Civil list, an annual sum granted by Parliament at the commencement of each reign, for the expenses of the royal household and establishment, as distinguished from the general exigencies of the state; it is the provision made for the Crown out of the taxes, in lieu of its proper patrimony, and in consideration of the assignment of that patrimony to the public use. This arrangement has prevailed from the time of the Revolution downwards, though the amount fixed for the civil list has been subject in different reigns to considerable variation. At the commencement of her reign a civil list was settled by the (English) Civil List Act, 1837 (1 Vict. c. 2), upon her late Majesty Queen Victoria for life, to the amount of 3,85,000l. was assigned for her Majesty's privy purse; in return for which grant it was provided that the hereditary revenues of the Crown (with the exception of the hereditary duties of excise on beer, ale, and cider, which were to be discontinued during the reign, and as to which see the title HEREDITARY DUTIES) should, during the late Queen's life, be carried to an form part of the consolidated fund.
The (English) Civil List Acts, 1901 (1 Edw. 7, c. 4), provided for similar grants (with modifications) to King Edward VII.; 1910 (10 Edw. 7 & 1 Geo. 5, c. 15), to King George V.; and 1936 (26 Geo. 5 & 1 Edw. 8, c. 15), to King Edward VIII.; and 1937 (1 Edw. 8 & 1 Geo. 6, c. 32), to King George VI.
Civil List pensions to the amount of 2,500l. a year are also and additionally grantable by the Crown, but only to such persons as 'have just claims on the royal beneficence, or who by their personal services to the Crown, by the performance of duties to the public or by their useful discoveries in science and attainments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious consideration of their sovereign and the gratitude of their country.' [Civil List Act,1837, ss. 5, 6 as amended by Civil List Act, 1937, s. 9 (1)]
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