Paymaster of the Forces

The Paymaster of the Forces was a position in the British government. The office was established in 1661, one year after the Restoration of the Monarchy to Charles II of England, and was responsible for part of the financing of the British Army, in the improved form created by Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth. The full title was Paymaster-General of His Majesty's Forces. It was abolished in 1836, near the end of the reign of William IV, and was replaced by the new post of Paymaster General.

The first to hold the office was Sir Stephen Fox (1627–1716), an exceptionally able administrator who had remained a member of the household of King Charles II during his exile in France. Before his time, and before the Civil War, there was no standing army and it had been the custom to appoint treasurers-at-war, ad hoc, for campaigns. Within a generation of the Restoration, the status of the paymastership began to change. In 1692 the then paymaster, Richard Jones, 1st Earl of Ranelagh, was made a member of the Privy Council; and thereafter every paymaster, or when there were two paymasters at least one of them, joined the Privy Council if not already a member. From the accession of Queen Anne the paymaster tended to change with the government. By the 18th century the office had become a political prize and potentially the most lucrative that a parliamentary career could obtain. Appointments to the office were therefore made often not due to merit alone, but also to political affiliation. It was occasionally a cabinet-level post in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and many future prime ministers served as paymaster.^[1]

Before the development of the banking system, the duty of the paymaster was to act as the personal sole domestic banker of the army. He received, mainly from the Exchequer, the sums voted by Parliament for military expenditure. Other sums were also received, for example from the sale of old stores. He disbursed these sums, by his own hands or by deputy paymasters, under the authority of sign-manual warrants for ordinary expenses of the army, and under Treasury warrants for extraordinary expenses (expenses unforeseen and unprovided for by Parliament).^[1]

During the whole time in which public money was in his hands, from the day of receipt until the receipt of his final discharge (the quietus of the Pipe Office), he assumed unlimited personal liability for the funds, thus his private estate was liable for the money in his hands. Failing the quietus this liability remained without limit of time, passing on his death to his heirs and legal representatives.

Appointments were made by the Crown by letters patent under the Great Seal. The patent salary was £400 from 1661 to 1680 and 20 shillings a day thereafter, except for the years 1702–07 when it was fixed at 10 shillings a day.^[3]

The office of Paymaster of the Forces was abolished in 1836 and superseded with the formation of the post of Paymaster General.

Portrait		Name(s)	Term of office		Government	Monarch (Reign)
		Sir Stephen Fox[note 1]	18 March 1661[3]	9 February 1676[3]	Clarendon Cabal Danby I	Charles II (1660–1685)
		Sir Henry Puckering, Bt	9 February 1676[3]	23 May 1679[3]	//
		Sir Stephen Fox	23 May 1679[3]	3 January 1680[3]	The Chits
		Nicholas Johnson[note 2] and (?) William Fox (died 1680 aged 20)[4][note 3]	3 January 1680[3]	20 April 1682[3] (†Johnson) 28 April 1682[3]
		Charles Fox[note 4]	28 April 1682[3]	26 December 1685[3]
		The Earl of Ranelagh	26 December 1685[3]	22 December 1702[3]		James II (1685–1688)
					Carmarthen–Halifax Carmarthen Whig Junto I Pembroke	William III and Mary II (1689–1694) William III (1694–1702)
					Godolphin–Marlborough	Anne (1702–1714)
		John Grubham Howe (Home troops only) with Charles Fox (1702–05) Hon. James Brydges (1705–13) Thomas Moore (1713–14) (Overseas troops)	22 December 1702[3]	3 October 1714[3]
					Oxford–Bolingbroke
		Sir Robert Walpole	3 October 1714[3]	17 October 1715[3]	Townshend Stanhope–Sunderland I Stanhope–Sunderland II	George I (1714–1727)
		The Earl of Lincoln	17 October 1715[3]	11 June 1720[3]
		Sir Robert Walpole	11 June 1720[3]	19 April 1721[3]
		The Lord Cornwallis	19 April 1721[3]	20 January 1722[3]	Walpole–Townshend
		Hon. Spencer Compton (Lord Wilmington from 1728)	15 March 1722[3]	15 May 1730[3]
						George II (1727–1760)
		Hon. Henry Pelham	15 May 1730[3]	24 December 1743[3]	Walpole Carteret
		Thomas Winnington	24 December 1743[3]	23 April 1746†	Broad Bottom
		William Pitt the Elder	7 May 1746[3]	16 December 1755[3]
					Newcastle I
	Dupplin	The Earl of Darlington and The Viscount Dupplin	16 December 1755[3]	8 December 1756[3]
		The Viscount Dupplin and Thomas Potter	8 December 1756[3]	15 July 1757[3]	Pitt–Devonshire 1757 Caretaker
		The Lord Holland	15 July 1757[3]	12 June 1765[3]	Pitt–Newcastle
						George III (1760–1820) [note 5]
					Bute Grenville
		Hon. Charles Townshend	12 June 1765[3]	21 August 1766[3]	// Rockingham I Chatham
	North	Lord North and George Cooke	21 August 1766[3]	9 December 1767[3]	//
	Townshend	George Cooke and Thomas Townshend	9 December 1767[3]	5 June 1768[3] (†Cooke) 17 June 1768[3]
		Richard Rigby	17 June 1768[3]	10 April 1782[3]	// Grafton North
		Edmund Burke	10 April 1782[3]	1 August 1782[3]	Rockingham II
		Isaac Barré	1 August 1782[3]	16 April 1783[3]	Shelburne
		Edmund Burke	16 April 1783[3]	8 January 1784[3]	Fox–North Pitt the Younger I
		William Wyndham Grenville	8 January 1784[3]	7 April 1784[3]	//
	Mulgrave	William Wyndham Grenville and The Lord Mulgrave	7 April 1784[3]	2 September 1789[3]
		The Lord Mulgrave and The Duke of Montrose	2 September 1789[3]	7 March 1791[3]
		Hon. Dudley Ryder and Thomas Steele	7 March 1791[3]	5 July 1800[3]
		Thomas Steele and George Canning	5 July 1800[3]	26 March 1801[3]
		Thomas Steele and The Lord Glenbervie	26 March 1801[3]	3 January 1803[3]	Addington
		Thomas Steele and John Hiley Addington	3 January 1803[3]	7 July 1804[3]
		George Rose and Lord Charles Somerset	7 July 1804[3]	17 February 1806[3]	Pitt the Younger II
		The Earl Temple and Lord John Townshend	17 February 1806[3]	4 April 1807[3]	All the Talents
		Charles Long and Lord Charles Somerset	4 April 1807[3]	26 November 1813[3]	Portland II Perceval Liverpool
		Charles Long and Hon. F. J. Robinson	26 November 1813[3]	9 August 1817[3]	//
		Charles Long (Lord Farnborough from 1826)	9 August 1817[3] (continued)	14 July 1826[3]
						George IV (1820–1830)
		William Vesey Fitzgerald	14 July 1826[3]	10 July 1828[3]	// Canningite Govt. Canning · Goderich Wellington–Peel
		John Calcraft	10 July 1828[3]	30 December 1830[3]	//
		Lord John Russell	30 December 1830[3]	30 December 1834[3]	Whig Govt. Grey · Melbourne I	William IV (1830–1837)
		Sir Edward Knatchbull, Bt	30 December 1834[3]	28 April 1835[3]	Peel I
		Sir Henry Parnell, Bt	28 April 1835[3]	1 December 1836[3]	Melbourne II

Office merged into that of Paymaster General, 1836.

From 1702 to 1714, during the War of the Spanish Succession, there was a distinct Paymaster of the Forces Abroad, appointed in the same manner as the Paymaster.^[3] These were appointed to a special office to oversee the pay of Queen Anne's army in the Low Countries, and are not in the regular succession of Paymasters of the Forces.^[5] The salary of the position was 10 shillings a day.^[3] Colonel Thomas Moore was paymaster of the land forces in Minorca and in the garrisons of Dunkirk and Gibraltar and is not always counted among the Paymasters of the Forces Abroad.

• Charles Fox (23 December 1702^[3] – 10 May 1705^[3])
• The Hon. James Brydges (10 May 1705^[3] – 4 September 1713^[3])
• Col. Thomas Moore (4 September 1713^[3] – 3 October 1714^[3])

• Master-General of the Ordnance
• British Army
• Paymaster General

Notes

References