| Description | Ex-officio Commissioners date from 1853 when H.M. Government advanced £177,000 to enable the Commissioners, with a similar contribution from the surplus funds of the Great Exhibition, to purchase their estate at South Kensington. Appointments arose out of negotiations between the Commission and the Government and aimed to ensure 'facility of communication between the Government and the Commission'. The partnership between H.M. Government and the Commissioners was dissolved in 1858 when the Commissioners discharged their debt and assumed full control of the estate, except for the portion retained by the Department of Science and Art and now housing the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Presidents of the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Geological Society were appointed in 1850 by the first Charter and continued to attend meetings in an ex-officio capacity.
Those Commissioners who, though politicians, had been elected as individuals were invited to meetings on an ex-officio basis when holding one of the great Office's of State.
Ex-officio Commissioners no longer attend meetings (after 1993 the Commission ceased to sit as a separate body) but receive the Commission's Annual Report and Accounts. |