| Description | George IV's accounts demonstrate his wide ranging interests, including his passion for amassing expensive works of art and his extravagant tastes in furniture and furnishings, as well as his purchases of books, musical and optical instruments and prints, to name but a few examples. These Privy Purse accounts were meticulously kept and amount to thousands of documents.
GEO/MAIN/25050-25501: furniture, lustres, lamps, clocks and linens, 1783-1830 (catalogued and digitised at item level)
GEO/MAIN/25502-25639: carriages, harnesses, parks, farms, garden, the menagerie at Sandpit Gate, bell-ringing, gun-firing, horses and racing 1783 - 1836 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/25640-26328: goldsmith (jewellery) bills, 1783-1915 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/26329-26459: china and glass, 1785-1830 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/26460-28394, GEO/MAIN/51382a: prints and caricatures, 1783-1837 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/28395-28959a: books, newspapers, prints, stationery, and purchases for the Royal Library, 1783-1830 (catalogued and digitised at item level)
GEO/MAIN/28960-29029: sheet music, musical instruments, guns, fishing tackle, toys, canes, umbrellas, spectacles, scientific/mathematical instruments etc., 1784-1830 (catalogued and digitised at item level)
GEO/MAIN/29210-29643: wardrobe, spurs, swords and regimental colours, 1782-1831 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/29644-30723: pensions and donations, 1784-1832 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/30724-31042: rates, taxes and insurance, 1780-1830 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/31043-31454: legal expenses; with deeds, 1783-1836 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/31455-31853: bills for miscellaneous expenses, 1786-1830 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/31854-32437: George IV's debts, 1783-1830 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/32438-32700: miscellaneous Privy Purse accounts, 1783-1830 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/32922A-33264: George IV's Privy Purse Accounts for household bills and expenses for himself, Caroline, Princess of Wales, and Princess Charlotte of Wales [?1783-1827] (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/33265-34224: bills and accounts books relating to Brighton Pavilion, 1787 - 1830 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/34225-34538: residences and properties 1692-1827 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/34539-34929: properties in Windsor, Bagshot, Richond, Kew etc. (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/34930-35225: Carlton House, 1787-1817 (catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/35226-35396: residences and properties in Hanover and other various small estates (catalogued and digitised at file level) |
| Admin History | In his will, George IV instructed his executors to review his papers and to preserve or destroy them as they saw fit. George IV's collection of bills survived, along with other papers of the King and his father George III, and were placed in the basement of Apsley House, the London residence of the Duke of Wellington, George IV's principal executor, labelled ''To be destroyed unread'. This instruction was not carried out and the fourth Duke of Wellington was able to present the papers to George V. In 1914 the Georgian papers became one of the first collections to be placed in the newly created Royal Archives. |
| Custodial History | These records were part of the original acquisition from Apsley House. |