Houses of Parliament Trivia

The world's "oldest gentleman's club" has been attracting press for all the wrong reasons recently with the scandal regarding MPs' expenses. So, I decided to list five pieces of trivia that you can impress/bore your friends with.

1. The Houses of Parliament's proper title is the new Palace of Westminster. The original Palace was established in the eleventh century. Back then the site was an island in the River Thames, known as Thorney Island. It remained a royal residence until Henry VIII (six wives and all that) and the royal family vacated the Palace in 1512. The Houses of Parliament was largely destroyed by fire in 1834. The new Palace of Westminster was finished in 1870.

2. The Big (or Great) Stink. Britain's Parliamentarians at Westminster may be having a tough time of it at the moment, but in the nineteenth century the stench from the River Thames could be unbearable. The smell was at its worst when untreated sewage in the river combined with unseasonably hot temperatures. This was the case in 1858 when temperatures peaked at 35 Degrees Celsius. The Great Stink did lead to Parliament instructing Joseph Bazalgette, a highly regarded engineer, to implement his plan for a comprehensive sewerage system under London.

3. The long and the short of it. The longest Budget Speech was made by William Gladstone on 18 April 1853, it lasted 4 hours and 45 minutes. His great adversary, Benjamin Disraeli made the shortest Budget Speech, fourteen years later, which lasted just 45 minutes.

4. The iconic clock tower is called St Stephen's Tower, not Big Ben. Big Ben refers to the bell in the tower. Nobody knows for sure whom Big Ben is named after. One theory goes, that the bell is named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the first commissioner of works, engaged on the reconstruction of the Houses of Parliament after the fire of 1834. Some others have argued that Big Ben was named after a well known nineteenth century heavyweight boxing champion called Benjamin Caunt.

5. Women at Westminster. Countess de Markievicz became the first female MP, when she was elected in 1918. The Countess was a Sinn Fein MP for a constituency in Dublin, but she never took her seat in the House of Commons. The first female MP to take a seat in the Lower House was Lady Astor. She was the MP for Plymouth Sutton from 1919 to 1945.

Discover more about the Houses of Parliament and the best of royal and monumental London with the Palace Trail audio tour guide.