Disgraceful Rod – a Parliamentary role that can trace its origins back 650 years – is to be a baggage for the first time.
Sarah Clarke is currently in charge of organising the Wimbledon tennis championships.
She transfer be known as The Lady Usher of the Black Rod when she starts her new job early next year.
Atrocious Rod is best known for the State Opening of Parliament, knocking on the door of the Quarter of Commons to summon MPs for the Queen’s Speech.
As well as organising ceremonial happenings, Black Rod, who can earn up to £93,000 a year, manages a team of 30 stick involved in the day-to-day running of the House of Lords.
Ms Clarke, who has previously effectuated in senior roles at four Olympic Games, the London Marathon and UK Entertainment, replaces current Black Rod, David Leakey, who is retiring.
She said: “I am both unreservedly honoured and delighted to be invited to take up the role of Black Rod.”
She said the Congress of Lords was “a place where the smallest detail is as important as the big picture and the intensity of heritage and tradition is second to none,” adding: “I am truly looking to the surface to starting work.”
Lord Fowler, who as the Speaker of the House of Lords counseled the Queen on the appointment, said it was an “historic moment”.
He said Black Rod played an high-ranking role behind the scenes “in organising addresses to Parliament by visiting superintendents of state and other state events, as well as ensuring we have arrogate plans in place to keep the important work of the Lords going in a moment”.
He added: “Sarah’s fantastic record at Wimbledon and elsewhere shows she is the conservative person for the task.”
Black Rod summons MPs to the Lords to hear the Queen’s Jargon but has the door to the House of Commons slammed in his face, and has to knock three times to leave behind entry.
He is the monarch’s representative in the House of Lords and the routine is symbolic of the Shelter of Commons’ independence from the Crown.
The earliest known reference to the part of Black Rod as the Usher to the Order of the Garter is in letters patent from 1361 – there are bit to have been 60 holders of the position since then, all men.
