Sale of commissions
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The sale of commissions was a common practice through most of the history of the British Army where wealthy and noble officers purchased their rank.
The practice started in 1683 during the reign of Charles II and continued up until the 19th century when the Army reform act introduced by British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone abolished it.
Commissions could only be purchased in cavalry and infantry regiments (and therefore up to the rank of Colonel only). Commissions in the Royal Engineers and the Royal Artillery were awarded to those who graduated from a course at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and subsequent promotion went by seniority only. Such officers (and those of the Army of the British East India Company), were often looked down upon as being not quite "gentlemen", by officers who had purchased their commissions.
There were several key reasons behind the sale of commissions:
- It prevented the poor from becoming officers, thereby reinforcing the class system.
- It gave the officer class a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, thereby reducing the possibility of Army units taking part in a revolution or coup.
- It ensured that officers had private means and were unlikely to engage in looting or pillaging, or to cheat the soldiers under their command by engaging in profiteering using army supplies.
It was not unknown for officers who incurred or inherited debts, to sell their commission to raise funds. In theory, a commission could be sold only for its official value, and was to be offered first to the next most senior officer in the same regiment. In practice, desirable commissions in fashionable regiments were often sold to the highest bidder after an unseemly auction. A self-interested senior officer might well regard his commission as his pension fund, and would encourage the inflation of its value.
An officer convicted by a court martial of grave misconduct or incompetence might be sentenced to be deprived of his commission without its value being returned to him, or cashiered.
The worst potential effects of the system were mitigated during intensive conflicts such as the Napoleonic Wars by heavy casualties among senior ranks (which ensured that the vacant commissions were exchanged for their face value only), and the possibility of promotion to brevet army ranks for deserving officers. An officer might be a subaltern or Captain in his regiment, but might hold a higher local rank if attached to other units or allied armies, or might be given a higher Army rank by the Commander-in-Chief, or the Monarch, in recognition of meritorious service or a notable feat of bravery. Officers bearing despatches giving news of a victory (such as Waterloo), often received such promotion, and might be specially selected by a General in the field for this purpose.
The malpractices associated with the purchase of commissions reached their height in the long peace between the Napoleonic Wars and the Crimean War, when Lord Cardigan paid £40,000 for his commission. It was in the Crimea that it became most obvious that the system of purchase led to incompetent leadership, such as that which resulted in the Charge of the Light Brigade. An enquiry (the Commission on Purchase) was established in 1855, and commented unfavourably on the institution. The practice of Purchase of Commissions was finally abolished as part of the Cardwell reforms which made many changes to the structure and procedures of the Army.
For much of the period over which commissions were purchased, it was no more unfair as a system than the processes of royal or political patronage which applied in most other European (and American) armies. The rigid system of promotion by seniority, as applied in the army of the East India Company, had its own drawbacks which became evident when intense conflicts such as the First Anglo-Sikh War or Indian Mutiny broke out after long periods of peace, and many senior officers proved too elderly or infirm to command effectively in the field.
[edit] Sources
- The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade, Cecil Woodham-Smith, Penguin, 1953, Reprint edition (July 1, 1991) ISBN 0140012788
- Queen Victoria's little Wars, Byron Farwell, Wordsworth Military Library, 1973, ISBN 1840222166
