Home
What's New
Pensions & Compensation
Service Records, Medals & Badges
Welfare, Support & Contact
Special Support Programmes
Armed Forces Memorial
Veterans Community
Raising Awareness
Veterans World
Vets Advisory & Pensions Cttees
|
About
the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency (SPVA)
Historical Veterans Agency Information
In the Beginning
Since the dawn of British history, pensions in some form or other have been
paid to the casualties of war. Ancient records reveal that in King Alfred's
reign, pensions, or the equivalent in grants of land, were an established
form of reward for disablement, and Queen Elizabeth I decreed that - "such
as have adventured their lives and lost their limbs, or disabled their
bodies in defence of Her Majesty and the State, should be relieved and
rewarded that they may reap the fruit of their good deserving".
This "fruit of their good deserving" took the form of the Chatham
Chest, a naval charitable foundation established around 1590. It was funded
by a charge of 6d a month from the wages of every officer and rating in the
Navy. It paid compensation for wounds and injuries sustained in action or
on duty, and pensions for permanent disablement to warrant officers, ratings
and dockyard workers. It also paid pensions to the widows of those killed
in action. It was administered by a corporation of officers stationed at
Chatham under the control of the Navy Board. In 1803 the administration of
the Chest was transferred to the Greenwich Hospital and thereafter became
known as "the Chest at Greenwich".
In 1713 a disablement flat rate of 5d (old pence) a day was
given and some 150 years later, in the Crimean War, this became 8d a day
for partial and 2shillings a day for total disablement.
|
