Bute House
Bute House is the official residence and workplace of the first minister of Scotland. Located at 6 Charlotte Square in the New Town of Edinburgh, it is the central house on the north side of the square and was designed by Robert Adam. It has served as the official residence of every first minister since Donald Dewar in 1999, and prior to that, the secretary of state for Scotland who headed the Scotland Office, from the 1970s until 1999. Bute House was conveyed to the National Trust for Scotland by the 6th Marquess of Bute in 1966.
The house is a Category A listed building and is constructed in an 18th century town house Neoclassical style, using sandstone materials. Designed by Robert Adam, Charlotte Square was designed by Adam as a single scheme, and it was part of architect James Craig’s First "New Town plan" which was unveiled in 1767, with Adam being commissioned in 1791 to design unified frontages for Charlotte Square. Together with Charlotte Square as a whole, Bute House has been described as "perhaps the finest architectural achievement of Georgian Edinburgh".
Alongside two other personal offices at the Scottish Parliament Building and St. Andrew's House, Bute House also contains a smaller office used by the first minister when in official residence. As well as serving as the official residence of the first minister, Bute House is frequently used by the First Minister to hold press conferences, media briefings, meetings of the cabinet of the Scottish Government and appointing members to the Scottish Cabinet.
The four-storey house contains the Cabinet Room, where the Scottish Cabinet meets each Tuesday, governmental and ministerial offices, conference, reception, sitting and dining rooms where the first minister works and where Scottish Government ministers, official visitors and guests are received and entertained. The second and third floors contain the private residence of the first minister.
History
Early occupants
was designed by Scottish architect Robert Adam. The Lord Provost and Edinburgh Town Council commissioned Adam to draw up plans for the square in 1791 as the culmination of Edinburgh's first New Town. However, Adam died in 1792, and his completed designs had to be realised by others. The north side of the square was built first and is faithful to his intentions. The plot where Bute House now stands was sold in 1792 by public roup to Orlando Hart, a shoemaker, prominent member of the Town Council and deacon-convener of the trades in Edinburgh, for £290.The house was occupied by John Innes Crawford, who lived there between 1796 and 1800. He was born in Jamaica on 27 October 1776. In 1781 he inherited the Bellfield estate in St James, Jamaica, from his father, John Crawford. The Bellfield sugar plantation, with its six hundred enslaved workers, generated a net income of £3,000 a year. He later moved to 91 George Street, Edinburgh where he lived between 1801 and 1825. He died on 22 November 1839.
In 1806, Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet bought the newly completed house for £2,950. Sinclair was a Whig politician and a writer on finance and agriculture. He was also responsible for the compilation of the First Statistical Account of Scotland. Sinclair sold the house in 1816 to Lieutenant Colonel William Gabriel Davy.
In May 1818, the house was purchased from Davy by Henry Ritchie of Busbie. Ritchie was a Glasgow merchant, a partner in the Thistle Bank, and the owner of landed estates in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire. He sold his Charlotte Square townhouse to Charles Oman, a hotel keeper and vintner, in May 1825. Oman, a native of Caithness, had owned various hotels and coffee houses in Edinburgh over the decades, including the Waterloo Hotel on the city's Waterloo Place, up until his purchase of 6 Charlotte Square. Oman turned his new townhouse into Oman's Hotel, which was to remain for over 20 years. The fixings for the letters of the hotel's name can still be seen today on the exterior wall above the front entrance door of Bute House.
Oman died in August 1826, but the hotel continued to operate under the ownership of his widow, Mrs Grace Oman. The exiled Charles X of France stayed at the hotel for a brief time in 1832, during his second period of exile in Edinburgh. Following Mrs Oman's death in 1845, 6 Charlotte Square was sold by her heirs to Alexander Campbell of Cammo, who lived in the house with his family until his death in 1887. Campbell commissioned David Rhind to make various alterations and additions to the house in 1867. The house's next owner was Sir Mitchell Mitchell-Thomson, 1st Baronet, who was to make it his home for the next 30 years. A partner in his family's timber business, and a director of the Bank of Scotland, he also served as the Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1897 until 1900. In 1889, Mitchell-Thomson employed the architect Thomas Leadbetter to carry out further alterations.
Bute family: 1922–66
had a particular enthusiasm for the amenity value of the Scottish townscape. From the early 1900s onwards, he began to buy up the central houses on the north side of Charlotte Square to restore Adam's original design, which 19th-century intrusions had compromised, including dormer windows and alterations to the proportions of the first-floor windows. Lord Bute acquired the house at No. 5 first, in 1903, and thoroughly restored its interior in an Adam Revival style, furnishing the principal rooms with antique furniture so that it could function as the Butes' townhouse in Edinburgh. He subsequently acquired No. 6 in 1922 and No. 7 in 1927. Lord Bute's enthusiasm for Charlotte Square was given permanent expression when the City of Edinburgh invoked the Town Planning Act 1925 to effect the Edinburgh Town Planning Scheme Order, 1930. The Bute family thereafter moved from the house at No. 5 to the neighbouring property at No. 6, taking many of the contents of No. 5 with them.Lord Bute's most notable tenant at Bute House was Arthur Sinclair, a distinguished ophthalmic surgeon. Sinclair practised ophthalmic surgery at Bute House for roughly twenty years, and, during his time at Bute House, the iron railings were removed to assist the war effort. Following the death of The 4th Marquess of Bute in 1947, his son, John Crichton-Stuart, 5th Marquess of Bute, inherited the Charlotte Square houses previously owned by his father. The 5th Marquess of Bute moved his family into Bute House in 1949. On his father's death in 1956, the 5th Marquess of Bute's son, John Crichton-Stuart, 6th Marquess of Bute set about negotiations with Inland Revenue, with the final decision being that No.5 Charlotte Square, Bute House and No.7 Charlotte Square were subsequently to be conveyed to the National Trust for Scotland in part payment of taxes.
Transfer to the National Trust for Scotland
In May 1966, the Treasury accepted Nos. 5, 6 and 7 Charlotte Square in lieu of part payment of death duties on the estate of the 5th Marquess of Bute, who had died in August 1956. The three houses became the property of the National Trust for Scotland, which proposed to lease No. 6 to a new trust which would administer the house as an official residence for the Secretary of State for Scotland, as a building where he could reside when in Edinburgh and where distinguished visitors could be received and entertained. The Bute House Trust was formed in 1966 to bring this idea to fruition. The Trustees raised the £40,000 required for the alteration and redecoration of the house and its furnishings. The interior decoration and colour schemes were the responsibility of Lady Victoria Wemyss and Colin McWilliam. Because funding was tight, the interior refurbishment of Bute House was dependent on a number of loans.Bute House is not owned by the Scottish Government but remains in the ownership of the National Trust for Scotland, a charitable organisation dedicated to the preservation of historic buildings and sites of natural significance across the country. The property is also legally under the supervision of the Bute House Trustees, a group whose existence was provided for in the original trust deed passing ownership from the Bute family.
Official residence
From 1970 onwards, after the House was refurbished after its previous owners had given it and two adjoining houses to the National Trust for Scotland, Bute House became the grace-and-favour residence in Edinburgh of the Secretary of State for Scotland, the UK government minister charged with looking after Scotland's interests in Westminster, who remained as a resident in it until devolution in 1999. It is now the setting for the weekly meeting of the Scottish Government's Cabinet, which meets in what used to be the Secretary of State's study. Willie Ross was the first Secretary of State for Scotland to occupy Bute House in May 1966.The Secretary of State for Scotland ceased the ability to reside in Bute House in 1999 following the establishment of the office of First Minister of Scotland. In 1999, Donald Dewar became the first First Minister of Scotland and the first occupant of Bute House in the office of First Minister. Dewar died while in office in October 2000, and since then, Bute House has been occupied by successive first ministers; Henry McLeish, Jack McConnell, Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon, Humza Yousaf and John Swinney. A portrait of each of the first ministers are currently on display in the main staircase of Bute House.
There is no expectation for the First Minister to take up permanent residence in Bute House. Instead, Bute House is always readily available for the First Minister or their family to reside in for any period of time, whether longterm or an overnight stay while in Edinburgh. Therefore, it is not a statutory requirement of the office of First Minister for an incumbent office holder to "move in" to Bute House upon their appointment.
File:First Minister meets with Icelandic President - 53658418788.jpg|thumb|right|First Minister Yousaf meets with President of Iceland Guðni Th. Jóhannesson at Bute House.
The Public and Private Apartments offer flexible accommodation for events and meetings held by the First Minister or the wider Scottish Cabinet. As of May 2024, no First Minister has had children under the age of eighteen while residing in Bute House as First Minister.
It is the responsibility of the Scottish Government, under the terms of their lease from the National Trust for Scotland, are responsible for the protection of all possessions, assets and items loaned to Bute House against any kind of theft, damage or loss. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland, a member of staff was always present within Bute House for security and protection purposes. During the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns in Scotland imposed by the Scottish Government, the only people permitted to enter Bute House were Scottish Government ministers, including the First Minister, to conduct essential government business, as well as officially appointed Scottish Government contractors to maintain the building as well as staff from Historic Environment Scotland.