Treasury: Accounts of Commissariat (later Treasury) Chest Fund

T 39

1838-1959

Accounts of Commissariat (later Treasury) Chest Fund, accounts of foreign and colonial stations, 1846 to 1876. Also miscellaneous accounts, 1838 to 1872; ledgers, 1843 to 1878 and 1930 to 1959.

• Aleppo see Ionian Islands
• Alexandria see Ionian Islands
• Alicante see Ionian Islands
• Ashantee see Gambia
• Australia, North see Fort Carry
• Barcelona see Ionian Islands
• Beyrout see Ionian Islands
• Brindisi see Ionian Islands
• British Columbia see F
• Cape de Verde see Gambia
• China see Hong Kong
• Chobham Common see Fort Garry
• Egypt see Ionian Islands
• Greece see Fort Garry
• Greece see Turkey
• Heligoland see Fort Garry
• Japan see Hong Kong
• Lagos see Fort Garry
• Madeira see Gambia
• Smyrna see Ionian Islands
• Turin see Fort Garry
• Valencia see Ionian Islands
• Victoria see New South Wales

Public Record(s)

English

173 volume(s)

Subject to 30 year closure

The Commissariat Department

first acquired a permanent organisation under the War Office in 1793. When the office of commissary general, responsible for the victualling of the Army, was abolished in 1816, the department was brought under the direct control of the Treasury, the senior officer being the principal. In 1820 the duties of the storekeeper general were taken over and the principal became principal clerk and agent for commissariat supplies. However, further changes in 1822 transferred the Stores Branch of the Commissariat, with its warehouses and staff at home and abroad, to the Board of Ordnance. The Commissariat then became a purely financial department, save that it continued to make contracts for the supply of bread, meat and forage for troops in England and of coals and candles for barracks in England.

In 1834 the provision of food, fuel and forage in England was transferred to the Board of Ordnance, and in 1836 several other expenses which had been dealt with formerly as extraordinaries by the Commissariat were transferred to the ordinary estimates of the secretary at war. The department was brought even more closely under Treasury control and still further reduced remaining thus until 22 December 1854 when it was transferred to the War Department.

At the same time the Treasury Chest

Fund was instituted to continue some of the functions previously performed by the Commissariat Chest Fund, its main duty being to supply funds for the public service abroad of places where troops were stationed.