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 HMS Resolute. The 1,300-pound (590-kilogram) desk was
created by William Evenden, a skilled joiner at Chatham Dockyard in Kent,
probably from a design by Morant, Boyd, & Blanford.
HMS Resolute was abandoned in the Arctic waterway Tariyunnuaq in 1854 while
searching for Sir John Franklin and his lost expedition.