The 2025 badge contest ended in a tie. I was alternating the badge but I kept losing track. You’re free to use the combined badge or either Teagan’s or Ritva’s individual badge.
Important Note: I will be out most of the day on Thursday. I will get to your posts and your comment, but I might be late.
Before we get into the facts about this remarkable room, I need to share a little fiction and reveal a little lie. This is my favorite of all the nationality rooms. It has a prominent place in the Cathedral of Learning’s lower floor that gives it the benefit of having windows on three walls. OK, that’s fact. The fiction part is that this is the room in which Brody Thompson and Trevor Barcroft first encountered Austin ‘Migs’ McGuire in Poetic Justice. (the novel Willow Wllers and I published in June). You can see an AI augmented representation of that encounter in the trailer attached to the bottom of this post. But that’s not the lie.
The lie comes from a class that I had in this room. When I was in graduate school at Pitt, I was forced to take a pass/fail course in Remedial Accounting. I asked so many questions during the first day of that class, the instructor asked me not to come back. He promised to give me the passing grade I needed in exchange for my not returning. If you want to read the entire story, you can find it here. Beware, it includes scary things like T-Accounts.
From the Pitt website:
The English Room is a space inspired by the architecture of the House of Commons. It is in a revivalist Tudor-Gothic style, with many relics collected from the WW2 wreckage of the Parliament buildings. Stained glass windows show the crests of famous people, such as William Penn and William Pitt, as well as seals of some English cities.
Pitt is shown in a portrait in the rear wall, above a brick from 10 Downing Street, underscoring the aspect of English nationality illustrated by the government that binds it together.
The idea for an English Nationality Room was initially proposed by Dr. Albert Mansbridge in 1927; however, the construction of the room was delayed by the outbreak of the Second World War. Led by Member of Parliament and Chair of the Committee in London, Alfred C. Bossom, the room was eventually constructed using salvaged materials from the bombed House of Commons. The English Nationality Room was dedicated in 1952.
The back bay area in the room, where the meeting between Trevor, Brody and Migs took place, is described in detail in a Wikipedia entry:
Portraits of University of Pittsburgh alumnus and former Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, Andrew Mellon, and the former Earl of Chatham, William Pitt, after whom the city was named, flank the stained glass windows in the rear bay. A brick from 10 Downing Street serves as the room’s cornerstone. The white oak floor is fitted together with wooden peg dowels. Tudor-Gothic oak benches resemble the old House of Commons benches and are similarly arranged. Two English oak tables with melon-shaped legs stand before the bay. Two House of Commons Library chairs upholstered in green leather and bearing the official gold crest featuring the portcullis and crown were a gift of Lord Alfred Bossom and were rebuilt using wood from actual chairs in the bombed House of Commons.
The day my brother and I visited the English Room, a cameraman was setting up to film a promotional video for the university. He let us walk around and take pictures. I asked about the video. He said it features an alumni donor. I jokingly told him I was an alumni and also a donor. He said, “I suspect you’d need to add a few zeroes to your donation amount to get in the video.” Well, that’s not happening, but I have featured the Cathedral in all of my books.
I hope you enjoy today’s gallery. In addition to my photos, I have a couple of screen shots from a video prepared by the standing English Room Committee. They decorate the room each year for an Open House the University sponsors. I’m going to take a short break from the Nationality rooms next week, but I will return with the rest of them. I hope you will take a few minutes to visit some of the other doors on display from around the world. If not, remember, I’ll have a recap of all the posts on Sunday.
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