Paymaster General

The Paymaster General was formerly in nominal charge (and at one time in actual charge) of the Office of HM Paymaster General[3] (OPG), which held accounts at the Bank of England on behalf of government departments and selected other public bodies. Funds which were made available from the Consolidated Fund were then channelled into OPG accounts, from where they were used by the relevant body. OPG operated a full range of accounts and banking transaction services, including cheque and credit, BACS and CHAPS services for its customers via an electronic banking system. Integration of OPG accounts held with commercial banks was provided by the private company Xafinity Paymaster which is now part of the Equiniti group.

However, in 2008, the government announced that the Office of the Paymaster General would be incorporated into a new body, the Government Banking Service,[4] which also provides banking operations for HM Revenue & Customs and National Savings and Investments. Following the Bank of England's decision to withdraw from providing retail banking services,[5] retail banking and payment services for the GBS are provided by a range of financial institutions including Barclays, Citibank, NatWest, Bottomline and Worldpay,[6] although the Bank of England still plays a role in managing the government's higher level accounts.[7]

• Sir Henry Parnell, Bt. 1836–1841
• Edward Stanley 1841
• Sir Edward Knatchbull, Bt. 1841–1845
• Bingham Baring 1845–1846
• Thomas Babington Macaulay 1846–1848
• Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville 1848–1852
• Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley 1852
• Charles Abbot, 2nd Baron Colchester 1852
• Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley 1853–1855
• Edward Pleydell-Bouverie 1855
• Robert Lowe 1855–1858
• Richard Hely-Hutchinson, 4th Earl of Donoughmore 1858–1859
• Algernon Percy, Lord Lovaine 1859
• James Wilson 1859
• William Cowper 1859–1860
• William Hutt 1860–1865
• George Goschen 1865–1866
• William Monsell 1866
• Stephen Cave 1866–1868
• Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Earl of Dufferin 1868–1872
• Hugh Childers 1872–1873
• William Adam 1873–1874
• Stephen Cave 1874–1880
• David Plunket 1880
• George Glyn, 2nd Baron Wolverton 1880–1885
• Frederick Lygon, 6th Earl Beauchamp 1885–1886
• Thomas Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce, 5th Baron Thurlow 1886
• Frederick Lygon, 6th Earl Beauchamp 1886–1887
• Adelbert Brownlow-Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow 1887–1889
• Victor Child Villiers, 7th Earl of Jersey 1889–1890
• Robert Windsor-Clive, 14th Baron Windsor 1890–1892
• Charles Seale-Hayne 1892–1895
• John Hope, 7th Earl of Hopetoun 1895–1899
• Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough 1899–1902

• Savile Crossley 1902–1905
• Richard Causton (1st Baron Southwark after 13 July 1910) 1905–1910
• Ivor Guest, 1st Baron Ashby St Ledgers 1910–1912
• Edward Strachey, 1st Baron Strachie 1912–1915
• Thomas Legh, 2nd Baron Newton 1915–1916
• Arthur Henderson 1916
• Joseph Compton-Rickett 1916–1919
• Tudor Walters 1919–1922
• Office vacant 1922–1923
• Neville Chamberlain 1923
• William Joynson-Hicks 1923
• Archibald Boyd-Carpenter 1923–1924
• Harry Gosling 1924
• Office vacant 1924–1925
• George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland 1925–1928
• Richard Onslow, 5th Earl of Onslow 1928–1929
• Sydney Arnold 1929–1931
• Office vacant 1931
• Tudor Walters 1931
• Ernest Lamb, 1st Baron Rochester 1931–1935
• Robert Hutchison, 1st Baron Hutchison of Montrose 1935–1938
• Geoffrey FitzClarence, 5th Earl of Munster 1938–1939
• Edward Turnour, 6th Earl Winterton 1939
• Office vacant 1939–1940
• Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount Cranborne 1940
• Office vacant 1940–1941
• Maurice Hankey 1941–1942
• William Jowitt 1942
• Frederick Lindemann, 1st Baron Cherwell 1942–1945
• Office vacant 1945–1946
• Arthur Greenwood 9 July 1946 Lab
• Hilary Marquand 5 March 1947 Lab
• The Viscount Addison 2 July 1948 also Leader of the House of Lords Lab
• The Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor 1 April 1949 Lab
• The Lord Cherwell 30 October 1951 Con
• The Earl of Selkirk 11 November 1953 Con
• Office vacant 20 October 1955
• Walter Monckton 18 October 1956 Con
• Reginald Maudling 16 January 1957 Con
• The Lord Mills 14 October 1959 Con
• Henry Brooke 9 October 1961 Con
• John Boyd-Carpenter 13 July 1962 Con
• George Wigg 19 October 1964 Lab
• Office vacant 12 November 1967
• The Lord Shackleton 6 April 1968 Lab
• Judith Hart 1 November 1968 Lab
• Harold Lever 1969–1970 6 October 1969 Lab
• The Viscount Eccles 23 June 1970 Con
• Maurice Macmillan 2 December 1973 Con
• Edmund Dell 1974–1976
• Shirley Williams 1976–1979

Name		Portrait	Term of office		Concurrent office(s)	Political party	Prime Minister
	Angus Maude MP for Stratford-on-Avon (1912-1993)		4 May 1979	5 January 1981		Conservative		Margaret Thatcher (II)
	Francis Pym MP for Cambridgeshire (1922-2008)		5 January 1981	14 September 1981	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (5 January 1981 – 14 September 1981) Leader of the House of Commons (5 January 1981 – 5 April 1982)
	Cecil Parkinson MP for South Hertfordshire (1931-2016)		14 September 1981	11 June 1983	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (6 April 1982 – 11 June 1983)
Office vacant			11 June 1983	10 September 1984	Office vacant
	John Gummer MP for Suffolk Coastal (born 1939)		11 September 1984	1 September 1985		Conservative
	Kenneth Clarke MP for Rushcliffe (born 1940)		2 September 1985	13 July 1987	Minister of State for Employment
	Peter Brooke MP for City of London and Westminster South (born 1934)		13 July 1987	24 July 1989				Margaret Thatcher (III)
	Malcolm Sinclair Earl of Caithness (born 1948)		25 July 1989	14 July 1990
	Richard Ryder MP for Mid Norfolk (born 1949)		14 July 1990	28 November 1990				John Major (I)
	John Ganzoni Baron Belstead (1932–2005)		28 November 1990	11 April 1992	Minister of State for Northern Ireland
	John Cope MP for Northavon (born 1937)		14 April 1992	20 July 1994				John Major (lI)
	David Heathcoat-Amory MP for Wells (born 1949)		20 July 1994	20 July 1996
	David Willetts MP for Havant (born 1956)		20 July 1996	21 November 1996
	Michael Bates MP for Langbaurgh (born 1961)		21 November 1996	2 May 1997	Lord Commissioner of the Treasury (17 October 1995 – 11 December 1996)
	Geoffrey Robinson MP for Coventry North West (born 1938)		2 May 1997	23 December 1998		Labour		Tony Blair (I)