The Resolute desk, also known as the Hayes desk, is a nineteenth-century partners desk used by several presidents of the United States in the White House as the Oval Office desk, including the five most recent presidents. The desk was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship . The desk was created by William Evenden, a skilled joiner at Chatham Dockyard in Kent, probably from a design by Morant, Boyd & Blanford. The desk has been modified twice, with a kneehole panel added in 1945 and a plinth added to the desk in 1961.
HMS Resolute was abandoned in the Arctic in 1854 while searching for Sir John Franklin and his lost expedition. The ship was found in 1855 by George Henry, an American whaling ship, repaired, and returned to the United Kingdom in 1856 as a gesture of goodwill from the United States. The ship was decommissioned in 1879, was broken up, and had three desks constructed from its timbers. Queen Victoria sent one of these desks to American President Rutherford B. Hayes. The Resolute desk was received at the White House on November 23, 1880, and it was used in the President's Office and President's Study until the White House Reconstruction from 1948 to 1952. After the reconstruction, it was placed in the Broadcast Room, where Dwight D. Eisenhower used it during radio and television broadcasts. Jacqueline Kennedy rediscovered the desk and had it brought to the Oval Office in 1961. The desk was removed from the White House after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and went on a traveling exhibition with artifacts of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, Massachusetts. Jimmy Carter brought the desk back to the White House in 1977, where it has been used since.
Many replicas have been made of the Resolute desk. The first was commissioned in 1978 for a permanent display at the John F. Kennedy Library, and since then five other presidential libraries and many museums, libraries, tourist attractions, and private homes and offices have acquired copies of the desk.
Design and markings
The Resolute desk is built from oak timbers that were once part of the ship . The double pedestal, partners desk is high with a workspace measuring wide and deep. It weighs . The desk was created in 1880 by William Evenden, a skilled joiner at Chatham Dockyard in Kent, probably from a design by Morant, Boyd, & Blanford. The desk is decorated with carved moldings and carved floral swag designs. There are sets of drawers behind the cabinet doors on each side of the desk pedestals, and the desktop is covered with red leather. Built at the same time as the Grinnell desk, the two desks together cost 380 pounds ().
A plaque, mounted on the front center drawer, explains the history of the Resolute and the meaning behind the desk. This plaque was originally on the back of the desk but from Ronald Reagan's presidency onwards it has been photographed as being on the front. The underside of all the exterior drawer fronts are stamped "MORANT BOYD & BLANFORD / 91 NEW BOND STREET" and the lock plates are stamped "BY ROYAL / LETTERS PATENT / FOUR LEVERS / SAFETY LOCK / COMYN CHINC & Co."Monkman. p. 294.
Modifications
Two significant modifications have been made to the Resolute desk since it was delivered to the White House. A panel was installed in the kneehole of the desk in 1945 and a plinth, or base, was added to raise the height of the desk in 1961.
The panel was designed by White House architect Lorenzo Winslow and constructed and carved out of hard oak in 1945 by Rudolph Bauss, a National Park Service employed model-maker and designer. The kneehole panel is hinged, opens up, and features a carving of the Presidential seal. The carved seal depicts the eagle's head facing left, turned towards the arrows in the eagle's talon. Later in 1945, the design of the presidential seal was changed by Harry S. Truman to have the eagle turned towards the olive branch in the right talon instead. This was to have the bird turn away from the symbol of war and towards the symbol of peace. The carving on the desk was not changed, so the carving on the desk no longer matches the official design.
In 1961, during the John F. Kennedy administration, a plinth was installed under the desk to elevate the kneehole and allow the president to sit more comfortably. The plinth fits the shape of the desk, sitting flush with the molding above it. The original plinth was replaced in 1986 during Ronald Reagan's administration.Sandler. pp. 215–219. According to the White House Historical Association multiple bases, or plinths, have been added and removed over the years. The desk was refinished in 2025.
History HMS Resolute
In May 1845 Sir John Franklin, a British explorer, launched an expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Using two of the Royal Navy's best ships, and , stocked with enough provisions to last three years, he charted a course through Baffin Bay, located between Baffin Island and the west coast of Greenland. The expedition and all 129 crew members vanished.
The fate of the ships was frequently brought up in British press and grew into a cause célèbre. At least one folk ballad was written about the expedition and Charles Dickens published an article in Household Words downplaying scandalous, unfounded reports that were circulating claiming the crew had resorted to cannibalism. Due to the public desire to know what happened, a five-ship squadron under Sir Edward Belcher set out from Britain in 1852 to search for the missing ships and explorer. HMS Resolute, captained by Sir Henry Kellett, was joined by , , , and , all under Belcher's command, on the expedition. The North Star stayed at a supply base on Beechey Island, while the other four ships split up to search for Franklin. The Resolute was constructed expressly as an Arctic vessel with a bow covered in iron to cut through ice. It nevertheless became trapped in ice in April 1854, and the other three ships became stuck soon after. Belcher decided to abandon the four ships, and on May 15, 1854, Resolute was abandoned in Tariyunnuaq (what was then called Melville Sound). The ships' crews marched across the ice to the North Star back at Beechey Island and later sailed back to England on it and two auxiliary vessels. Belcher was court-martialed for the loss of his ships and the danger he put his crew through during the expedition. He never again received a naval command.
When the ice thawed in the spring, the unmanned Resolute began drifting south, traveling more than and roughly 7 degrees latitude, where it was spotted in September 1855 in Davis Strait, off the shores of Baffin Island, by the crew of George Henry, an American whaling ship captained by James Buddington. The whalers tried to signal the ship, and after it failed to respond four sailors boarded it. They found the ship uninhabited but still stocked. The ship was listing badly to its port side and missing its topmast. It took several weeks to pump out the water from the ship and get it back to an even keel, but Buddington knew the ship's story and knew he could likely sell it for a large sum when he returned it to dock. Buddington claimed the right to salvage for HMS Resolute, and sailed it to New London, Connecticut, arriving on Christmas Eve 1855.
This all happened during an especially tense time in United Kingdom–United States relations. Then-President Franklin Pierce was prepared to go to war with Britain for what would be a third time.Serratore, Angela. "The presidential desk: A brief history". . Curbed. November 8, 2016. Retrieved December 6, 2020. In his third annual message, in 1855, Pierce discussed disputes over fishing rights and the border between British Columbia and Washington Territory as well as Britain's territorial claims in South America, which the United States claimed violated the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty.Franklin Pierce: Third Annual Message. . The American Presidency Project. UC Santa Barbara. Retrieved December 22, 2020. Regarding the disagreement about Britain's foothold in South America, Britain's then First Lord of the Admiralty stated that "We are fast drifting into war with the United States."Leonard, Thomas M.United States–Latin American Relations, 1850–1903: Establishing a Relationship. University of Alabama Press. 2014. . p. 85. Retrieved December 22, 2020.
Wealthy American philanthropist Henry Grinnell, who had financed an earlier expedition to find Franklin's lost ships to no avail, suggested to the US government that the Resolute should be refit and sent back to England as a token of goodwill. As a way to help calm tensions between the two countries, a bill was introduced to Congress on June 24, 1856, to authorize the purchase and restoration of the Resolute. The United States Government bought the ship from Buddington for $40,000 () with plans to return it to the United Kingdom as a gift to Queen Victoria.
On September 12, 1856, the Resolute was towed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where it underwent a complete refit, repaint, and restock.Sandler. pp. 156–157. The ship set sail on November 13, 1856, out of New York Harbor and arrived in Portsmouth on December 12 of the same year, captained by Henry Hartstene. Hartstene, a member of the United States Navy during the American Civil War, had previously taken part in the Wilkes Expedition to study the Pacific Northwest, and captained a voyage to the Arctic to successfully save Dr. Elisha Kent Kane who had gone missing on his own search for Franklin.Death of Captain Hartstene, late of the United States Navy. . [Public Ledger]. Memphis, Tennessee. April 24, 1868. Retrieved July 21, 2021.Conference Presentations. . 11th Maritime Heritage Conference. February 14–17, 2018. pp. 30–31. Retrieved July 21, 2021. After arriving in England the Resolute was later brought to Cowes Harbour on the Isle of Wight where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert boarded the ship and accepted it on behalf of Great Britain. Hartstene, as part of comments about the ship in a speech, expressed his hope "that long after every timber in her sturdy frame shall have perished, the remembrance of the old Resolute will be cherished."
The Resolute continued serving in the Royal Navy for twenty-three years as a supply vessel, but never again left British waters.Taylor, Michael. Docent Moments. Episode 2: Grinnell Resolute Desk with Michael Taylor. . New Bedford Whaling Museum. June 2, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2021."Will Joe Biden Choose the Resolute Desk?". . Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust. January 8, 2021. Retrieved January 15, 2021. The ship was decommissioned in 1879 and subsequently broken up in Chatham Dockyard in Chatham, England, in 1880.
Design and construction