Records of Victualling Departments

Records of the Victualling Board and its successors, which supplied the Navy with food, provisions and stores.

Victualling Board minutes are in ADM 111; correspondence of the Board and of the Comptroller of Victualling is in ADM 109, ADM 110 and ADM 134; accounts of the Board are in ADM 112; miscellaneous registers and records of the Board and the Comptroller are in ADM 113 and ADM 114. Estimates of victualling departments are in ADM 221. Records of the victualling yards at Portsmouth and Gosport, including the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard, are in ADM 224

Some records of the Victualling Board are held by the National Maritime Museum under Section 4(1) of the Public Records Act 1958.

• Board of Admiralty, Comptroller of Victualling, 1862-1869
• Board of Admiralty, Comptroller of Victualling and Transport Services, 1832-1862
• Board of Admiralty, Contract and Purchase Department, 1869-1964
• Board of Admiralty, Superintendent of Victualling, 1869-1964
• Navy Board, Victualling Board (Board of Victualling Commissioners), 1683-1832

Topics

Food and drink

Navy

Victualling, initially by contract, became the responsibility of the Surveyor of Victuals, a principal officer of the Navy Board in 1679. In 1683, he was replaced by a Board of Victualling Commissioners subordinate to the Navy Board. This Victualling Board took over certain functions, including medical services, from the Transport Board on its dissolution in 1817.

When the Victualling Board itself was abolished in the reforms of 1832, victualling became the responsibility of the Comptroller of Victualling and Transports, under the superintendence of the Fourth Sea Lord. In 1862 transport duties passed to a separate Transport Department and in 1869 the office of Comptroller of Victualling was abolished. His former duties were divided between the newly formed Contract and Purchase Department, under the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary, which became responsible for purchasing, and the Superintendent (later Director) of Victualling, who exercised the store-keeping functions.