Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Author’s notes
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Tables and Maps
- Maps
- 1 Introduction: Historiography and Early History of Victualling
- 2 The Core Tasks: Obtaining and Distributing Bulk Supplies of Food, Drink and Victualling Stores
- 3 Delivery at Home: Issuing Victuals to Warships and Managing the Victualling Yards
- 4 Delivery Abroad for Warships, Army Garrisons and Military Expeditions
- 5 Non-Core and Ad Hoc Tasks
- 6 Head Office Staff
- 7 Yard Staff
- 8 Theft, Fraud and Other Misdemeanours
- 9 Parliamentary Inquiries
- 10 Parliamentary Inquiries
- Appendix A Substitute Provisions
- Appendix B An Account of the Expense of Victualling 110,000 Men 226 for Lunar Months
- Appendix C Victualling Commissioners: Biographic Details
- Appendix D Staff numbers at Somerset Place
- Appendix E Head Office Staff Salaries
- Appendix F Establishment of Officers and Clerks at the Victualling Yard at Deptford, as Proposed by the Board of Revision
- Appendix G Victualling Board Purchases of Cattle from Smithfield Market
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Non-Core and Ad Hoc Tasks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Author’s notes
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Tables and Maps
- Maps
- 1 Introduction: Historiography and Early History of Victualling
- 2 The Core Tasks: Obtaining and Distributing Bulk Supplies of Food, Drink and Victualling Stores
- 3 Delivery at Home: Issuing Victuals to Warships and Managing the Victualling Yards
- 4 Delivery Abroad for Warships, Army Garrisons and Military Expeditions
- 5 Non-Core and Ad Hoc Tasks
- 6 Head Office Staff
- 7 Yard Staff
- 8 Theft, Fraud and Other Misdemeanours
- 9 Parliamentary Inquiries
- 10 Parliamentary Inquiries
- Appendix A Substitute Provisions
- Appendix B An Account of the Expense of Victualling 110,000 Men 226 for Lunar Months
- Appendix C Victualling Commissioners: Biographic Details
- Appendix D Staff numbers at Somerset Place
- Appendix E Head Office Staff Salaries
- Appendix F Establishment of Officers and Clerks at the Victualling Yard at Deptford, as Proposed by the Board of Revision
- Appendix G Victualling Board Purchases of Cattle from Smithfield Market
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
IN ADDITION TO THE CORE TASKS of obtaining and dispensing food and drink to the Royal Navy and parts of the army, the Victualling Board had numerous other tasks to perform. Some of these were of a regular nature, such as accounting, reporting to other government departments, property management, and staff management; others were of an ad hoc nature, although they tended to fall into certain categories such as feeding various groups of people who did not belong to the Royal Navy or British army, investigating complaints from commissioned officers, and investigating, and sometimes incorporating, innovations in food preparation, storage and preservation. There were a few other ad hoc tasks which involved the Victualling Board in considerable extra work, often to little or no useful effect, such as dealing with the edible cargoes destined for enemy countries on neutral ships which were seized at the beginning of the French Revolutionary war.
Accountancy
This aspect of the Victualling Board’s work is dealt with here, as a ‘noncore’ task, because it is clear from copious evidence (including two of the Parliamentary reports) that the commissioners of the Victualling Board regarded it in that light and gave it a lower priority in their daily deliberations than the tasks of obtaining and delivering victuals and victualling stores to the fleet; this despite the fact that by far the greater part of the staff at Somerset Place was in the two accounting departments, with only a small secretariat to deal with everything else.
The commissioners may have taken their lead from the original Instructions to the Commissioners of the Victualling, most of which fall into three categories: accounting for stocks of provisions, detailing the paperwork required from pursers, and ensuring that all bills were paid in course. The penultimate instruction, almost an afterthought, requires an annual account to be made up and passed to the Admiralty by the end of the following March. The first three sets of these Instructions are much the same, but the fourth is in a different format and commences with a warning statement about the performance of the two previous boards.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The British Navy's Victualling Board, 1793-1815Management Competence and Incompetence, pp. 86 - 107Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010