The 1st Buckingham Palace Guide Company was formed in 1937 when Princess Elizabeth enrolled as a Girl Guide. The pack included some 20 Guides and fourteen Brownies: children of Royal Household members and Palace employees. They made a summerhouse in the garden their headquarters but, with the outbreak of the Second World War, the Company was closed down.
Dress codes at Buckingham Palace have changed greatly over two centuries. In 1924 Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald was the first man to be received by a monarch inside Buckingham Palace wearing a lounge suit, but, this was a one-off. Evening court dress remained obligatory until the Second World War. Today there is no official dress code. Most men invited to Buckingham Palace in the daytime choose to wear service uniform or lounge suits.
Visiting heads of state occupy a suite of rooms at the Palace known as the Belgian suite, on the ground floor of the North-facing garden front. These rooms were first decorated for Prince Albert's uncle Léopold I, first King of the Belgians. King Edward VIII also lived in these rooms during his short reign.
Buckingham Palace is not the private property of the Queen as an individual, to dispose of as she wishes. Like Windsor Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Buckingham Palace is held by The Queen as Sovereign.
John Nash, the architect responsible for remodelling many of today's Buckingham Palace interiors, also built the Royal Mews, All Soul's Church Langham Place, Regent Street and Carlton House Terrace, and redesigned the Haymarket Theatre.
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