by Louis William Desanges, July 1875
A Chiswick Book Festival guide
In September 2016, the Chiswick Book Festival held a celebration at Chiswick House, ‘Queen Victoria in Chiswick’. The writer of the ITV series Victoria, Daisy Goodwin, and its historical adviser AN Wilson spoke to a packed audience about ‘Victoria in Fact & Fiction’ and Anna Wilson-Jones, who played Lady Portman, read extracts from Queen Victoria’s Journals about her visits to Chiswick.
The Festival also mounted an exhibition, charting the Queen’s Chiswick connections over many years. The centrepiece was a print of the painting, The Royal Garden Party at Chiswick by Louis William Desanges. It shows Queen Victoria with her family and 300 distinguished guests, each of whom is named in an accompanying key which we include below (click images twice, to zoom right into the detail). The print had not been displayed in Chiswick House for several years – and was immediately returned to English Heritage.
We are delighted that the picture is now on display in the House again, exactly 150 years after the Garden Party took place in July 1875. See: Visit Chiswick House. The House is now closed till Spring 2026.
We have produced this Guide to share our knowledge about the picture and the people portrayed in it and what it tells us about Queen Victoria, her family and Chiswick’s place in the world in the 19th Century. We are grateful to Gillian Clegg, Deborah Cadbury, Pamela Bater and other authors and historians whose work we are sharing here in articles and book extracts. See more from the Chiswick Book Festival at ‘Queen Victoria (and Prince Albert) in Chiswick’.
From Chiswick House & Gardens: A History by Gillian Clegg
‘The Royal Garden Party at Chiswick’ was the subject of a very large picture by Louis William Desanges. Measuring 16ft by 7ft, it included 300 figures with Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales taking centre stage. The Prince and his family sat for Desanges in 1875 but the painting was not ready for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1876. It was exhibited at the premises of the Autotype Company in 1879. Sadly in November that year it was completely destroyed when escaping gas caused a massive fire. There is, though, an autotype (an early form of photographic reproduction) version of it in Chiswick House.
Thanks to reports in The Times newspaper, we know about the brilliant garden parties the Prince held at Chiswick. He normally held at least one party a year and two in each of the years 1870-1873. Variously called dejeuners, breakfasts or garden parties, they started in the late afternoon and finished mid evening. Everybody who was anybody attended and the Queen sometimes put in an appearance. She travelled to Chiswick from Windsor by a special train and was escorted to and from the station by a detachment of the 1st Life Guards. However a letter to her eldest daughter in July 1875 suggests she was not overly enamoured:-
“You say that Bertie’s breakfast must have been charming. I myself think them dreadful and very fatiguing bores, walking and standing about and seeing fresh faces in every direction – but it doesn’t last long and pleases people and so there it is and easily done.”
Quoted by Christopher Hibbert, Queen Victoria in her Letters and Journals: a Selection (1984).
The Prince’s most famous party was one given in honour of the Shah of Persia who visited England in 1873. The party on the 28th June was recorded thus in The Times: ‘On Saturday afternoon the Shah went to the Prince of Wales’s Garden Party at Chiswick. From Buckingham Palace to the gates of the Duke of Devonshire’s beautiful villa the route was crowded. Her Majesty honoured the party with her presence, the gardens were in their fullest beauty and the long list which we publish will show that “everybody” was there’. (The list filled nearly three columns of the paper.) The Queen wrote about the party for the Shah in her diary:
Queen Victoria’s Journal – Saturday 28 June 1873
After luncheon resting, reading & writing, & at ½ p. 4 drove to the S. Western Station with Beatrice & Leopold (in full Highland dress), the Duchess of Atholl, Emily Cathcart, Lord Torrington & the 2 Equerries, in uniform. Lenchen, Christian, & Christie went in the same train. In ½ an hour we reached Kew station, & drove from there to Chiswick with an Escort. No end of carriages & in the grounds a fearful dust. We did not go through the house, but got out at the side, Bertie, Affie & Arthur, coming to meet me, & Bertie led me on to the lawn, where, as last time, everyone was assembled. The tent, so called mine, was in the same place as before. The Shah stood in front of it with Alix, all the Royalties &c nearby. Alix’s dear little girls (the boys had chickenpox) & Minny’s 2 dear little boys were there. The Shah spoke a little of himself & then the Grand Vizier said how greatly delighted the Shah had been with Liverpool & Manchester…
– Took tea & then remained sitting with Aunt Cambridge. There were 3 Bands, 2 Military & a Hungarian gipsy band, who played alternately. There were quantities of people there & I walked among them with Alix, Louise & Beatrice, speaking to the Corps Diplomatique, & same old acquaintances & friends. The whole was very pretty & well arranged, but it was fearfully hot. Alix & her sister were dressed alike & all the Princes & Officers in uniforms. Spoke again to the Shah, when he returned from planting a tree & said I hoped he would also plant one at Windsor. I took his arm & walked back to the House, when it was time to leave, & I wished him goodbye, all the Royalties accompanying me to the carriage. Left at 1.4 to 7. There were crowds & crowds of carriages. I felt very tired by the time I got home, & rested on the sofa.
Two years later, in July 1875, the painter Louis William Desanges attended that summer’s party to record the happy scene, including the 300 names and faces of the great and the good. He was still working to complete the painting in 1876, as The Times reported (click image to zoom in):
‘A Garden Party at Chiswick’ – The Times, Saturday March 25th 1876
It was a huge painting but sadly it was not to survive in its original form, as Chiswick House archivist Pamela Bater recorded in 2005:
A Royal Garden Party at Chiswick, by Pamela Bater
Historian Deborah Cadbury lives in Chiswick and wrote Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking about Victoria and the royal marriages that shaped Europe. You can buy it here. For the 2016 Festival, we invited her to analyse Who’s Who among the royal families of Europe in the painting above.
“The image of a Royal Garden Party at Chiswick House gives an evocative snapshot of the royal family at the peak of their power…” – Deborah Cadbury
Queen Victoria at Chiswick House – The Chiswick Calendar
In 2016, the editor of The Chiswick Calendar Bridget Osborne interviewed Dr Esme Whittaker, the then Curator of Chiswick House, about the history of the House, and the picture. It is thanks to her successors at English Heritage, Dr Emily Burns and Dr Lydia Miller, that the print now hangs again in Chiswick House (below).
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