Rideau Hall
Rideau Hall in 1918, Library and Archives Canada.
Rideau Hall (officially Government House) is the official residence in Ottawa of both the Canadian monarch and his or her representative, the governor general of Canada.
The site of Rideau Hall and the original structure were chosen and built by stonemason Thomas McKay. The name Rideau Hall was chosen by Thomas McKay for his villa, drawing inspiration from the Rideau Canal which he had helped construct. In 1864, Rideau Hall was leased by the Crown from the McKay family for $4,000 per year and was intended to serve only as a temporary home for the viceroy until a proper government house could be constructed. The next year, Frederick Preston Rubidge oversaw the refinishing of the original villa and designed additions to accommodate the new functions.It was enlarged to three or four times the original size, mostly by way of a new 49-room wing, and, once complete, the first Governor General of Canada, the Viscount Monck, took residence.
The house became the social centre of Ottawa—even Canada—hosting foreign visitors, investitures, swearing-in ceremonies, balls, dinners, garden parties, children's parties, and theatrical productions in the ballroom, in which members of the household and viceregal family would participate. Probably the largest event held in the ballroom was a fancy dress ball hosted by the Dufferins on the evening of 23 February 1876, which approximately 1,500 guests attended.
Still, despite the popularity of the events that took place in the building, negative first impressions of Rideau Hall itself were a theme until the early part of the 20th century. Upon arrival there in 1872, the Countess of 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!" In 1893, Lady Stanley, wife of Governor General the Lord Stanley of Preston, said "you will find the furniture in the rooms very old-fashioned & not very pretty... The red drawing room... had no furniture except chairs & tables... The walls are absolutely bare... The room which has always been the wife of the G.G.'s sitting room is very empty... There are no lamps in the house at all. No cushions, no table cloths, in fact none of the small things that make a room pretty & comfortable." Echoing these earlier comments, the Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair said upon her departure from Ottawa that Rideau Hall was a "shabby old Government House put away amongst its clump of bushes..."
Upgrades
Various improvements were undertaken over the decades, seeing the first gas chandeliers and a telegraph wire put in. Many changes were made to the house and the grounds over the years :
Additions have been made to the house including a two-storey wing added in 1865, the building of the Tent Room in 1876-1878, the addition of the Minto Wing in 1898-1899, and pedimented northwest facade in 1914;
some twenty outbuildings have been constructed, many under the direction of the Department of Public Works Chief Architect Frederick Preston Rubridge notably the Gate Lodge in the 1860s, the Stable Building in 1866-1867, the Cricket Pavilion in the 1870s, the Gasometer in 1877-1878, and the Dairy Building, 1895);
and the grounds have been developed, including the construction of main gates in 1867-1868 and the addition of an elaborate fence in the 1920s-1930s to evoke a picturesque British country estate.
Visitors
The house has had many royal visitors. When its first royal residents—the Marquess of Lorne and his wife, Princess Louise —moved in at the beginning of 1878, many upgrades had been completed. Lorne stated of the hall: "Here we are settling down in this big and comfortable House […], which I tell Louise is much superior to Kensington, for the walls are thick, the rooms are lathed and plastered (which they are not at Kensington) and there is an abundant supply of heat and light." The princess was not long in Rideau Hall before Fenians posed themselves as a threat to her life and she was ushered back to the UK for both rest and protection. When she returned in 1880, with the Queen greatly concerned for her daughter's safety, it was felt necessary to post extra guards around the grounds of the hall.
Thereafter, members of the royal family would stay periodically at Rideau Hall, if not as governor general then as guests of the Crown, so that the palace played host to: in 1880 - Prince Leopold (later also Duke of Albany), 1882, 1901, and 1908 - Prince George (later King George V), 1890 and as the viceregal couple from 1906 to 1912 - Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, and Princess Louise, Duchess of Connaught (later also the Duke and Duchess of Strathearn), 1900 - Princess Louise, 1906 to 1912 - Princess Patricia with her parents, 1910 - Prince Albert (later King George VI), 1913, 1919, 1923, 1924 and 1927 - Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII), 1926 and 1927 - Prince George (later also Duke of Kent) and 1929 - Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester.
A member of the royal family, Alastair Windsor, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, lost his life on the grounds of Rideau hall. Theo Aronson, in his 1981 biography of Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, simply stated that the Duke "was found dead on the floor of his room at Rideau Hall on the morning of 26 April 1943. He had died, apparently, from hypothermia." The diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles, King George VI's private secretary, published in 2006, recorded that both the regiment and Athlone had rejected him as incompetent, and he fell out of a window when drunk and perished of hypothermia overnight.
During the Second World War, Rideau Hall became the home in exile of a number of royals displaced by the invasions of their respective countries back in Europe. Among the royal guests were Crown Prince Olav (later King Olav V) and Crown Princess Märtha of Norway, Grand Duchess Charlotte and Prince Felix of Luxembourg, King Peter II of Yugoslavia, King George II of Greece, Empress Zita of Austria and her daughters, as well as Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, her daughter, Princess Juliana (later Queen Juliana), and granddaughters, Princesses Beatrix (later Queen Beatrix), Irene and Margriet. Though the resident governor general's wife, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, could do little to add her personal touch to Rideau Hall, due to rationing and scarce supplies, she put many of the other royal ladies to work making clothing for those who had lost their homes in the Blitz. It was then in 1940 that the governor general's office in the East Block of Parliament Hill was closed and moved to Rideau Hall. In December 1941, Winston Churchill arrived at the hall, where he presided over British Cabinet meetings via telephone from his bed.
Notes
The Canadian Encyclopedia, Rideau Hall.
The Governor General of Canada, History of Rideau Hall.
Parks Canada, Rideau Hall and Landscaped Grounds National Historic Site of Canada.
R. H. Hubbard, Rideau Hall: An Illustrated History of the Government House, Ottawa, from Victorian Times to the Present Day.
Photos
Left to right, Queen Elizabeth, King George VI, Governor General the Lord Tweedsmuir and Lady Tweedsmuir at Rideau Hall on 20 May 1939. Royal Collection Trust
Depiction of a toboganning party held at Rideau Hall, circa 1875.
