Notes on military pensions : East India Company's military forces / [by Henry Marshall].

Date:
[1830]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on military pensions : East India Company's military forces / [by Henry Marshall]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    should consist of two companies of European Artillery invalids, and two companies of European Infantry invalids. European soldiers who are pensioned in consequence of wounds or long service, and whose good conduct and character for steadiness and sobriety shall give them a claim to consideration, may be permitted to reside and draw their pensions in India. Pensioners of this class are to receive the pay and half batta of the rank in which they are inva- lided, should they have held it uninterruptedly for three years prior to their transfer, but when that shall not be the case, the pensioners are to receive the pay and half batta of the next inferior rank. Meer Mahomed Jaffier Carvn, Nabob of Bengal, bequeathed to Ro- bert Lord Clive, five lacs of rupees, of the value of 62,833/. 6.y. 8d. which sum he paid into the Company’s treasury during the year 1760. His Lordship being zealous for the prosperity of the Company, the se- curity of their territories, &c. which could be preserved by an efficient army only, considered that the establishment of a provision for such of the officers and privates employed in the Company’s service as should be disabled by age, war, or disease, contracted during their service, would tend to induce fit persons to enter the service, and encourage the bravery of the troops, and proposed to the Court of Directors of the Company to appropriate the interest of the five lacs of rupees which he had received from the Nabob, for the purpose of supporting a certain number of officers and soldiers, who from wounds, length of service, or diseases contracted during their service, w'ere thereby rendered un- fit to serve any longer, and whose fortunes might be too scanty to afford the officers a decent, and the privates a comfortable subsistence in their native country, and also to make some provision for the widow's of such officers and private men as should have been entitled to the said bounty, or whose husbands should have lost their lives in the Com- pany’s service. The Court of Directors accepted his Lordship’s proposal, and they and their successors were appointed perpetual trustees of the fund. To this fund of five lacs of rupees, Lyf-ul-Dowla, Nabob of Bengal, added three lacs of rupees, amounting to the sum of 37,700/. According to an agreement between the East India Company and Lord Clive, of which an abstract is annexed, the Company was to pay on account of the fund at the rate of eight per cent, per annum, for the sum of eight lacs of rupees. The trust was to commence from the 29th Sept. 1769, and for the relief and maintenance of European officers and soldiers who shall be- come invalids or superannuated, their widows, or widow's of officers and soldiers dying in the service. Commissioned, staff, or warrant officers were to have half the ordinary stated pay they were entitled to Avliilst in the service. Serjeants, corporals, and private men were to receive a similar amount of pension as are allowed to Chelsea pensioners of the same degrees. Widows of officers were to receive one-fourth of the ordinary stated pay their husbands enjoyed whilst in service. The pensions were to be paid yearly, and every year during their natural life.