A tally stick used to record a financial transaction between the British Exchequer and Barbados. Lithograph, 1835.

[London] (3 Bridge St., Westminster) : S.S. Folker, April 1835.

1 print : lithograph, with letterpress

Dedicated by permission to the Right Hon.ble Sir Robert Peel Bar.t Chancellor of the exchequer. The exchequer tally. Fac simile from an original Text of the explanation: "The recent destruction of the two Houses of Parliament in consequence of the burning of the old Exchequer tallies and foils, or counterparts, in one of the stoves of the House of Lords, and the disuse of the ancient forms of keeping the Exchequer accounts, render the tally an object of considerable interest. The first establishment of the Exchequer, like most of our earlier institutions, is involved in great obscurity. It is most probable that some establishment of the kind had been in use before the Conquest, but there is no doubt that it was entirely remodelled by King William the Conqueror, after an institution of a similar nature that had long existed in Normandy: but as the Norman and English Exchequers, in many instances, differed materially, it seems probable that William retained some of the Anglo-Saxon customs, and engrafted such of the Norman ones upon them as were then applicable to the English nation; and thus founded an institution that has remained, with comparatively little alteration, to the days of King William IV, The name of Exchequer is generally supposed to be derived from the word Scaccarium, a chequered cloth, on the squares of which it was anciently customary to reckon money paid or received. A chequered cloth covers the table of the Court of Exchequer, to the present day. The tally was coeval with the Exchequer, and comes from the old Norman word tailler, to cut. It was devised as an acknowledgment for money paid into the king's receipt of exchequer, and as a guarantee against fraud; for both which purposes it was admirably contrived: and nothing can be conceived more primitive, nor yet better adapted, for the uses of an age, when the art of writing was almost a wonder, and printing was unknown. A thick stick, resembling a hedge stake, of hazel, willow, or alder, varying from 18 inches to 4 feet long, was put into a vice and roughly squared. On one side was written in Latin the name of the accountant, and for what service the money was paid; on the opposite side, the same particulars were written. On the other two sides, were written in front, the test, or day of the payment, and the year of the reign of the king; and on the back the word sol., a contraction for solutum, signifying that it was a tally for money paid, and in contradistinction to the pro., certain tallies being called tallies of pro., denoting the issue of money out of revenues belonging to the first fruits of the clergy, payable by their receiver- general ; and on these two sides, the sum paid in, was represented by notches of various sizes, cut in the wood, each size denoting a certain amount. Thus, a notch of the largest size stood for M, or £1,000; one next smaller for C, £100; the next for XX, £20, or a score; half a notch for X, £10, or half a score; a notch of a different shape for £1; another for 10s.; another for 1s. a stroke for 1d.; and a small hole or point for ; and qr. for a farthing. Thus written upon and notched, the stick was put upon a strong block, and on one of the written sides, about 3 inches up, a short thick knife was placed diagonally, and struck with a heavy mallet, cutting the wood halfway through; the stick was then turned, and the knife inserted on one of the notched sides, at the diagonal cut, when two or three sharp blows split it down to the end into two parts, one part having exactly the same writing and the same notches as the other. Being thus cleft, one part, called the tally, was delivered to the party, the other part, called the foil, or counterpart, remained in the office of the Exchequer. With reference to the above drawings, the following translation may be permitted: From David Parry, Esq., Governor of Barbadoes, for money repaid by the hands of Abraham Newland, Esq., Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, Great Britain. The sum expressed by the notches is £1,534 15s. 4d. Of the many payments made into the Exchequer some were very curious. A tally is in possession of the publisher for the sum of £550, paid "by a person unknown for conscience sake". The difference in amount is equally curious. A tally has been struck for a single farthing, and is still in existence, while to represent a million it required 40 tally sticks, as no character was used to express a higher number than one thousand, and not more than twenty-five notches were put upon one tally or receipt, except upon some extraordinary occasion. The death-blow was given to the existence of the old tallies by the Act 23 Geo. III. c. 82 (1783), which enacted that after the death or surrender of the then two Chaimberlains of the Exchequer, instead of the old tally, an indented cheque receipt should be substituted, which did not take place till the 10th of October, in the year 1826, from which time the use of the old wooden tally was discontinued; and it is well worthy of remark, that from the time of their first introduction, to the year when they ceased to exist, a period of more than seven hundred years, the forgery of a tally was never committed."

Face of the tally. The counterfoil, shewing the test or day of payment. Section of the tally shewing the counterfoil split off. Explanation ...

Wellcome Collection 3042887i