Mr. Foss, in his Lives of the Judges, tells us that the Court of Exchequer was anciently sometimes called Curia Regis ad Scaccarium; and its name was derived from the table at which it sat, which was “a four-cornered board, about ten feet long and five feet broad, fitted in manner of a table to sit about, on every side whereof is a standing ledge or border, four fingers broad. Upon this board is laid a cloth bought in Easter Term, which is of black colour, rowed with strokes, distant about a foot or span, like a chess-board. On the spaces of this Scaccarium, or chequered cloth, counters were ranged, with denoting marks, for checking the computations.”
In the old Court of Exchequer, at Westminster, before the coronation of King George IV., might be seen the chequered cloth which covered the table of that Court. This table, at which sat the officers of the Court, and the king’s counsel, was ten or twelve feet square, and was covered with a woollen cloth, the groundwork of which was white, with a very dark blue chequered pattern over it; the dark stripes being about three inches wide, leaving between them white squares of about four inches across.
Again, the cover on the table of the Exchequer Court in Dublin is composed of a thick woollen substance made in squares of black and white, resembling a chess-board.
The origin of the word Scaccarium (whence Exchequer) is not certain. Madox, the historical authority upon the subject, considers the most likely derivation to be from Scaccus, or Scaccum, a chess-board, or the ludus Scaccarium, the game of chess. He then refers to the chequered cloth mentioned by Foss; adding, “from the Latin Scaccarium cometh the French Eschequier, or Exchequier, (Exchiquer,) and the English name from the French.”
Mr. G. A. Sala, in a communication to Notes and Queries, 3rd S. No. 81, however, traces exchequer to the Italian Zecca, treasury or mint; whence, also, he derives the word cheque; remembering that in old time our goldsmiths were Lombards and Venetians.
However this may be, the forms by which accounts were kept in the Exchequer, and receipts given for moneys paid by “the King’s debtors” in those days, when few persons knew how to write and cipher, and “double entry” was unknown, were strictly observed down to a period scarcely thirty years ago. The rude wooden “tallies” that were prepared as quittances for payment, and stowed away in the Exchequer as entries of receipt, were still maintained in their sham employment until finally abolished by an Act passed in 1834. The officials who superintended, or were supposed to superintend, the operation of cutting, delivering, and keeping the tallies were paid by fees on all receipts; and as the national revenue augmented their incomes became enormous. A “Tallier,” or, as the name became latterly, “Teller,” of the Exchequer enjoyed at last an income from his sinecure office of more than 30,000l. per annum.
The Tally was a slip of willow-wood, cut to a length proportioned to the magnitude of the pecuniary transaction it was intended to record. Its indications were rendered by notches, which signified various sums, according to their size and shape.[13]
When fabricated the instrument indicated this meaning. A large notch of an inch and a half in width signified 1000l.; a smaller notch, one inch in width, signified 100l.; one of half-an-inch signified 20l.; a notch in the wood slanting to the right signified 10l. (in combination this notch was placed before the 20l. notch); small notches signified 1l. each; a cut sloping to the right signified 10s. (in combination placed before the 1l. marks); slight indentations, or jags, in the wood signified shillings; strokes with ink on tally signified pence; a round hole, or dot, signified a halfpenny; a farthing was written in figures.
When split in two lengthwise across the notches, each section of the tally, of course, corresponded exactly. One half was then delivered to the party paying money, as a receipt, and the other kept by the officers of the department, as a check or record of the transaction. On neither side was the slightest value attached to the tally; but down to 1834 no payment could be made into the Exchequer without summoning the officers of the Tally, who gravely notched and split the willow wand, and handed over the Exchequer half to be placed in careful custody. The absurdity came to an end in that year; but by way of farewell ceremony, is reported to have burnt down the Parliament Houses; certain furnace flues having become overheated by burning a lumbering mass of Exchequer tallies. Nor was the tally the only idle formality observed when payments were made into the Exchequer. Centuries ago the Royal moneys were actually received and kept in that department; but for a long while past the actual cash has been lodged in the Bank of England, where it is more safely guarded, and more conveniently administered. Nevertheless, every sum received on Exchequer account was still nominally brought to the Exchequer Office; and for that purpose a Bank clerk regularly attended every day with a bundle of cancelled notes, which were solemnly counted over and checked, and deposited as a precious trust in a massive iron chest secured with three keys, each in the custody of different officers.