REVIEWS

Journal of the Royal United Services Institution

Vol. 164, Issue 5-5, Winter 2019

‘These Meritorious Objects of the Royal Bounty’: The Chelsea Out-Pensioners in the Early Eighteenth Century

The lower ranks of the British Army during the reigns of George I and George II have left very few personal records of their service. One suspects that, even in subsequent reigns, their memoirs – of the Peninsular War and Waterloo, say – were often novelised, or ghosted for publication. The greater number passed through the ranks and onward into civilian life unnoticed or disregarded.

The quantity of manpower involved was considerable: over 75,000 under arms at the close of the War of Austrian Succession in 1748; more than 110,000 at the climax of the Seven Years’ War in 1762. A tiny minority qualified for the Chelsea Pension: provided either to ‘in-pensioners’ residing within the gates of a splendid new institution, the Royal Hospital Chelsea, or – most commonly as it turned out – in cash to veterans living as ‘out-pensioners’ in the community. The numbers involved are impressive. They form Andrew Edward Cormack’s database of 25,026 individuals recommended by their regiments to the Commissioners of the Royal Hospital and assessed personally by them, spanning the period from the commencement of the scheme in the 1680s to 1754–55, when a change in the administration of the out-pension provides a convenient break in the narrative.

Based on meticulous examination of documents at the Royal Hospital, the National Archives and other repositories in Great Britain, this book breaks entirely new ground in understanding the British common soldier, to which anyone interested in the history of the British Army in the early modern age must now refer. It is equally revelatory of the lives and condition of a significant cross-section of British working men. Disabling wounds sustained in combat, or the occasional signs of traumatic stress, are outweighed in the record by the casual accidents of physical exertion; hazardous work around animals or military transport; and routine exposure to wind, weather and general fatigue, which could result in a man becoming ‘worn out’, or ‘shattered’. A requirement of 20 years’ service (often longer in practice, for the regiments were reluctant to part with trained personnel) attests to the fact that soldiering, just like work in the civilian world, was a lifelong obligation, to the extent that even the granting of a pension – rising very slowly across the years from some six pounds, to a standard seven pounds, four shillings and sixpence net per annum at the end of the period under review – was insufficient to maintain a veteran in comfort, still less any of his dependents. The expectation was that he would keep working at some trade or avocation, with only the parish-based system of poor relief to fall back on in direst need. The granting of a pension was nevertheless a significant act of bounty – one reserved, it should be noted, not to a wounded or decrepit man for his own sake, but solely to the deserving soldier, as distinguished by an unblemished record of good conduct. For its time, the provision was ‘patronage light’: other than the requirement for a forwarding reference from the regiment’s officers, those who met the specification could receive the payment.

As well as a study of the common soldier and the vicissitudes of working-class life, Cormack’s book is a study of military administration as it evolved during the great wars of the period. The out-pension was nearly overwhelmed by a huge increase in the number of deserving cases. The armies of King Charles II and King James II were only a few thousand strong; the armies of King William III and Queen Anne totalled tens of thousands. Applicants multiplied in proportion. In ways typical of an 18th century organisation, private enterprise was deeply embedded, chiefly in the form of middlemen, ‘the dealers’, who advanced money and lines of credit to pensioners residing beyond Chelsea. By casting new light on the dealers and their affairs, Cormack makes visible for the first time a shadowy set of Georgian ‘fixers’, much akin to the civilian regimental agents who controlled key elements of British Army business in a time of small government. As might be expected, there were frauds and misappropriation on the margins of this lucrative undertaking: non-existent pensioners; overpayments to persons already provided for; and false affidavits claiming that deceased persons were still alive. The equivalent of ‘false musters’ in the active army of the day, this chicanery resembled modern-day ‘benefit fraud’, and which, without the help of an investigative bureaucracy, was hard to detect. As Cormack indicates, Chelsea staff detected some of the common frauds, but fortunately for all concerned, whether at the time or today’s readers, there was a role for what we would now call ‘whistleblowers’, notably the former dealer John Woodman, who in the early 1740s provided a detailed exposé of malpractices, as seen from the inside. His motives may be questionable, but his information was an embarrassment to the authorities.

During 1754–55, a key change was made in the organisation of the out-pension. The dealers were superseded, and the pensioners paid thereafter via Collectors of the Excise, who had government cash readily accessible in the regions. This alteration would have been of much cheer to the recipients; not so the dealers, whose established business was overturned. Outwardly the innovation was a sign of government’s growing capability to manage public money – there were parallel developments in the payment and administration of the army at this time – and it could reasonably be interpreted as a visible sign of the growth of the British ‘fiscal-military state’. But Cormack cautions the reader against adopting this thesis wholeheartedly, drawing attention to the shortcomings of the reform in practice. Cormack explains how, for example, at the commencement of the ‘reform’, local excise collectors were put in the position of making these financial arrangements as a virtual favour. Understandably, they reacted by levying fees of their own devising. It took a while for this situation to be regularised.

Among the merits of a discriminating work of history is that it prompts questions beyond its immediate scope. Cormack’s book does not disappoint. A standing army was often seen as a threat to the liberties of Englishmen. Soldiers as a group were feared and despised. At best they were a necessary evil, and to anticipate modern usage, ‘expendable’. Yet paradoxically, from the 1680s there was in place a nationwide system (however imperfect in execution) of relief for old and disabled soldiers – the ‘meritorious objects of the Royal Bounty’, as they were characterised in parliamentary debate. A military covenant in rudimentary form clearly existed. As Cormack proposes, the contrast between in-built prejudice and practical philanthropy may be attributed to an acknowledgement on the part of the Crown of service faithfully rendered; fear of the latent power of discontented soldiery; and, at the upper reaches of establishment culture, an imitation of the grand establishment at the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris.

But one can go beyond these conclusions by suggesting that a scheme of residential care and an award of an extra-mural payment to deserving ex-soldiers was attuned to the contemporary charitable impulses in favour of the tractable, virtuous and industrious poor, properly situated (under God) within a hierarchical social framework. Further widening the enquiry, it is plain that there were imperial benefits to be harvested from charitable foundations where religious, commercial and philanthropic endeavour meshed with such geopolitical initiatives as the peopling of the military frontiers in Georgia and Nova Scotia with disbanded soldiers and sailors.

For the military reader of today, the prime interest of this insightful study must be that it gives historical continuity to the notion that society owes a tangible debt of gratitude to fighting men (and women) who have served it well. The importance of the book to historians of the early modern British Army has already been noted, as well as the revelations it makes about the harsh existence of labouring men. Cormack’s work stands complete and alone in this (double) regard. But to this reviewer’s mind, it is also tentatively suggestive of connections to the wider topics of state-directed social care to the ‘deserving poor’ and, to stretch a point, links between the buoyant charity sector of Georgian England and imperial expansion by force of arms. Cormack’s book can be confidently recommended to anyone interested in these topics.

Dr Alan J. Guy was Director of the National Army Museum, London, 2003–10. 

Arquebusier - The Journal of the Pike and Shot Society

Vol. XXXVI Issue 3 Spring 2019

This work, privately published by the Author ... is a veritable Tour de Force.  Hitherto, the study of the veterans of the British Army, as with so many "non-battle' subjects has been sparsely covered and the Out-pensioners themselves have been totally ignored by historians, which makes this study all the more welcome.

Cormack's book draws heavily on manuscript sources and is thoroughly footnoted with both sources and additional information.  Throughout the text is truly fascinating and full of marvellous detail of how the Army responded to and looked after its veterans - some of forty years service ...

I would wholeheartedly and unreservedly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the British Army, especially if they focus on the Wars of the Spanish Succession and of the Austrian Succession.

Stephen Ede-Borrett
Chairman
The Pike and Shot Society

The Irish Sword - Journal of the Military History Society of Ireland

No. 126 Winter 2018

Dr Cormack has been a pioneer in explaining how the Out-Pension system worked.  … this volume illuminates aspects of eighteenth-century public administration and banking that were hitherto very obscure.  … institutions that aspire to maintain an eighteenth-century research collection … should be encouraged to acquire the book, at its very reasonable price … 

Dr Kenneth Ferguson
Hon. Editor, The Irish Sword

The Annual General Meeting of the Society for Army Historical Research

Spring 2018
 

At the Annual General Meeting of the Society for Army Historical Research on 24th April 2018 These Meritorious Objects of the Royal Bounty was placed joint 2nd in the Templer Medal Book Prize.  The winner of the Templer Medal was John Hussey for Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815.

The Society for Army Historical Research Templer Medal

Spring 2018
 

The Society for Army Historical Research Templer Medal for the best book on British Military History published in 2017 will be awarded at its Annual General Meeting on 24th April 2018.  'These Meritorious Objects of the Royal Bounty' The Chelsea Out-Pensioners in the Early Eighteenth Century has been short-listed among the titles for this prestigious competition.

Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 

No. 384, Winter 2017

His scrupulous and detailed treatment is supported by myriad tabulated statistics and appendices. It would be premature to suggest that this work is the definitive history of the Chelsea out-pension during this period, but it seems most unlikely that future historians will feel the need to rework Dr Cormack’s arguments and conclusions although amplifications and adjustments will always occur. His investigations also demonstrate that within the Royal Hospital files in the War Office Papers at the National Archives in Kew lies an unwritten social history of the Army ...

...the style is frequently elegant, the organisation clear, and the story well-told. It is a fine and valuable piece of sustained, historical research.
 

Professor John Childs
University of Leeds