treasurer and treasury. The treasurer, the royal official responsible for receiving and disbursing the king's revenues in Ireland, is first mentioned in 1217. Appointments were usually made from England and holders of the office included bishops and members of religious orders as well as royal clerks. The treasurer was a senior member of the king's
council in Ireland and received an annual fee at the Irish
exchequer. Initially his accounts were audited in Ireland by specially appointed auditors, but following the serious allegations of fraud and malpractice brought against the treasurer Stephen de
Fulborn in 1285 and subsequently against his successor Nicholas de Clere, who had been appointed to reform Irish finances, the practice was instituted of auditing the treasurer's accounts at the English exchequer. This continued on a regular basis until the late 14th century, with the treasurer and one of the chamberlains of the exchequer bringing their records to Westminster for the audit. The regularity of audits did not prevent further instances of financial malpractice, the most notable being those involving Alexander Bicknor, treasurer from 1308 to 1314, and his successor Walter Islip. From 1379 onwards, for political and administrative reasons, treasurers were frequently exempted from accounting for their receipts and expenditure.
During the late 15th and early 16th centuries effective control of royal finances passed from the treasurer to his nominal deputy, the under‐treasurer, although this process was temporarily reversed after the earl of
Kildare's restoration in 1524.
By the 18th century growing criticism of the management of government finance focused both on malpractice on the part of individual undertreasurers and, increasingly, on the relationship between the British and Irish treasuries. Issues of public money could, for example, be made, without the authorization of the Irish treasurer, on a British treasury warrant countersigned by the
chief secretary. Anxious to increase government accountability and responsibility, Irish
Whigs made reform of the treasury a central plank of their reform programme, and in 1793 succeeded in vesting the duties and powers of the high treasurer in a board of commissioners, drawn from members of the Irish parliament. Henceforth all warrants for the issue of public money were to require the signature of three treasury commissioners. Although the treasury seemed set to become the sole organ for the control of public expenditure in Ireland, this did not happen, partly because the government continued to interfere in its work, and partly because after the
Union the commissioners, who now sat in the Westminster parliament, spent much of their time in London. The Irish treasury was fused with its British counterpart in 1817, following the consolidation of the British and Irish revenues the previous year.
PhC/ and Philomena Connolly
