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Walter Sickert's income from royal funds
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Ripper Suspects:
Walter Sickert's income from royal funds
Author: John Middleton
Wednesday, 05 June 2002 - 05:44 am |        | The Guardian newspaper published some interesting material on Monday. Although much of it is supposed to be new, I am not sure how much of it was known before - the articles, both under the same journalist's byline, appear to be self-contradictory on that score. It seems that from 1940 Walter Sickert was receiving an income from a royal fund, National Gallery director Kenneth Clark (of 'Civilisation' fame) and prime minister Churchill having been involved in some fashion. Income continued to be paid to his widow after his death in 1942.
John M
***BEGIN ARTICLE 1***
Grant for artist Sickert
Alan Travis
Guardian
Monday June 3, 2002
The British post-impressionist artist, Walter Sickert, most famous for painting London music hall artists and their audiences, is one of the few people known to have benefited from the Royal Bounty Fund.
Individual grants from the fund have never been made public but when an application for a civil list pension for Sickert was made in 1940, Downing Street also considered whether he qualified for help from the fund.
There was controversy when it became known that No 10 had helped him get money from the royal funds because at the time he was living in a 20 room house in Bath and there was an exhibition of his work on show at a major London gallery.
The Downing Street file on Sickert's civil list pension shows that despite his fame he had managed his personal finances very badly. He had sold many of his paintings, including his famous Camden Town interiors and street scenes, for the first offer made.
A letter from Kenneth Clark, then director of the National Gallery, asking Winston Churchill to help Sickert, admitted the artist had lived a feckless and extravagant life, but urged that he be supported in the final years of his life.
In fact Downing Street was privately only too pleased to be able to add such a famous "name" to their list to be helped with special pensions in 1940 and the annuity continued to be paid to Sickert's widow after his death in 1942.
***END ARTICLE 1***
***BEGIN ARTICLE 2***
Scrapped, the secret funds that few knew existed
In the past 200 years a vast amount of money has passed through two so- called royal charities. Where did it go?
Alan Travis, home affairs editor Guardian
Monday June 3, 2002
Two royal charity funds which are run under the patronage of Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, and have had a shadowy existence for more than 200 years are to be wound down, Downing Street has told the Guardian.
The two accounts, the Royal Bounty and Special Services Fund and the Royal Charity Fund, are financed by the taxpayer through annual payments from the Queen's civil list but they have little to do with the royal family. They are administered by Downing Street and are "at the absolute disposal of the prime minister" and his wife.
The operation of the two funds has always been wrapped in secrecy. Over the centuries gifts, grants and pensions have been paid out under the personal patronage of the prime minister from the two funds but no accounts have ever been published.
As a result of inquiries by the Guardian, Downing Street has disclosed that the Royal Bounty fund which is in the gift of the prime minister, has reserves of £200,000 and pays out £30,000 a year. Downing Street has told the Guardian that a decision was taken, but not announced, during the 2000 review of the Queen's civil list to stop making any more payments to the two charities from public funds and they are to be wound down over the next few years. The administration of the two funds, whose existence has never been widely known beyond royal and Downing Street circles, is run by a senior private secretary at Number 10 in consultation with the Treasury.
Downing Street only confirmed the decision after a Guardian investigation into the royal finances uncovered newly released secret Treasury papers at the pub lic record office as part an investigation into the royal finances revealing the existence and operation of the two charity funds in the gift of the prime minister and his wife.
It is clear that over the years millions of pounds in modern day values has flowed through these "charity funds". The Treasury files shows that "the charity element" of the Royal Bounty Fund "was making less demands, no doubt largely because of the growth of the welfare state." But since no accounts have ever been published it is difficult to know where over two centuries all the money has all gone.
A Downing Street spokesman made clear that Tony Blair "is not sitting on any huge and mysterious secret fund. These funds are relatively small and pay out fairly minor sums for perfectly legitimate purposes. But the expectation is that both these funds will be wound down over time following the 2000 Civil List review."
The Treasury papers say that the Royal Charity Fund is "administered by the first lord's wife, or some other lady appointed by him, entirely within her discretion and subject only to the rule that the recipients should be resident in the United Kingdom."
Beneficiaries
As with the Royal Bounty Fund, grants from these charities "have never been reported to parliament or otherwise made known to the public." The Treasury papers say that in recent years the fund "is restricted to cases of destitution where there is some element of the Royal Bounty." It is thought that while the Royal Bounty Fund has more than £200,000 in its capital reserve, the Royal Charity Fund which is theoretically in the gift of Cherie Blair has only £2,000 left in it now. The 1971 Treasury files say that "there was no difficulty in finding suitable beneficiaries".
The official aims of the two charities date back to Edmund Burke's 1782 Civil List Act and include the relief of those "in distress" and in cases of "destitution". They are separate from the Queen's Royal Almonry Fund which dispenses the maundy money every year. The Royal Bounty Fund has been used particularly to help British artists who have fallen on hard times - Walter Sickert was one beneficiary - but it is also used for "miscellaneous confidential purposes".
The files disclose that these "confidential purposes" and "special services" have historically included presents for overseas royalty, gifts for visiting foreign ministers and to foot the bill for some of the costs of big royal events, including weddings and jubilees, "where the use of an open Vote [public account] is not suitable". The papers make clear that it was expected that funds from the charity would be used to foot the bill in this way for some of the costs of the Queen's silver wedding in 1972 and the silver jubilee in 1977 and for the wedding of Prince Charles to Princess Diana.
But the 1971 Treasury papers released under the 30-year rule also show that the state of the capital reserves, particularly of the Royal Bounty Fund, have been regarded as a source of potential embarrassment ever since the king transferred its operation to the first lord of the Treasury (the prime minister) at the end of the 18th century.
Indeed, the fact that the state of these funds has been kept secret for 220 years raises the question whether the disclosure has finally brought to an end the longest running state secret in Whitehall history. The state papers show that Treasury officials were worried as long ago as 1802 that there was "a great excess" on the Royal Bounty Fund while it was still being topped up with taxpayers' money every year with civil list payments. By 1897 the reserves had continued to grow and were worth £9,000 and Treasury officials asked themselves whether it should continue to be subsidised by the taxpayer.
The same concern existed in 1971 when as, the secret Whitehall papers reveal, its investments had reached a value of £125,000 - more than £1m at today's prices. But even the then prime minister, Edward Heath, was deliberately not told. As one Treasury minute of a meeting with Buckingham Palace officials in March 1971 to discuss various matters about the operation of the charities records: "Mr Hewitt (of the Treasury) said he would be bringing these points to the notice of the prime minister but he would avoid mentioning the capital of the fund, knowledge of its existence has always been kept from ministers."
The minutes of a separate meeting in March 1971 also record that palace and Treasury officials "agreed that we would do our utmost to avoid disclosing the existence of the fund's capital". The palace was very sensitive over public knowledge of the funds and the files show officials discussing "how best to avoid specific mention of the Royal Charity Fund" in the published civil list. In 1971 when the chancellor presented the new civil list legislation to MPs and political journalists he was advised to refrain from volunteering any information.
The secret Treasury briefing notes say that "only if he were pressed" by an MP or a journalist about the operation of the Royal Bounty Fund he should tell them "a full description of the fund was given to the select committee on the civil list in 1901 and published as part of the appendix to their report and the fund continues to be administered on the basis described."
That appendix reveals that the fund was supposed to be used for cases of "exceptional merit or exceptional hardship" and the Treasury regretted there had been attempts made to convert it into a benevolent fund the "wives and orphans of civil servants". Indeed, the Treasury took the view as long ago as 1897 that the funds should not even be financed from the Queen's civil list. The official files say that since its grants "could not be regarded as gifts bestowed by the sovereign personally, or as forming part of the expenditure of the court, it seems doubtful whether they are a proper charge on the civil list."
***END ARTICLE 2*** |
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