Why Brighton’s Royal Pavilion appears closer home to India

With its multiple domes, towers and minarets, the Royal Pavilion would look right at home in Delhi amongst the architectural marvels built during the Mughal era, but surprisingly it is located in the British seaside resort of Brighton. Easily one of the most exotically beautiful buildings in the UK, it has been home to three of the country’s monarchs and thousands of wounded Indian soldiers during World War I.

The palace was originally built for King George IV as an elegant place for him to entertain friends, royalty and high society by the sea. “George IV was unable to travel and yet he was fascinated by the East. So as the saying goes, as he couldn’t go to the East, it was brought to him. That is why the exterior of the palace is Indian-style and the interiors are inspired by China,” one of the tour guides in the palace told The Federal.

On the advice of his physicians, George, then Prince of Wales, first went to Brighton in the mid-1780s to take in the therapeutic sea water remedies. Brighton, 76 kilometres south of London, was then developing from a decayed fishing town to an established seaside retreat for the rich and famous and it suited George who was able to rebel against his strict upbringing and indulge himself there in a life of drinking, womanising and gambling.

In 1787, George hired architect Henry Holland to transform his Brighton lodging house into a modest villa which became known as the Marine Pavilion. The vain and extravagant Prince set about lavishly furnishing it with hand-painted Chinese wallpapers, furniture and object d’art. In 1808 the new stable complex for George’s 62 horses was completed with a magnificent lead and glass-domed roof. “The stable was bigger and more impressive than the villa and George didn’t like that, so in 1815 he commissioned architect John Nash to transform the villa into the palace you see today,” added the tour guide.

As the stable had been inspired by Mughal architecture, Nash reconstructed the villa in a similar vein adding a magnificent vista of domes, minarets and pinnacles to the building.

The many rooms, galleries and corridors were decorated with opulent and exquisite Chinoiserie-style furnishings. George was determined that the palace should be the ultimate in comfort and convenience, which it was and came to be known as the pleasure palace by the sea.

George continued to live there even when he became King and threw many extravagant and ostentatious banquets there for his courtiers and visiting royalty. The most memorable banquet held at the Royal Pavilion by George was in 1817 in honour of Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, who went on to become Tsar, when the menu included 8 soups, 8 fish dishes, 40 side dishes with the fish, 16 main meat dishes with 32 side dishes, 8 centrepieces of patisserie and 12 rounds of desserts.

King George’s indulgent lifestyle and obsession with eating and drinking finally caught up with him and he became obese and was riddled with gout and other illnesses. He withdrew from public life and became a recluse. On his death in 1830, George was succeeded by his younger brother William IV. He was a popular and affable king who also stayed and entertained at the Royal Pavilion. He was succeeded to the throne on his death in 1837 by his niece Victoria.

Victoria made her first visit to the pleasure palace when she became queen at just 18 years of age and felt it was a ‘strange, odd, Chinese looking place, both outside and inside’. She later returned for a longer stay with her husband Albert and two children in 1842 and some of the rooms had to be altered for her growing family.

Queen Victoria, who was known to be thrifty, wanted to distance the monarchy from the extravagance and indulgence of her elder uncle so in 1850 she sold the Royal Pavilion to the town of Brighton for just over £50,000. As it was thought the building would be demolished, Victoria ordered it to be stripped of all its interior decorations, fittings and furnishing for use in other royal homes.

However, the people of Brighton were aware of the economic and symbolic importance of the former palace and within a year of purchase the main ground floor rooms were completely redecorated in a similar, but much less lavish, style and the Royal Pavilion was opened to the public. Seeing that it was not demolished, Queen Victoria returned many of the interior items like the chandeliers and wall paintings during her long reign.

Interestingly, the next residents of the Royal Pavilion were Indian soldiers when it became the most famous military hospital in Britain during World War I. From 1914 to 1916, Indian soldiers wounded on the battlefields of the Western Front were treated there. At the beginning of the war, when Britain was still recruiting and training volunteers, soldiers from across the Empire were brought to fight in Europe. The Indian Army provided the largest number of troops and by the end of 1914 they made up almost a third of the British Expeditionary Force.

Brighton was chosen as the site for a complex of military hospitals dedicated to the care of wounded and sick Indian soldiers and the Royal Pavilion was the first Indian hospital to open. The former palace was converted into a state of the art medical facility with 600 beds and two operating theatres in less than two weeks. From December 2014 to December 2015, over 2,300 Indian soldiers were treated there. Photographs of Indian soldiers being treated in a plush royal palace were circulated in India too by the British to show how well the Empire cared for its wounded Indian soldiers.

Apart from looking after the men’s medical needs, the hospital went to enormous lengths to cater to the patients’ religious and cultural needs. Muslims and Hindus were provided with separate water supplies. Nine kitchens were set up in the grounds of the palace so that food could be cooked by the patients’ co-religionists and caste members. Sikhs were provided with a tented gurdwara in the grounds of the palace, while Muslims were given space on the eastern lawns to offer namaz. About 18 Indian soldiers died in the Royal Pavilion. While Sikh and Hindu soldiers were provided with a site for open air cremations in the nearby South Downs, the Muslim soldiers were buried in a cemetery near Britain’s first mosque — the Shah Jahan Mosque — in Woking.

In late 1915, the British decided to redeploy the Indian Army in West Asia and most Indian soldiers were withdrawn from Europe. The Pavilion was closed to Indian soldiers in January 1916. The Indian Gate, which still stands at the southern entrance to the palace was presented to the people of Brighton by the ‘princes and people of (undivided) India’ as a gesture of gratitude for the care provided by Brighton’s Indian hospitals. It was unveiled by the Maharajah of Patiala on October 26, 1921.

In 1920, a programme for restoration of the Royal Pavilion began. It was funded through a settlement made by the government for the damage done to the building during its use as a hospital. This was helped by subsequent monarchs who returned original decorations, including furniture that had remained at Buckingham Palace. Thanks to the immaculate restoration today the Royal Pavilion has been returned to its past glory and George IV Regency dream–a palace not to be missed by any visitor to Brighton.