I’ve seen mention of it in various historical romances and such. Generally that the second or third or whatever son of Lord Whozie bought a commission, which appears to mean becoming an officer, in the British Army. (It’s always the Army mentioned, could you do it in the Navy, too?)
Anyway, how did that work? Was it just as straightforward as that? You stroll into whatever was the equivalent of the Pentagon with a purse full of money and announce you wanted to be an officer?
Was there a ‘standard’ rate or did you negotiate? Maybe it was cheaper if you looked to be in good health/relatively intelligent, and they hit you will a penalty rate if you were fat and stupid?
Did you automatically start at the lowest rank? Or if Daddy was especially rich/high ranked/indulgent could you jump a step or two?
How about after that? Could you buy promotions later on?
Anybody know about this stuff?
And, bonus question, did the system generally work out okay? I’ve heard that a lot of the basic day-to-day work of running an army is actually handled by the non-coms. So maybe you could take in a bunch of guys of unknown competence and trust that the best will rise while attrition winnows out the worst.
Not the Navy; officers were basically apprenticed to ships from an early age, even 6 - 7.
The Army, you paid to the retiring officer with the rank to sell. A commission was a nest-egg for their old age.
Did it work ? No better nor worse than any other system for procuring officers. Continental states, even those also pure oligarchic aristocracies, generally didn’t have the Purchase System and had equally good or better officers — that doesn’t mean the System was responsible for any deficiencies in British officers ( many of whom were excellent ). It wasn’t as if they were going to appoint ploughmen as colonels anyway.
Where it did get tricky was that the men came from Ireland and the English provinces generally, with a scattering of Scots; but the Officer class were increasingly Scottish ( particularly later in Imperial times: the Scots made out like bandits running the Empire ), and yet Scotland was always a poor country, with little to spare * ( without the Union, it would have been as poor as Albania ), so the Scottish officers had to resort to nepotism and influence to build up affinities in the Army. Was that more or less efficient than outright purchase ? Who knows ?
Imagine if the US army were officered mostly by southerners.
Even if the practice of purchasing commissions wasn’t practiced in the Royal Navy, family connections and money were often more important than actual experience. Horatio Nelson wouldn’t have been a captain by 23 based solely on tenure and accomplishment.
Actually, I understand it was, just before the Civil War. Allegedly, that was why the USA seemed to lose many of the early battles – many officers had deserted to the Rebels, so it was old, hide-bound Generals left running (poorly) the Union armies.
And I think it’s still true today. At least, the percentage of southerners in the services is higher than their percentage in the population.