Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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The Board of Ordnance was a British government body created in the 15th century. It was responsible for the design, testing and production of armaments and munitions for the British Army. It was also responsible for providing artillery trains for armies and maintaining coastal fortresses. It also produced maps for military purposes (one of its 18th century map-makers was noted water-colour artist Paul Sandby), a function later taken over by the Ordnance Survey. The board’s headquarters were in the Tower of London. Until c. 1830, the board was also responsible for naval munitions, including cannon, shot, muskets, and gunpowder.
The Board of Ordnance consisted of six principal officers:
In 1830, the principal officers were reduced to four by the abolition of the posts of Lieutenant-General and Clerk of the Deliveries.
The Treasurer of the Ordnance was also an important officer of the department, although he did not sit on the board. This office was consolidated with several others in 1836 to form that of Paymaster-General. A number of other inferior officers reported to the board, such as clerks, storekeepers, engineers, and master gunners.
The board was incorporated into the War Office in 1855 by an Act of Parliament (18 & 19 Vict. c. 117) as the Department of the Master-General of the Ordnance and was effectively abolished.
The Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers answered to the Board of Ordnance instead of the War Office until 1855. The Ordnance Medical Department was established to provide surgeons for these corps.
Almost fifty years later, after the Second Boer War, and unease that the British Army had been ill-equipped, a new office called the Ordnance Board was created. It consists of a board of munitions experts, whose purpose was to advise the Army Council on the safety and approval of weapons. The Ordnance Board, and its name, survived within the Ministry of Defence until the mid 1990s when it was renamed the Defence Ordnance Safety Group; long before then, the Ordnance Board had extended its scope to encompass more than just the safety and approval of the Army’s ordnance.
from L&M Companion
Established in its modern form under Henry VIII at about the same time as the Navy Board, it was responsible until 1855 for the manufacture and supply of munitions to both army and navy. It consisted of a Master (the equivalent of the Navy Tresurer) and a board of officers similar to the Principal Officers of the Navy and similarly charged with the duty of mutual supervision—the Lieutenant Surveyor, Clerk Storekeeper, Clerk of deliveries and (after 1670) Treasurer. In 1664-70 and 1679-82 their work was performed by commissioners. The offices and principal storehouses were in the Tower where many of the officers had official lodgings. By this time much of the ‘materiel’ was manufactured elsewhere than the Tower, in gunpowder facyories and gun foundaries.
In common with other departments in the late 17th century—such as the Treasury and Pepys’s Navy Office and Admiralty—the Ordnance was to a significent extent, though not completely, reformed under the pressure of increased business. It gew in size—from 9 clerks in 1660 to 38 in 1703, and from 175 technical officers in 1675 to around 450 under Anne—and at the same time improved efficiency. Pepys greatly admired its methods. The Commissioners of 1664-70 began a process whereby contractors were paid ‘in course’, salaries were substituted for fees and life-tenures were abolished. From 1667 the office assumed responsibility for all fortifications in the kingdom. The Instuctions of 1683 issued by Lord Dartmouth, the Master, codified new and old practices.