Throughout our history the contribution of the Offices of State within the framework of the English Constitution has played a vital part. In this fourth book of the series, The Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Kynaston describes the development of that office.

The title itself has its source in the King's chequer-board accounting tables and it was the Lord Chancellor's clerk, keeper of the Exchequer's seal, who in the thirteenth century first became known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

But it was from the accession of Walpole to the Chancellorship in 1715 that the office finally emerged from its secretarial origins, although even as late as 1809 it was not obligatory for the Chancellor to be a member of the Cabinet.

In this detailed study of the office the author includes such eminent names as William Pitt, Palmerston, Gladstone, Lloyd George and Winston Churchill amongst a host of notable Chancellors.