bed’. Whether or not this was true, Reid avoided the ham, sticking to eggs and tea.

Reid was among the editors and reporters who gave evidence to an 1878 select committee on parliamentary reporting. Its recommendations led to a substantial expansion of the reporters’ gallery in 1881. Space was taken from the members’ gallery to provide a greater number of seats for reporters, and for the first time, representatives of the provincial press were allocated their own places within the reporters’ gallery. In addition, making use of rooms previously occupied by the Deputy Assistant Serjeant at Arms, Colonel Forester, who died in November 1881, the reporters were provided with ‘a commodious and well-lighted suite of writing, dining and smoking rooms’. These changes to the fabric of Parliament to facilitate the reporters’ work prompted Reid to reflect that ‘the status of the Press is changed indeed’.

Further reading:

Charles Gratton, The gallery: a sketch of the history of parliamentary reporting and reporters (1860)

S. J. Reid (ed.), Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 (1905)

Michael MacDonagh, The reporters’ gallery (1913)

Andrew Sparrow, Obscure scribblers: a history of parliamentary reporting (2003)

The editor of our House of Commons, 1832-1945 project, Dr Philip Salmon, appeared on this BBC documentary about Dickens in Parliament.