| 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.
The following boxes of accounts concerning the expenditure of George IV [as Prince of Wales and Prince Regent] have been digitised so far:
GEO/MAIN/25050-25501: furniture, lustres, lamps, clocks and linens, 1783 to 1830 (bills are 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 to 1830 (bills are catalogued and digitised at item level)
GEO/MAIN/28395-28959a: books, newspapers, prints, stationery, and purchases for the Royal Library, 1783-1830 (bills are catalogued and digitised at item level)
GEO/MAIN/26460-28394, GEO/MAIN/51382a: prints and caricatures, 1783 - 1837 (bills are 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] (bills are catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/25502-25639: carriages, harnesses, parks, farms, garden, the menagerie at Sandpit Gate, bell-ringing, gun-firing, horses and racing 1783 - 1836 (bills are catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/26329-26459: china and glass, 1785-1830 (bills are catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/31854-32437: George IV's debts, 1783-1830 (bills are catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/31455-31853: bills for miscellaneous expenses, 1786-1830 (bills are catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/29210-29643: wardrobe, spurs, swords and regimental colours, 1782-1831 (bills are catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/25640-26328: goldsmith bills, 1783-1915 (bills are catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/33498-34224: Brighton Pavilion, 1787-1830 (bills are catalogued and digitised at file level)
GEO/MAIN/33265-33497: Account books for work carried out at Brighton Pavilion, 1812-1820
GEO/MAIN/31043-32454: legal expenses; with deeds, 1783-1836
GEO/MAIN/30724-31042: rates, taxes and insurance, 1789-1830
GEO/MAIN/32438-32700: miscellaneous Privy Purse accounts, 1783-1830
GEO/MAIN/29644-29998: pensions, donations and subscriptions, 1784-1832
GEO/MAIN/29999-30324: subscriptions to charities, funds, theatres and clubs, 1787-1830
GEO/MAIN/30521-30723: pensions and donations, 1800-1830
GEO/MAIN/34225-34538: residences and properties 1692-1827
GEO/MAIN/30235-30520: pensions, donations and subscriptions
This collection will continue to be added to as the digitisation programme progresses.
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| 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. |