History
The beginnings of the treasury of England is traced by some to an individual known as Henry the Treasurer a servant to the king of England, William the Conqueror. The surety of this beginning is based on a Domesday entry showing the individual Henry ("the treasurer") as a Winchester landowner, known to be the place where the royal treasure was stored. The Treasury of the United Kingdom traces its origins to the Treasury of the Kingdom of England, which had come into existence by 1126, in the reign of Henry I. The Treasury emerged out of the Royal Household, and served as the location where the king kept his treasures. The head of the Treasury was called the Lord Treasurer. Starting in Tudor times, the Lord Treasurer became one of the chief officers of state, and competed with the Lord Chancellor for the principal place. In 1667 Charles II of England was responsible for appointing George Downing, the builder of Downing Street, to radically reform the Treasury and the collection of taxes.
The treasury was first put to commission in May or June of 1660. The first commission were: the Duke of Albermarle, Lord Ashley, (Sir) W Coventry, (Sir) J Duncomb and (Sir) T Clifford. During the 17th century the Treasury was frequently entrusted to a commission, rather than to a single individual, and after 1714 it was always in commission. The commissioners were referred to as Lords of the Treasury and were given a number based on their seniority. Eventually, the First Lord of the Treasury came to be seen as the natural head of the government, and from Robert Walpole on began to be known, unofficially, as the prime minister. Before 1827, the First Lord of the Treasury, when a commoner, also held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, while if the First Lord was a peer, the Second Lord would usually serve as Chancellor. Since 1827, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has always been Second Lord of the Treasury.
During the time when the treasury was under commission the junior Lords were paid sixteen hundred pounds a year each.
Read more about this topic: HM Treasury
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)