National Liberal Club

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EMHAI

The National Liberal Club (NLC) was established by William Gladstone in 1882, to provide club facilities for Liberal Party campaigners. William Gladstone was a British Liberal politician who in a career lasting over sixty years, served as Prime Minister four separate times (1868–1874, 1880–1885, February–July 1886 and 1892–1894).

The NLC is housed in an impressive neo-Gothic building over the Embankment of the river Thames, and was designed by Alfred Waterhouse. The building is located at No. 1 Whitehall Place, close to the Houses of Parliament, the Thames Embankment and Trafalgar Square. At the end of the hall, opposite the main entrance, is the principal staircase, which rises from the basement to the first floor. It is of elliptical form, and the steps, which are 8 feet wide, are supported at either end by an outer and an inner wall.

The tower staircase ceases when it reaches the fourth floor, but from that point, a smaller spiral leads to the belvedere, at the summit of the tower, from which an almost unique view can be obtained of the river and its bridges towards St. Paul's.

The staircase is a very special architectural feature of the clubhouse, making the centre of the building the chief point of artistic display.

The building also possesses an oil painting of Maharaja Duleep Singh, the last King of Lahore, a copy of the 1854 Oil Painting of Maharaja Duleep Singh by Franz Xavier Wilnterhalter.

Winterhalter was famous for paintings of royalty in the mid-nineteenth century. Among his many regal sitters was Queen Victoria. Winterhalter first visited England in 1842, and returned several times to paint Victoria, Prince Albert and their growing family, painting at least 120 works for them, including the oil painting of Maharaja Duleep Singh in 1854.

Many of his paintings remain in the Royal Collection, on display to the public at Buckingham Palace and other royal residences. The original of this painting is located at Osborne House, Isle of Wight (Queen Victoria’s Summer residence), and is likely that the painting at the NLC was painted by one of Winterhalter’s apprentices, who was taught to paint by copying the brush strokes of the master whilst he worked.

The painting's place at the top of the staircase has revealed an admiration by the leaders of the Liberal Party at the time for the political and government structures in the Kingdom of PunjabAt this point it was ruled by the Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh.