The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the New Chamber of the House of Commons.
London: His Majesty's Stationery Office by the Curwen Press Ltd., 1948. First edition. Hardcover. This physically impressive and quite scarce item is the first and only limited edition of the publication commemorating the 26 May 1948 laying of the foundation stone of the new chamber of the British House of Commons. The folio size publication measures 14.875 x 9.625 inches (37.78 x 24.45 cm), bound in green cloth featuring beveled edge boards with quadruple gilt border rules, Palace of Westminster portcullis gilt device in the center of the rear board, gilt spine print, and oval fillet framed title in the center of the front board.
Condition is very good minus. The mammoth green cloth binding is square, bright, tight, and sharp cornered, with light shelf wear to extremities and minor superficial scuffs and blemishes to the boards, some color loss to the upper front cover edges, and a few small blisters to the cloth on the lower front cover. The contents are fine, with no previous ownership marks or spotting.
The limitation statement records that: “By order of the Speaker twenty-four copies of this book were printed on hand-made paper for presentation to His Majesty the King, the Library of the House of Commons and those who took part in the ceremony.” The contents are printed in green and black and include a description of the proceedings, speeches by Prime Minister Clement Attlee, Leader of the Opposition Winston Churchill, Lord Winterton, and the Speaker of the House of Commons (Douglas Clifton Brown), as well as the Dedication Service by the Dean of Westminster and ten collotype photographs of the ceremony.
Some bibliographic ambiguity persists as to bindings. The first bibliographic mention of the work (Woods, D(b)70/2, p.298) cited only wrappers and morocco-bound issues. Ronald I. Cohen’s excellent bibliography (Vol. II, D132, p. 1564) is the only citation for this cloth-bound issue: “The normal edition of the work, for distribution to the Members of Parliament, was in wrappers. By order of the Speaker, however, 24 copies were printed… and bound in full green morocco… I have also examined a cloth-bound copy.” None of the cited bindings is common. Intriguingly, this cloth-bound copy is more elaborately decorated than its morocco-bound counterpart.
On 10 May 1941 a German bomb destroyed the House of Commons Chamber. The Chamber was rebuilt, maintaining "its crowded atmosphere so conducive to adversarial politics." For the 26 May 1948 laying of the foundation stone ceremony recorded in this book, as Leader of the Opposition, Churchill spoke after Prime Minister Attlee. Churchill was gracious to Attlee: “I feel that we owe him a debt – and his colleagues a debt – for having adhered… to the form of the Chamber which we agreed to in the wartime government.” Churchill concluded: “May the stone which is now laid support and sustain a fabric which, however events may go, however our fortunes may go, will still preserve the rights and privileges of free debate and permit the development of our national life under the guidance of an institution which all the world recognizes as one of the great features of the modern civilized world.”
When the rebuilt House of Commons was formally opened on 26 October 1950, the programme would record that "Amid the wreckage the moulded stone archway from the Lobby to the Chamber still stood, scarred, calcined by fire, but not destroyed. At Mr. Winston Churchill's suggestion this arch, still scarred and calcined, has been preserved to form the entrance to the new Chamber." Perhaps no man in British history was so tied to the House of Commons. The Chamber was destroyed a year to the day after Churchill became wartime prime minister. A year to the day after the rebuilt Chamber was opened, Churchill became Prime Minister for the second and final time. Fittingly, Churchill features in eight of the ten photographs of the foundation stone laying ceremony included in this book.
Reference: Cohen D132; Woods D(b)70/2. Item #008995
Price: $450.00