Purchase of commissions

The purchase of officer commissions in the British Army was a common practice through most of its history. Formally, the commission purchase price was a cash bond for good behaviour, forfeited to the Army's cashiers (accountants) in the event of cowardice, desertion or gross misbehaviour.

The practice started in 1683 during the reign of Charles II and continued until abolished on 1 November 1871, as part of the Cardwell Reforms.

Only commissions in cavalry and infantry regiments (and therefore only those up to the rank of colonel) could be purchased. 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 was by seniority. 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. Nor did the Royal Navy ever practise the sale of commissions, with advancement in officer ranks being solely by merit or seniority (at least in theory).

There were several key reasons behind the sale of commissions:

The official values of commissions varied by regiment, usually in line with the differing levels of social prestige of different regiments.

In 1837 for example, the costs of commissions were:

These prices were not incremental. To purchase a promotion, an officer only had to pay the difference in price between his existing rank and the desired rank.

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, there was also an unofficial "over-regulation price" or "regimental value", which might double the official cost. 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. It was not unknown for officers who incurred or inherited debts to sell their commission to raise funds.

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