Longwood House is a mansion in St. Helena and the final residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, the former Emperor of the French, during his exile on the island of Saint Helena, from 10 December 1815 until his death on 5 May 1821.
Longwood House is a mansion in St. Helena and the final residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, the former Emperor of the French, during his exile on the island of Saint Helena, from 10 December 1815 until his death on 5 May 1821.
Longwood "was originally a farm belonging to the East India Company and was afterwards given as a country residence to the Deputy-Governor." [1] It was converted for the use of Napoleon in 1815. The British government eventually recognized its inadequacy as a home for the former emperor and his entourage and, by the time of his death, had built a new house for him nearby, which he never occupied. In February 1818, Governor Sir Hudson Lowe proposed to Lord Bathurst to move Napoleon to Rosemary Hall, a house that became available and was located in a more hospitable part of the island, sheltered from the winds and shaded, as Napoleon had preferred. [2] But the revelations of General Gourgaud in London brought Lord Bathurst to the opinion that it was safer to keep Napoleon at Longwood, where an escape was harder to undertake. The building of the new house only began in October 1818, three years after Napoleon's arrival on the island.
The will written by Napoleon at Longwood House is preserved in French National Archives. [3]
Following Napoleon's death, Longwood House reverted to the East India Company and later to the Crown, and was used for agricultural purposes. Reports of its neglect reached Napoleon III who, from 1854, negotiated with the British government for its transfer to France. In 1858 it was transferred to the French government, along with the Valley of the Tomb for a sum of £7,100. Since then they have been under the control of the French Foreign Ministry and a French government representative has lived on the island and has been responsible for managing both properties. In 1959 a third property, The Briars, where Napoleon spent the first two months while Longwood was being prepared, was given to the French government by Dame Mabel Brookes.
As a result of the depredations of termites, in the 1940s the French government considered demolishing the building. New Longwood and the Balcombe's house at The Briars were both demolished at this time, but Longwood House was saved, and it has been restored by recent French curators. The stone steps at the front are the only part of the original fabric to survive.
In 2006 Michel Dancoisne-Martineau donated the heart-shaped Waterfall Valley to the Saint Helena National Trust. In 2008 he donated the land surrounding the pavilion at The Briars to the French republic.
Longwood House is now a museum owned by the French government. It is one of two museums on the island, the other being the Museum of Saint Helena. [4]
Gaspard, Baron Gourgaud, also known simply as Gaspard Gourgaud, was a French soldier, prominent in the Napoleonic wars.
Charles Tristan, marquis de Montholon was a French general during the Napoleonic Wars. He chose to go into exile on Saint Helena with the ex-Emperor after Napoleon's second abdication.
Emmanuel-Augustin-Dieudonné-Joseph, comte de Las Cases was a French atlas-maker and author, famed for an admiring book about Napoleon, Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène.
Sir Hudson Lowe was an Anglo-Irish soldier and colonial administrator who is best known for his time as Governor of St Helena, where he was the "gaoler" of the Emperor Napoleon.
Jamestown is the capital city of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, located on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is also the historic main settlement of the island and is on its north-western coast. Before the development of the port at Rupert's Bay, it was the island's only port and the centre of the island's road and communications network. It was founded when colonists from the English East India Company settled on the island in 1659 and was briefly occupied by the Dutch East India Company in 1673 before being recaptured. Many of the buildings built by the East India Company in the 18th century survive and give the town its distinctive Georgian flavour.
Longwood is a settlement and a district of the British island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Henri-Gatien Bertrand was a French general who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Under the Empire he was the third and last Grand marshal of the palace, the head of the Military Household of emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, whom he followed in both the exiles to Elba and Saint-Helena.
Briars is the name of the small pavilion in which Napoleon Bonaparte stayed for the first few weeks of his exile on Saint Helena in late 1815 before being moved to Longwood House.
Gilbert Martineau was a French naval officer, author of books on Napoleon and his family, honorary consul, and curator 1956-1987 of the French properties on St Helena, where Napoleon had been in exile.
Alarm Forest is the newest of the eight districts of the island of Saint Helena, part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is located southeast of Jamestown, in the interior of the island, and is the only district to lack a coastline.
The retour des cendres was the return of the mortal remains of Napoleon I of France from the island of Saint Helena to France and the burial in Hôtel des Invalides in Paris in 1840, on the initiative of Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers and King Louis-Philippe.
The Memorial of Saint Helena, written by Emmanuel de Las Cases, is a journal-memoir of the beginning of Napoleon Bonaparte's exile on Saint Helena. The core of the work transcribes Las Cases' near-daily conversations with the former Emperor on his life, his career, his political philosophy, and the conditions of his exile.
The Saint Helena Medal was the first French campaign medal. It was established in 1857 by a decree of emperor Napoleon III to recognise participation in the campaigns led by emperor Napoleon I.
Lucia Elizabeth Balcombe Abell was a friend of Napoleon Bonaparte during his exile at Saint Helena. She was also an author and a landowner in New South Wales, Australia.
François Carlo Antommarchi was Napoleon's physician from 1819 to his death in 1821.
The French domains of Saint Helena is an estate of 14 ha, in three separate parts, on the island of Saint Helena within the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
The Saint Helena Journal of General Baron Gourgaud is a private journal written down by Gaspard Gourgaud as a result of his conversations with Napoleon I of France between June 1815 and March 1818 during the former's exile on Saint Helena.
Michel Dancoisne-Martineau is the director of the French domains of Saint Helena. Since October 1990, he has been Honorary French Consul on the island.
War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet is an oil painting of 1842 by the English Romantic painter J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851). Intended to be a companion piece to Turner's Peace - Burial at Sea, War is a painting that depicts a moment from Napoleon Bonaparte's exile at Saint Helena. In December 1815, the former Emperor was taken by the British government to the Longwood House, despite its state of disrepair, to live in captivity; during his final years of isolation, Napoleon had fallen into despair. Turner's decision to pair the painting with Peace was heavily criticized when it was first exhibited but it is also seen as predecessor to his more famous piece Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844).
The Valley of the Tomb is the site of Napoleon's tomb, on the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena in the south Atlantic Ocean, where he was buried following his death in exile on 5 May 1821. The valley had been called the Sane Valley, but Napoleon had taken walks there and referred to it as the Valley of the Geraniums.
15°57′0.47″S5°40′59.06″W / 15.9501306°S 5.6830722°W
