East India Company and India Office: records of the administration of service and...

The Family Pension Funds are a useful source of biographical information since they generally give subscribers' dates of birth, marriage and death, and similar data for wives and children. Family information is not generally available before the mid-nineteenth century. Number IOR/L/AG/23/1 was not used

For payment books of Fund pensions, see the series IOR/L/AG/21.

Unrestricted

Each one of the civil and military family pension funds which began during the period of the East India Company was started as a private venture administered by committees recruited from the subscribers themselves. There was liaison between the Secretary and Committee in India who dealt mainly with the interests of subscribers in active service, and the corresponding body in London, who were responsible for the bulk of the retired subscribers and the widows and orphans. Membership was compulsory for all servants whose appointments came within the rules of the Fund. The assets of the Funds were deposited with the Company, who allowed preferential rates of interest and other advantages. Independent actuarial investigations were made from time to time as to the state of each Fund, the rates of subscription or pension being adjusted in the light of the report. All the military, medical and navy funds were closed to new subscribers between 1861 and 1870 the balances being handed over to the Government of India in exchange for a promise to subscribers and pensioners that the current rates of pension and the regulations in force at the date of closure would be continued. The Bengal, Madras and Bombay Civil Funds, to which all members of the covenanted civil services were required to subscribe did not close until 1880, when the same promise was given. All subscribers to the Company's funds are now dead, but a few pensioners still remain. The Company also instituted two Funds, the Regular Widows' Fund and the Elders' (formerly extra) Widows' Fund, both for the benefit of the home staff. The former made provision for the senior and established clerical grades, and the latter for the extra clerks, writers, messengers and warehouse staff. They were both closed to new entrants about 1860. There was a break between 1862 and 1873, during which period there were no funds available to newly appointed military, medical or ecclesiastical officers. In the latter year the Indian Military Service Family Service Family Pension Fund was formed, compulsory for those apointed from 1 April 1873 and optional for those already in the service and not already members of one of the older Funds. Officers of the Royal Indian Marine were required to subscribe from 1893. That Fund was closed to new entrants at the end of 1914 and replaced by the Indian Military Widows' and Orphans' Fund. The India Office Provident Fund was instituted in 1877 to take the place of the Regular and Elder Widows' Funds, but it had a short active life only and was closed to new entrants in 1882. The Indian Civil Service Family Pension Fund was started in 1881 to replace the three old Civil Funds. The Superior Services (India) Family Pension Fund was formed in 1927 to provide pensions for non-Indian members of the senior civil services in India other than the Indian Civil Service. All funds both civil and military were virtually closed to new entrants by 1943, and closed completely in 1947. The Funds which started after 1873 were administered solely by the Secretary of State, although subscribers and pensioners were consulted about proposed changes in the rules. The contributions collected were taken direct into Indian Revenues, and pensions were changed directly on those Revenues. Pro-forma accounts and data were kept, on which regular actuarial investigations were made, the rates of contributions and pensions being adjusted as necessary. But some dissatisfaction being expressed after 1920 about the possibility of loss to the Funds in the event of attainment of independence in India, an arrangement was made in 1937 under which every subscriber and pensioner of each of the four current Funds elected either to remain under the existing conditions, or to have his or her share of the capital assets transferred to Commissioners in England for investment in sterling securities. On the basis of the elections, each Fund was divided actuarially into a Transferred and Untransferred Section, the Government of India paying over to Commissioners the capital amount of the Transferred Section. Pensions, both existing and contingent, of the Untransferred Sections of those Funds, and all pensions of the older Funds, became the responsibility of the United Kingdom Government from 1 April 1955 under the Pensions (India, Pakistan and Burma) Act, 1955. Although the few remaining pensioners of the Company's Funds are expected to have ceased to draw pension within the next few years, pensions from the four modern Funds are expected to continue in payment up to the middle of next century. Most of the main records are being added to almost daily, and cannot be transferred to the India Office Records until a long time in the future. As much of the information contained in the records of all Funds has been compiled from information given by subscribers on a confidential basis it may be necessary not to make certain volumes available to the public and to decline to supply information taken therefrom in certain cases. Where possible, however, certified extracts and information from those records can be furnished to an enquirer. There are two classes of pension funds referred to in these lists which, although not entirely family pension funds, contain a considerable element thereof. They are the Poplar Fund [see L/AG/21/7 and L/AG/18/2] and the Lord Clive Fund [L/AG/23/2]. The Family Pension Funds are currently administered by the Indian Pensions Section of the Department for International Development. Some of these records may be regarded as ''to date'' since Funds pensions will be drawn for some years to come.