No. 10

No. 10 Downing Street, official home of Britain's Prime Ministers for nearly 200 years, is falling down. In fact, the discovery was recently made and last week advertised that the house and No. 11, official home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was crumbling from dry rot. The Office of Public Works stated that one of the walls had subsided, that there was no imminent danger of collapse. Crowds flocked to see the historic building. It was mooted that it would have to be rebuilt.

In the 18th Century, the little cul-de-sac of Downing Street and its row of houses, built by a Harvard man.

George Downing, fell into the hands of the Crown. In 1732, George II offered No. 10 to Sir Robert Walpole, usually regarded as the first modern Prime Minister.* Sir Robert accepted the offer of the Premiership in perpetuity and took up his residence there in 1735, seven years before he resigned and became the Earl of Orford.

Since 1735, many great men have resided at No. 10--the Pitts, North, Canning, Goderich, Wellington, Melbourne with his erring wife, Peel, Russell, Palmerston, Disraeli, Gladstone, Salisbury--in all, 39 Prime Ministers, including Mr. Baldwin.

Of the 39, 6 were Scotch, 3 Irish, 1 Welsh (Mr. Lloyd George), 1 Canadian (Mr. Bonar Law), 28 English. Twenty-five were peers or the sons of peers, 8 were country gentlemen or members of well-connected families, 5 came from the so-called middleclass: Addington, son of a doctor; Disraeli, grandson of a merchant; Gladstone, son of a shipowner; Asquith, son of a manufacturer; George, son of an itinerant teacher. The remaining one, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, was born in the humblest circumstances, his relatives being fishers and farm hands.

*The Prime Ministers are still dependent for salary upon holding some other position, usually that of First Lord of the Treasury, and it is as such, and not as Prime Minister, that they are entitled to a seat in the Cabinet. In 1905, however, King Edward VII granted the Premiership constitutional recognition by granting the holder precedence next to the Archbishop of York.