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1887 Jubilee Named Board of Green Cloth

1887 Jubilee Medal, engraved, Thomas C. March C.B., the Secretary of the Board of Green Cloth. A very well connected member of the Royal Household, Over 60 service to Queen Victoria

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Origin: United Kingdom
Good Very Fine

Description

1887 Jubilee Medal, engraved naming, Thomas C. March C.B., the Secretary of the Board of Green Cloth.

 

Contemporarily engraved in attractive hand engraved serif style: “Thomas C. March. C.B. Secretary Board of Green Cloth”.

 

An interesting medal to an important and well paid member of the Royal Household, by the time of his death, having been in Service to the Royal Family for 63 years, he was drawing over £1,100 a year in 1898, he was firstly the Secretary of the Board of Green Cloth, as Paymaster to the Royal Family, who audited the accounts of the Royal Household and made arrangements for Royal Travel, also seeing over any offences committed inside the Palace.

In Addition to this he was also the Receiver of the Fees of Honours (a post with a considerable stipend), as well as the Queen’s Serjeant-at-Arms, which added another £70 for little work.

 

Thomas Charles March, Companion of the Order of the Bath, was born on 4th July 1819, the son of Sir Thomas March and Mary Ann Gonne.

 

His parents were both born in Lisbon, Portugal in the late 18th Century, where both families appear to have been involved in the trade of Spanish Wine.

 

Interestingly on the side of his Mother’s Family, Thomas would have a distant younger cousin, Edith Maud Gonne, who under the name Maud Gonne Macribe would would become a notable Irish Republican Revolutionary, Suffragette and Actress.

 

He was the third Thomas March to be born, the same name as his father and his grandfather, and he himself had another son he named Thomas Charles March (1867-1876).

 

The Obituary of Thomas March, Westminster Gazette, 22nd June 1898:

 

“THE LATE THOMAS MARCH

 

Mr Thomas March, who died last week at the age of 82, was a nephew of Sir Thomas March, who was for many years Comptroller of Accounts (i.e. Permanent Under-Secretary) at the Lord Chamberlain’s Office.

 

Mr March, who was appointed to be a junior clerk in the Lord Chamberlain’s Office in 1835, had been for the last 16 years the Secretary to the Board of Green Cloth at Buckingham Palace, and he was the head of the Permanent Staff in the Lord Steward’s Department.

This office is worth about £1,100 a year, and it is in the gift of the queen.

Mr March was also receiver of Fees of Honour, another post with a good stipend. Her Majesty will also have to appoint a new Serjeant at Arms, this place being a sinecure with a salary of £70 a year.”