Speaker’s traditional chair too unwieldy to relocate

• When MPs move to a temporary House of Commons chamber in the West Block in 2018, they’ll be bringing their desks and chairs with them. But the grandest piece of Commons furniture, the 95-year-old Speaker’s chair, won’t be making the trip.

“The physical size and integrity of the current chair make it logistically difficult to move from Centre Block to the interim (chamber) in West Block,” according to House of Commons spokeswoman Heather Bradley.

“In its current state, it would not fit through the doors into the interim chamber and would risk the integrity of the heritage piece.”

Instead, the plan for the interim chamber is to use the Speaker’s chair built for Edgar Rhodes, who was Speaker of the House of Commons from 1917 to 1921.

Rhodes’ chair was once part of the Nova Scotia archives.

Before that, it was owned by the Rhodes family. It was acquired by the House of Commons Heritage Collection in 2005 and has been in the collection’s storage vaults ever since.

Rhodes, then deputy Speaker, was presiding over the House for the first time on Feb. 3, 1916, when a devastating fire broke out. He escaped, but the Speaker’s chair didn’t. The entire Centre Block, aside from the Library of Parliament, was incinerated.

From 1917 to 1920, the House met in the Victoria Memorial Museum, now the Canadian Museum of Nature.

Rhodes presided as Speaker in a new throne-like chair built especially for him.

(By tradition, all House Speakers were assigned their own chairs, which they were allowed to keep at the end of their tenure. From 1867 to 1917, a total of 15 chairs were assigned to Speakers.)

Rhodes used his chair in the Victoria Memorial Museum chamber until 1920, when it was moved into the House of Commons in the rebuilt Centre Block.

It remained in use there until 1921, when it was replaced by the current imposing oak Speaker’s chair, a gift from the United Kingdom Branch of the Empire Parliamentary Association.

It’s an exact replica of the original Speaker’s chair in the British House of Commons, which was destroyed in 1941 during the London Blitz.

The chair includes an overhead canopy featuring the Royal Arms, sculpted from a piece of wood from Westminster Palace dating back to the 14th century.

There have been modifications over the years. The original tufted black leather upholstery was replaced by green velvet in the 1980s, and a mechanism was installed to allow the seat to be raised and lowered. Built-in microphones, speakers and a monitor were added more recently.

Because the current chair is permanently installed in the chamber, House of Commons curators have been able to do only on-site assessments and touch-ups.

The chair will receive a full conservation assessment when Centre Block closes for a decade of repairs in 2018, Bradley said, giving curators “an unprecedented opportunity to give it the comprehensive work that is needed.”

That will include an assessment of all of the tracery and carvings, the condition of the wood, verifying the joints, re-gluing pieces as needed and updating modifications.