This became known as Bellamy’s, and it was the first catering establishment in the House. The catering service has since expanded to operate 21 different venues across six buildings on the parliamentary estate, serving thousands of staff, Members, contractors, guests, and visitors each day – providing the fuel to keep Parliament going.
This historic anniversary is being marked with a series of activities including special dishes across the cafeterias, celebratory menus throughout June and July, and in the Members’ and Strangers’ dining rooms in November.
The celebrations have also included, recently, an afternoon reception for the catering team in the Speaker’s House at which the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, personally thanked staff on behalf of all MPs.
“Celebrating 250 years of the House of Commons Catering Service – how many other institutions can boast such a record?!
He said: “You serve thousands of staff, contractors, guests and visitors – as well as MPs - each day. And as Speaker I have seen first-hand how you cater for high profile guests, from lunch for former US Speaker Nancy Pelosi – to canapes for HRH Princess Royal when we commemorated 40 years since the Falklands War.
“Even more importantly, you stayed open during Covid to keep Members and staff fed and watered during the pandemic. Today marks the beginning of a programme of events to celebrate your 250 years. Here’s to the next 250 years.”
The special reception was attended by Mark Hill, the executive head chef at the House of Commons and Terry Wiggins, the longest serving chef, as well as a number of the other kitchen and waiting staff.
How it all started
The first 'official' catering facilities first appeared in 1773 in a set of rooms known as Bellamy's in which tea, coffee, alcohol and light meals were served, according to Paul Seaward, who is writing project blog called ‘Reformation to Referendum: Writing a New History of Parliament’ for the History of Parliament Trust.
The catering was managed by two successive John Bellamys, both of them deputy housekeeper to the House of Commons and responsible for cleaning the chamber and committee rooms, and collecting the various fees.
Charles Dickens described the rooms in 1835 as, ‘the refreshment room, common to both houses of parliament, where ministerialists and oppositionists, Whigs and Tories, Radicals and Destructives, Peers and Reporters, strangers from the gallery, and the more favoured strangers from below the bar, are alike at liberty to resort’.
A parliamentary guide published in the early 1830s referred to the relatively restricted menu of ‘rump steaks, mutton chops, veal pasties of superlative excellence, cold roast and boiled beef, pickles of all sorts, and Stilton cheese’, with a wine list consisting ‘of wines of all the countries of the earth, as well as porter, coffee and beer.
An 1825 account claims that Bellamy’s had ‘some of the best wine that you can drink in London, and some of the best chops and steaks that ever solicited to be cooked’, which could ‘almost console one for an hour or two’s previous imprisonment in a crowded, riotous, and mephitic gallery’.
The chops and steaks were served by Ann and Jane, who were described in disconcertingly similar terms (‘so plump, and sleek, and clean’) to the meat, port, sherry and madeira.
The days of the refreshment rooms as a family business were numbered. In the mid-1840s the catering arrangements for the new, rebuilt, Palace, were reviewed and the House established a Standing Committee on Kitchen and Refreshment rooms to oversee the catering.