X-Nico

12 unusual facts about HM Treasury


Civil List and Secret Service Money Act 1782

The power over the expenditure in the King's household was transferred to the Treasury, and branches of which were regulated.

Corps of Canadian Voyageurs

The corps was disbanded in March 1813, and its mission was taken over by the Canadian branch of the British Commissariat Department, a department of HM Treasury, as the Provincial Commissariat Voyageurs.

Dorothy Wainwright

When Sir Humphrey and Sir Frank Gordon, the head of the Treasury, tried to trick the cabinet into approving a massive pay rise for the civil service, they submitted a massive report of several hundred pages in order to support their claim — and which the ministers were hardly likely to read through thoroughly.

Eric Stenbock

He died during a drunken argument with his stepfather, Sir Francis Mowatt, then Permanent Secretary of the Treasury.

Harrier Jump Jet

There was no financial support for the development from HM Treasury, but aid was found through the Mutual Weapon Development Project (MWDP) of NATO.

Horse Guards Road

To the west of the road is St. James's Park and to the east are various government buildings, including the Horse Guards building, the Old Admiralty Buildings, the Cabinet Office, Downing Street (the entrance to which is blocked by an iron gate), the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and HM Treasury.

Isle of Man Purchase Act 1765

The Act gave effect to an earlier contract between Charlotte Murray, Duchess of Atholl, and the Government of the Kingdom of Great Britain, represented by HM Treasury, to sell the Atholls' feudal rights over the Island to Great Britain for a sum of £70,000.

Jack Downie

In 1947 he joined the civil service, working first in the economic section of the cabinet office, and then at HM Treasury.

Royal Chapel of All Saints

The Treasury was informed of the chapel's construction by Wyattville two weeks after it was inaugurated.

Sir Thomas Prendergast, 1st Baronet

He was rewarded with a grant from the Treasury and the Gort estate in County Galway, which was forfeited by the O'Shaughnessy family.

Sir Wilfrid Lawson, 2nd Baronet, of Isell

In April 1705 Lawson’s widow petitioned the crown against this final bequest and in August the Treasury, following a report from the attorney-general that ‘the codicil containing the bequest is so worded that it carries a presumption with it that the testator was not in his senses when he dictated it’, awarded the £600 to Lawson’s widow.

When Eight Bells Toll

British Treasury secret agent Phillip Calvert is sent to investigate, and narrates the story for the reader.


Anthony Finkelstein

He is a grandson of Alfred Wiener, founder of the Wiener Library and a brother of the peer Daniel Finkelstein OBE, Executive Editor of The Times and of Tamara Finkelstein, Director of Public Services at HM Treasury.

Balfour Note

Balfour claimed that the British government had reluctantly decided that the loans that those countries had received from HM Treasury should be paid back and that reparations from Germany should be collected due to the need for Britain to pay its creditors, the United States.

Edward Ponsonby, 8th Earl of Bessborough

He qualified as a barrister in 1879 and was secretary to Lord Robert Grosvenor (a younger son of Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster) at HM Treasury from 1880–84 and to Arthur Peel, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1884-95.

Ian Pearson

In Gordon Brown's next reshuffle of 3 October 2008, Pearson was moved to the Treasury as Economic Secretary, also becoming Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Economics and Business.

Parliament Square

Buildings looking upon the square include the churches Westminster Abbey and St Margaret's, Westminster, the Middlesex Guildhall which is the seat of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Government Offices Great George Street serving HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs, and Portcullis House.

Phillip Oppenheim

As a Treasury minister, he toughened restrictions on imports of endangered species and introduced tax breaks on less-polluting fuels including LPG.

Rory Cellan-Jones

He is married to the Vice Chairman of the BBC Trust Diane Coyle, a former adviser to HM Treasury and author of the book Sex, Drugs and Economics.