Benjamin C. Stephenson

Major-General Sir Benjamin Charles Stephenson (1766 – 10 June 1839) was a prominent British courtier and government official in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. After military service, he worked for kings George III, George IV, and William IV, and, finally, was private secretary to Queen Victoria. He was, from 1813 to 1832, Surveyor-General (head of the Office of Works).

Stephenson joined the army, serving in the 9th Regiment of Light Dragoons and the 3rd Dragoon Guards. He saw action at the Battle of Famars and the Siege of Valenciennes in 1793, and in later skirmishes was seriously wounded.

In 1803, he was appointed Deputy Judge Advocate of the South West District, and later served on a commission on military expenditure. In 1812 he was appointed Master of the King's Household at Windsor, and in 1823 was appointed to superintend the finances of Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany.

Stephenson succeeded Sir James Wyatt as Surveyor-General of the Board of Works in 1813. As Surveyor-General, in 1829, he commissioned Sir John Soane to design the New State Paper Office in Duke Street, east of London's St James's Park, as a purpose-built repository for national records in England (superseded in 1856 by Sir James Pennethorne's Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, and demolished in 1862). When the Board merged with the Department of Woods and Forests in 1832, Stephenson was appointed a Commissioner in that department.

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