Caroline Babington

Thesis

The wall paintings in UK Parliament: A reassessment of Victorian Britain's most ambitious public art commission

Supervisor: Liz Prettejohn

Research interests

This research offers a reappraisal of the vast and ambitious programme of wall painting commissioned by Prince Albert and the Fine Arts Commission for the newly rebuilt Palace of Westminster following the fire of 1834. This will cover both the frescoes and waterglass paintings undertaken from 1846-69, and the completion of the scheme 1906-27. These murals were the product of one of the most substantial public art commissions in British history. Despite rigorous contemporary research into fresco, realising the grand vision proved impossible. Working on the building site of an emerging palace using the painting technique dictated by royal command, some muddled attempts at early restoration, and pollution, all contributed to the almost immediate blackening of these monumental murals.

While there is substantial literature, the focus is typically upon the early paintings and without exception they refer to the Victorian murals as having failed. There are often technical misunderstandings, the significance of the early restoration missed, and influential characters omitted. Drawing on my in-situ conservation experience, alongside new archival research and technical analysis, I am re-examining the commissioning, delivery, and subsequent damage, finishing with the completion of the scheme in the early-twentieth century and an assessment of their legacy.

Papers & Publications

• Babington, Caroline, Tracy Manning, and Sophie Stewart. Our Painted Past: Wall Paintings of English Heritage. London: English Heritage, 1999.
• Babington, Caroline, "Neptune Resigning the Empire of the Seas to Britannia”, in William Dyce and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision, edited by Jennifer Melville, 54–59. Aberdeen City Council, 2006.
• Babington, C., and R. Pelter. “The Public and Private Face of English Baroque Wall Painting: Milgate House, Kent, and the Royal Hospital, Chelsea.” In All Manner of Murals: The History, Techniques and Conservation of Secular Wall Paintings, edited by R. Gowing and R. Pender, 133–142. English Heritage in association with Archetype Publications, 2007.
• Fox, Sarah-Jane, Caroline Babington, Fiona Macalister, Thomas Bower, and Charlotte Martin de Fonjaudran. “Monitoring and Mitigating Particulate Matter Deposition on Decorative Surfaces: Current and Future Approaches in the Palace of Westminster.” Studies in Conservation 63, no. sup1 (2018): 81–86.
• Lithgow, Richard, Samuel Whittaker, Tom Bower, Katey Corda, Elizabeth Woolley, Catherine Higgitt, Constantina Vlachou-Mogire, and Caroline Babington. “Vibration Monitoring of Daniel Maclise’s Wall Painting Trafalgar.” Studies in Conservation 65, no. sup1 (2020): 180–86.
• Liu, Guan-Lin, Elsa Guerreiro, Caroline Babington, and Sergei G. Kazarian. “ATR-FTIR Spectroscopic Imaging of White Crusts in Cross Sections from Oil Cartoons by Edward Poynter in the Heritage Collections at UK Parliament.” Journal of Cultural Heritage 62 (2023): 251–267.
• Babington, Caroline, and Cara Gathern. "Recognising Women’s Contributions to the Parliamentary Art Collection in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries." Women's History Review. Published online July 21, 2026. 

External activities

I am an accredited member of ICON The Institute of Conservation (ACR Emeritus 2024), and am particularly interested in wall painting conservation and collections care.