HM Stationery Office Supplies

“The Plan to reform the abuses found to subsist by extravagant charges of stationary [sic] is to Establish an Office under the management of a Comptroller from which every Office and Person entitled to be supplied with stationary is to be served.”

Thus spoke John Mayor of the Treasury, who was instructed in 1783 to find out all he could about “stationary”. The government was intent on dispensing with “several useless, expensive and unnecessary Offices” and the extravagant charges made for stationery were among the abuses William Pitt who came to power in 1784 was keen to remove.

John Mayor Plan was to establish a “Stationary Office” (S.O.) which would provide the civil service with office supplies. Until then, stationers had contracts with the different government offices; they bought cheaply from the makers and sold at high price in the safety of their monopoly. Under the new system, the S.O. would buy from the maker and charge the buyer “at prime cost; no arbitrary price to be permitted.”

The S.O. was established in 1786 and started supplying public offices in 1787. Its customers included the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Business grew and in 1812 the Treasury ordered that buying by the S.O. of all stationery would be by open competition, and that preference would be given to the lowest tender. In 1823 it was made obligatory that all public Departments should buy all stationery from the S.O. The list of items S.O. was to provide was as follows:

Paper	Binding, Ruling, etc.
Parchment & Vellums	Almanacks
Printing	Court Calendars
Court Guides	Scissors
Directories	Wafer Boxes – Tin
Cards	Wafer Boxes – Paper
Erasers	Despatch Boxes
Hones	Bramah’s Pens & Holders
Ferrett	Tape
Laces	Memorandum Books
Black Ink	Seal Engraving
Ink stands – Glass	Copper Plate Printing
Ink stands – Pewter	Packing Cases
Ink stands – Lead Ink stands – Ebony	Ink Casks
India Rubber	Leather Bags
Ivory Folders	Army & Navy Lists
Lead pressers	Statutes
Pasteboards	Files – Pasteboard
Pounce & Boxes	Files – Wire
Card Boards	Silk Cord
Pencils	Needles
Pens & Quills	Pins
Cord	Marking Ink
Rulers	Japan Ink
Wax	Leather Straps
Wafers	Sand
Strops	Sand Boxes

Instead of collecting payments from each department it was ruled in 1823 that the S.O. would buy all stationery and printing from an amount of money to be provided to it annually by Parliament. This system replaced the previous one under which the S.O. collected payments from individual departments. The new arrangement rested in place for 156 years.


Source: Hugh Barty-King, Her Majesty's Stationery Office  1786-1986, HMSO 1986.


All S.O. supplies bore the initials of the Stationery Office and a crown. 
See Palimpsest's growing S.O. collection on Flickr.