Catalogue description Records of the Finance Departments

The Finance Department was created in 1867 by the amalgamation of two branches of the Marine Department. The Accounts Branch had been formed to examine accounts, receipts and payments for all the other departments of the board, to carry out establishment duties and to prepare accounts for the Audit Office and estimates for the House of Commons. The Pensions Branch was set up in 1851, when the Merchant Seamen's Fund was wound up, to administer business relating to deceased merchant seamen's pensions, wages and effects, and the seamen's savings bank.

Both branches were administered by the Accountant of the board and together they virtually formed a separate department. The new Finance Department, although mainly concerned with the internal financial affairs of the board, retained duties relating to seamen's pensions and exercised control over the general lighthouse authorities and over light dues until all responsibilities relating to shipping were transferred to the Ministry of Shipping in October 1939.

In 1874 the department took over from the Railway Department functions relating to life insurance companies and in 1901 from the same department those relating to charters, art unions, industrial exhibitions, the Companies Acts, patents, designs and trademarks, merchandise marks and newspaper registrations and libels. In 1901 its name changed to the Finance and General Department. In 1904 the new Companies Department took over responsibility for charters, companies and newspapers registrations and libels, in 1908 that for art unions and in 1910 that for life insurance companies.

In 1908 supervision of patents, designs and trademarks and responsibility for industrial exhibition and merchandise marks passed to the Commercial Department. The Finance and General Department (commonly just Finance Department) now had general supervision over the expenditure and financial policy of the board, estimates, and the accounts of bankrupts' estates and of liquidated companies.

During the First World War a controller of trading accounts was established in the Finance and General Department to administer the various trading services under the board's control during the war and those transferred to it after the war for the purpose of liquidation.

In 1939 the Trading With the Enemy Branch was set up, partly under the control of the Department. This became a department in its own right in 1942, though residual responsibilities returned to the Finance Department following the abolition of the Administration of Enemy Property Division in 1957.

During the Second World War accountancy work in connection with wartime controls was transferred to the Industrial and Manufacturers division.

From 1952 there was a separate Accountants Division, later known as the Accountancy Services Division, which provided an advisory service on behalf of the board and other government departments. In 1957 the remaining work of the Administration of Enemy Property Department was transferred to the Finance Division, in which an Enemy Property Branch was set up. By 1970 the Branch had ceased to exist and its residual work passed to the Finance and Economic Appraisal Division of the Department of Trade and Industry.