ABSTRACT
A complement of individual responsibility was a new system of centralised accountancy. By the late 1820s, the navy's system of accountancy permitted the financial detail of operations on a vast scale to be centralised, reduced and grasped by a single responsible officer. By mid-1829, Navy Board secretary George Smith, advanced a balanced debit-credit account encompassing all dockyard expenses which permitted analysis of all the major costs involved in running the dockyards. The new system of centralised accounts not only provided information to the Accountant General but accessibility to accounts from the Admiralty, and accountability in detail to the House of Commons. The Accountant General carried out the financial responsibility of the naval departments to Parliament. The system of centralised accounting as established in 1829-30 continued to develop. From 88 clerks in 1832, the department of the Accountant General had grown to 170 by 1860.
