From 1483, the earliest date when we can trace one by name, down to the days of the Crimean war, when the last Master-General died in harness, the brave, gentle Lord Raglan, the list sparkles with the names of men who have been first in Court and field, and who have deserved well of England.
Their duties were by no means honorary in earlier times, although during the last fifty years of the Board's existence the chief work fell upon the permanent staff, and the visits of the Master-General were comparatively rare and ceremonious. If any one would learn what they had to do in the seventeenth century, let him go to the Tower, and examine the correspondence of Lord Dartmouth, the faithful friend and servant of Charles II., a professional Artilleryman and James II.'s skilled Master-General to the last. He created order out of chaos in the Department of the Ordnance, under Charles II., and so admirable were his arrangements, that on King William ascending the throne, he issued a warrant ratifying all previous orders, and leaving the details of the management of the Ordnance unaltered. In the autumn of 1688, Lord Dartmouth's office—never a sinecure—became laborious in the extreme. Daily and hourly requisitions reached him from the excited King and his Ministers, for the arming of the ships and the Regiments which were being raised in every direction. Authority was given to raise more gunners, as if experience could be created in a moment and the science of Artillery begotten in a man's mind, without previous study, for "twelve-pence by the day." To Chatham the Master-General hurries to superintend the fitting-out of the men-of-war, and next day, for the same purpose, to Sheerness, where he finds a despatch from the trembling Privy Council, ordering him to fill six merchant ships with fireworks to accompany the King's fleet, as fire-ships against the enemy. A terrible life did poor Lord Dartmouth lead at this time. Sometimes his letters are written from on board ship in the river, sometimes from his cabin in the 'Resolution,' at Portsmouth; very frequently from Windsor, where James anxiously kept him near his person, plying him now with questions and now with contradictory orders. Sometimes we find him writing at midnight, ordering his loving friends, the principal officers of the Ordnance, to meet him next day at the Cockpit, in Whitehall; at other times he swoops down unexpectedly on the bewildered officials in the Tower. In the old, quiet days, his correspondence was distinguished by an almost excessive courtesy; but now, in these days of fever and in the depth of his anxiety, it almost disappears; orders are issued like minute-guns; explanations of delay are fretfully demanded; and a bombardment is incessant of peremptory inquiries as to the state of His Majesty's ships and stores.
His Lieutenant-General, Sir Henry Tichborne, has a hard place of it at this time. With so energetic a Master at the Board, his work hitherto has been of the lightest, and his head seems now to reel under the change. For a few weeks he holds out, but by the end of November in that eventful year matters came to a crisis with poor Sir Henry. He can no longer attend the meetings of the Board; a violent fit of the gout prevents him, which he carefully warns his colleagues will, in all likelihood, continue some time: and with a piteous prayer that, out of the small sum in hand, the Board will pay the salaries of the "poor gunners, as subsisting but from day to day," Sir Henry's name disappears from the Board's proceedings, and the History of the Ordnance knows him no more.
After this time the Honourable Board seems, when its Master was absent, to have enacted the part of the Unjust Steward, for we find various debts remitted to creditors who could not pay, and not a small issue of debentures to those whose friendship it was desirable to retain. All through the records of their proceedings at this time is to be traced, like a monotonous accompaniment in music, the work of that immovable being the permanent clerk. From the dull offices in the Tower issue the same solemn Warrants, appointing this man an Ordnance labourer at six-and-twenty pounds a year, and that man a gunner at twelve-pence a day, just as if no Revolution were at hand, and no foreign foe were menacing the very existence of their King and Honourable Board together. Lord Dartmouth may be guilty of curt and feverish memoranda, but the permanent clerk never moves out of his groove, nor shall posterity ever trace any uneasiness in his formal work.
And then comes the sudden gap in all the books; the blank pages more eloquent than words; the disappearance of the familiar signature of Dartmouth; and the student takes up a fresh set of books where England took up a fresh King.
The duties of the Master-General, and the various members and servants of the Board of Ordnance, were first reduced to a systematic form in Charles II.'s reign, while Lord Dartmouth was in office. The Warrant defining these was confirmed by James II. on the 4th February, 1686; by William III., on the 8th March, 1689; by Queen Anne, on the 30th June, 1702; by George I., on the 30th July, 1715; and by George II., on the 17th June, 1727.
Although some alterations were made by George III., they were very slight, and rendered necessary by the occasional absence of the Master-General and by the creation of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich—the Cadets attending that institution being placed in a very special manner under the care and superintendence of the Master and Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance. The orders under which the Board worked up to the beginning of this century were, therefore, practically those instituted during Lord Dartmouth's term of office; and in examining them, one cannot fail to be struck with their exhaustive anticipation of every circumstance which might arise for consideration.
The Master of the Ordnance, as he was originally called—sometimes also termed the Captain-General of the Artillery—received, in 1604, the title of Master-General; and was considered one of the most important personages in the realm. Since the great Marlborough held the office, it has seldom been given to any one not already possessed of the highest military rank: but this was not always the case. Lord Dartmouth was plain Colonel Legge when first appointed, and the social, as well as military rank of his predecessors, was sometimes far from exalted. It became, therefore, necessary to attach to the office some relative military status: and accordingly we find a Warrant issued by James II., bearing date the 13th May, 1686, directing that the Master-General of the Ordnance should always have "the rank, as well as the respect, due to our youngest Lieutenant-General: and that our will and pleasure is, that he command in our Garrisons as formerly, but do not take upon him the charge or command as a Lieutenant-General in the field, without our especial commission or appointment." The command in the Garrisons referred to in the Warrant is in allusion to the Master-Gunners and Gunners of the various Garrisons, whose allegiance to the Board of Ordnance, as being, in fact, custodians of the Ordnance Stores, was always insisted on.
The relative rank awarded to the Master-General entitled him, when passing through any Camp or Garrison, to a guard of 1 officer, 1 sergeant, and 20 men; the guards were compelled to turn out to him and the drums to beat a march; and the officers and soldiers of the Regiments he passed had to turn out at the head of their respective camps. In the old pre-regimental days, when the Master-General took the field in time of war, in his official capacity, he was attended by a Chancellor, thirty gentlemen of the Ordnance, thirty harquebusiers on horseback, with eight halberdiers for his guard, two or three interpreters, a minister or preacher, a physician, a master-surgeon and his attendant, a trumpeter, kettledrums, and chariot with six white horses, two or three engineers, or more if required, and two or three refiners of gunpowder. These kettledrums do not seem to have been used in the field after 1748. They were used by the train of Artillery employed in Ireland in 1689, and the cost of the drums and their carriage on that occasion, was estimated at 158l. 9s. As the reader comes to compare the wages of the drummer and his coachman—4s. and 3s. per diem respectively—with the pay given to other by no means unimportant members of an Artillery train, he will realize what a prominent position these officials were supposed to hold. The drummer's suit of clothes cost 50l., while a gunner's was valued at 5l. 6s. 4d. Even the coachman could not be clad under 15l.—nearly three times the cost of a gunner's clothes.
Prior to the date of King Charles's Warrant, the pay of the Master-General had been very fluctuating, being considerably affected by fees, and even by sales of places in the department. By that Warrant, however, it was fixed at a certain sum, inclusive of all perquisites, and the amount would appear to have been 1500l. per annum. This remained unchanged until the formation of the Cadet Company, when the annual sum of 474l. 10s. was added to the Master-General's salary, in his capacity as Captain of the Company, and charged in the Regimental accounts of the Royal Artillery. Considerable strides in the direction of further augmentation were afterwards made, more especially in 1801, until we find Lord Chatham, in 1809, drawing no less than 3709l. per annum as Master-General of the Ordnance.