Commissioners of Supply
Commissioners of supply were first appointed in 1667 to collect the cess, or national land tax, on a county basis.[1] The Commissioners were themselves the substantial landowners in each county, defined after the Union as those possessing property, superiority or liferent of lands with a minimum rateable value in the county cess books of £100 Scots annually.
During the 18th century they assessed liability for the land tax and also elected a county land tax collector who uplifted this and various assessed taxes such as window and horse taxes. The County General Assessment Act 1868 required the Commissioners of Supply to raise funds by rating and to use this to pay for various officials including a clerk of supply, treasurer, collector and auditor, a procurator fiscal and the clerk of the peace.[2]
Commissioners of supply gradually acquired duties other than land tax assessment, although that remained their main function. Under the Act for settling schools, 1696, commissioners of supply were empowered to set up schools should heritors fail to do so and to charge heritors for the costs; and heritors could appeal to the commissioners of supply (or the sheriff) in a dispute over the allocation of the share of costs.[3] Along with the justices of the peace, they were also made responsible for county roads, bridges and ferries, from 1686.[4] Responsibilities for military roads in the highlands were only transferred to commissioners of supply in 1862.[5] From 1854, commissioners of supply were responsible for making up an annual valuation roll in the landward areas of the county and were empowered to appoint an assessor to do this.[6] They were also required by the Police (Scotland) Act 1857 to establish a police force and to set up a police committee, consisting of between three and 15 commissioners of supply along with the sheriff and the lieutenant of the county.[7]
They became an important institution of local government and from the 1750s provided a voice through county meetings for the views and concerns of landowners. In some counties, attention was paid to police and vagrancy matters, and taxes could be levied for prisons, asylums and county buildings. Almost all their functions were transferred to the new county councils in 1890.[8] The important exception was their role in appointing members of standing joint committees. The standing joint committee was a committee in each county consisting of not more than seven county councillors and not more than seven commissioners of supply. It acted as the police authority in the landward area of the county, and its consent was required for all ‘works involving capital expenditure’ proposed to be undertaken by county or district councils. Both standing joint committees and commissioners of supply were abolished in 1930 and these roles transferred to county councils.[9]
Records of commissioners of supply are mainly held by the relevant local authority archives. National Records of Scotland holds some records of the commissioners of supply of Midlothian (CO2), Inverness-shire (CO5), Aberdeen (CO6), Peebles (CO8) and Dumfries (CO9)
Compilers: SCAN contributors (2000) Editors: Elspeth Reid (2021), David Brown (2021)
Related Knowledge Base entries
Bibliography
Sinclair, Cecil, Tracing Scottish Local History (HMSO, 1994)
Walker, David M., A Legal History of Scotland, 7 vols. (Green LexisNexis UK, 1988-2004), vi, The Nineteenth Century.
Whetstone, Ann E., Scottish County Government in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (John Donald, 1981)
References
[1] Act of the convention of estates of the kingdom of Scotland etc. for a new and voluntary offer to his majesty of £72,000 monthly for the space of twelve months, 1667. The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, [RPS] ed. by K.M. Brown and others (University of St Andrews, 2007-2021),1667/1/10 <http://rps.ac.uk/trans/1667/1/10> [accessed 18 May 2021].
[2] County General Assessment (Scotland) Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c.82).
[3] Act for settling schools, 1696. RPS 1696/9/144 <http://rps.ac.uk/trans/1696/9/144> [accessed 23 May 2021].
[4] Act anent highways and bridges, 1686. RPS 1686/4/28 <http://rps.ac.uk/trans/1686/4/28> [accessed 19 October 2018].
[5] Highland Roads and Bridges Act 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c.105).
[6] Valuation of Lands (Scotland) Act 1854 (17 & 18 Vict. c.91).
[7] Police (Scotland) Act 1857 (20 & 21 Vict. c.72).
[8] Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c.50).
[9] Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 (19 & 20 Geo. V c.25).