Stjórnarráðshúsið (The Government House) is a

stately home 300px, Oxfordshire.html" ;"title="Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire">Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a To ...

located on

Lækjargata Lækjargata (, "stream street") is a street in downtown Reykjavík and takes its name from the stream that once ran along the street, from the Tjörnin to the sea. History Settlement period In Spring 2015, the remains of a 22 metre long tenth ...

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

, Iceland. The building houses the Prime Minister's Office. The building was originally built as the first

penitentiary A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are Imprisonment, imprisoned under the authority of the State (polity), state, usually ...

in Iceland, in the middle of the 18th century.

History

The first known source where speculation appears about building a penitentiary in Iceland is in a letter from Henrik Ocksen to the governor Joachim Henriksen Lafrenz, dated 1733. At the time, Katrín Ingjaldsdóttir had been

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

in Iceland but pardoned by the king, who reduced her sentence to a lifetime of penal servitude. Such pardons were not uncommon. As there were no facilities in the country to hold people captive forever, prisoners were sent to prison in Denmark. On 20 March 1759, the

King of Denmark The monarchy of Denmark is a constitutional political system, institution and a historic office of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Kingdom includes Denmark proper and the autonomous administrative division, autonomous territories of the Faroe Is ...

finally issued a decree that a penitentiary had to be built in Iceland. This was at the instigation of

Skúli Magnússon Skúli Magnússon (12 December 1711 – 9 November 1794) was an Icelandic civil servant. He is often referred to as the ''father of Reykjavík.'' due to King Frederik V of Denmark donating the estate of Reykjavík to Magnússon's Innréttingar ...

, a "bailiff", among other things in search of a solution to the so-called "wandering plague", i.e. that the number of people who were not permanently resident on farms was increasing in the country. In 1753 Skúli applied for a grant from the king to build a better house, "which could receive young and healthy wanderers and beggars who wander around the country in flocks". The construction of the house began in 1761 and condemned men then served their punishment by working on its construction. The house was ready for use a decade later, in the winter of 1770–71. The penitentiary, which was commonly called ''the Wall'', became the first and for a long time the only penitentiary in Iceland. Skúli Magnússon used prisoners in the penitentiary as labor for the Interiors. When the operation of the Interiors began to decline, the prisoners were rented out of the penitentiary as labor within Reykjavík. Within the administration of the

Danish monarchy The monarchy of Denmark is a constitutional institution and a historic office of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Kingdom includes Denmark proper and the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland. The Kingdom of Denmark was alrea ...

, to which Iceland belonged at the time, they were always mentioned as ''slaves'', i.e. slaves, and their status within the penitentiary as ''slavery'', i.e. slavery. The slaves helped with many of the tasks that needed to be done in the growing settlement. For the construction and operation of the penitentiary, a tax was levied on real estate and the value of cows for imprisonment (the penitentiary toll), and was unpopular among the people. The penitentiary was closed down in 1816. In 1904, the first Icelandic ministry began working in the building, and later the

Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filin ...

, after which the building is named, in 1918. Ever since, the offices of the Prime Minister and

Government of Iceland The politics of Iceland take place in the framework of a parliamentary system, parliamentary representative democracy, representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Iceland, president is the head of state, while the prime ministe ...

have been in the building. The Office of the President of Iceland was also housed in Government House from 1973-1996. At Government House, the first Icelandic national flag was hoisted.

References

{{coord, 64.1473, -21.9353, type:landmark_region:IS, display=title Buildings and structures in Reykjavík Buildings and structures completed in 1770