Take a Trip to London: Greenwich to become Royal Borough
You DO know that there is more than one Greenwich in the world...although many in Manhattan think Connecticut when they hear Greenwich, we also think of our friends across the pond! They have some smashing news for us: Greenwich Council is honoured and delighted that Her Majesty the Queen has bestowed the status of Royal Borough upon Greenwich, to take effect in the year of the Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
Councillor Chris Roberts, Leader of the Council, who was in the House of Lords to hear today’s announcement, said, “The residents, businesses and the millions of visitors to Greenwich will share in our delight at this wonderful news. Greenwich has always taken tremendous pride in the borough’s long history of royal connections with Greenwich, Woolwich and Eltham dating back almost 600 years and which continue so strongly right up to the present day.
“I would like to thank everyone who has backed the borough to receive this honour over many years - especially our many partners in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. In particular, I would like to personally thank Lord Sterling, Chairman of Trustees at the National Maritime Museum, who has been instrumental in promoting this honour for Greenwich and in ensuring the borough’s many treasures are promoted and recognised by all.”
The rare honour of Royal Borough status was confirmed today in the House of Lords by Lord Mandelson, President of the Privy Council. The honour is bestowed in recognition of the close links between Greenwich and Royalty, from the Middle Ages to the present day. It also acknowledges the borough’s global significance as home of the Prime Meridian, Greenwich Mean Time and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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The modern London Borough of Greenwich (228,100 pop. [2005]), was created in 1965 by the Local Government Reform Act. This combined the former Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich (formed in 1900 from the civil parishes of Greenwich, Deptford St Nicholas, Charlton and Kidbrooke) and the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich (previously the civil parishes of Woolwich, Plumstead and Eltham).
‘Maritime Greenwich’, the World Heritage Site inscribed by UNESCO in 1997, comprises the traditional Greenwich heritage area in and around the town centre: the Royal Park (including the Old Royal Observatory), the National Maritime Museum and Old Royal Naval College sites (now home to the University of Greenwich’s main campus and Trinity College of Music), and the historic 17th- to mid-19th-century town centre immediately to the west. It is made up of part but not all of the former civil parish of Greenwich.
There are at present three Royal Boroughs: Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston, and Windsor and Maidenhead. All reflect longstanding Royal associations.
In 2012, Greenwich will be a host borough for the London Olympic and Paralympic Games. Greenwich will be the only Royal Borough to play a central role in London’s hosting of the 2012 Games.
- Greenwich Park will host the equestrian events (Olympic and Paralympic) and part of the modern pentathlon (Olympic)
- The O2 Arena will host the wheelchair basketball (Paralympic), the basketball finals (Olympic), trampolining and the artistic gymnastics (both Olympic)
- The Royal Artillery Barracks, Woolwich, will host the Olympic and Paralympic shooting events.
As well as being Olympic Year and HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Year, 2012 is also the 75th anniversary of the opening of the National Maritime Museum. The Museum’s new Sammy Ofer Wing Gallery will open in 2012.
Greenwich welcomes more than 9 million visitors each year and tourism is a significant contributor to the local economy, accounting for 8% of employment in the borough.
A significant number of visitors to Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site arrive by river boat. Regular services link Greenwich Pier with the Tower Pier (30 minute journey) and Westminster (1 hour).
Greenwich has been a Royal manor since the early 15th century. There are significant associations of individual British monarchs, and other members of the Royal family, with Greenwich from the 15th century on. Henry VIII, born at Greenwich Palace in 1491, acceded to the throne in 1509, an event whose 500th anniversary was celebrated last year.
Whom You Know just loves history. Here is a bit of a lesson for you.
The principal monarchs associated with Greenwich are:
Plantagenets
Henry V, who created the manor, later granted to his half-brother Duke Humphrey of Gloucester. In about 1433 Humphrey enclosed what is now Greenwich Park, the oldest of all the Royal Parks, and also began what became the Palace of Placentia at Greenwich, fully developed under Henry VI.
Tudors
Henry VII, who replaced Placentia with the Tudor Palace of Greenwich, c. 1500-07.
Henry VIII, who was born at Placentia in 1491, and extended his father’s new palace, which was his principal London seat from 1509 until Whitehall Palace was built in the 1530s. He married his first and fourth queens at Greenwich Palace (Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves) and his son Edward VI also died at Greenwich.
Henry VIII’s daughters, Mary I and Elizabeth I, were both also born at Greenwich Palace and used it extensively: Elizabeth’s Council planned the Armada campaign there in 1588.
Stuarts
James I carried out the final remodelling, granting the manor to his wife Queen Anne of Denmark, who in 1616 commissioned the surviving Queen’s House from Inigo Jones as the Palace’s last addition.
Charles I, who kept important parts of his art collection at Greenwich, granted the manor to his wife Queen Henrietta Maria , for whom Jones completed the Queen’s House about 1638.
Charles II, who began a new palace in 1664 (design by Denham and Webb, now incorporated as part of the Old Royal Naval College), redesigned and replanted the Park, and in 1675-76 founded and built the Royal Observatory (designed by Wren) – Britain’s oldest purpose-built scientific structure, now part of the National Maritime Museum.
James II (as Duke of York and Lord Admiral to 1673) was often at Greenwich with his brother Charles and, according to Samuel Pepys, proposed of the idea of creating a Royal Naval Hospital, established at Greenwich by his daughter Mary II,who in 1692-3 commissioned Wren to design the Royal Hospital for Seamen, now the Old Royal Naval College (begun 1696, under her widower husband William III, who supported it in her memory).
Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark continued to patronise the project (of which George was Grand Committee chairman from the 1690s to his death in 1708).
Hanoverians
George I landed at Greenwich from Hanover on his accession in 1714.
George II in 1735 granted the Hospital the forfeited Jacobite Earl of Derwentwater’s estates (c. 80,000 acres mainly in Northumberland) allowing completion of the Hospital by 1751.
George III in 1805-06 granted the Queen’s House to the Royal Naval Asylum, an orphanage school under Royal patronage, which amalgamated in 1821-25 with the pre-existing Greenwich Hospital School. Extended with the buildings which are now the NMM, it was renamed the Royal Hospital School by Queen Victoria in 1892.
George IV, whose donation in 1824 of nearly 40 paintings (including Turner’s only Royal commission) at a stroke created the Naval Gallery of Greenwich Hospital in the Painted Hall, Britain’s first public national historical art collection. These now form the Greenwich Hospital Collection in the National Maritime Museum.
William IV, the ‘Sailor King’ made further donations to the Gallery, as did Queen Adelaide in his memory, and was a regular and popular visitor.
Saxe-Coburg Gotha / Windsor (from 1917)
Queen Victoria only occasionally visited Greenwich though in 1845, when it appeared on the market, Prince Albert bought Nelson’s Trafalgar coat for the Naval Gallery, as the relevant national collection of the time; he personally paid £150 for it.
George V and Queen Mary both privately supported creation of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich (est. by Act of 1934), and she presented many items to it, both from her own Nelson collection, and other royal items.
George VI, when Duke of York, laid the foundation stone of the new Royal Hospital School at Holbrook, Suffolk, and in 1937 his first public act as King – three weeks before Coronation – was the opening of the National Maritime Museum in its former Greenwich buildings, accompanied by Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, and Princess Elizabeth.
As Princess, HM The Queen, and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh (created Baron Greenwich on their marriage in 1947) made their first joint visit to Greenwich in 1948 – the year he became Trustee of National Maritime Museum - for him to receive the Freedom of the Borough. HM Queen and/or the Duke, have subsequently opened or visited many museum projects, including major national anniversary events (e.g. Royal Observatory tercentenary, Armada 400). The Duke of Edinburgh was an active Trustee of the museum for 52 years (1948 – 2000), and since then its first Patron. The Duke of York has been a Trustee of the museum since 1995 and first Patron of Greenwich Hospital since its tercentenary in 1994.
The Duke of Edinburgh, has been, since 1952, a highly supportive Patron of the Cutty Sark; his support was crucial in achieving the original restoration and preservation of the ship at Greenwich, where HM The Queen first opened it in 1957. The Duke remains Patron and supportive of the current restoration project, due for completion in 2011.
During the Silver Jubilee of 1977, HM the Queen embarked at Greenwich for the Jubilee River Pageant. In 1987 the Queen was aboard the P&O cruise ship Pacific Princess, moored alongside the Old Royal Naval College, for the spectacular son-et lumiere marking the 150th anniversary of P&O.
