When Downing Street was remodelled in 1846, the houses at 10, 11 and 12 were joined together as a single overall building, No. 12 continuing to accommodate the Colonial Office. After that moved out in 1879, the house at 12 Downing Street was for many decades used as the office of the Chief Whip of the Government, and also for parliamentary dinners. Herbert Gladstone, the son of then-Chancellor of the Exchequer William Ewart Gladstone, was born at 12 Downing Street in 1854. Herbert later became Home Secretary and the first Governor-General of the Union of South Africa.