The War Office has referred to several British government organisations throughout history, all relating to the army. It was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, at which point its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). It was equivalent to the Admiralty at that time, which was responsible for the Royal Navy (RN), and (much later) the Air Ministry, which oversaw the Royal Air Force (RAF). The name 'Old War Office' is also given to the former home of the department, located at the junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall in central London. The landmark building was sold on 1 March 2016 by HM Government for more than £350 million, on a 250-year lease, for conversion into a luxury hotel and residential apartments.
Prior to 1855, 'War Office' signified the office of the Secretary at War. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a number of independent offices and individuals were responsible for various aspects of Army administration. The most important were the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, the Secretary at War, and the twin Secretaries of State; most of whose military responsibilities were passed to a new Secretary of State for War in 1794. Others who performed specialist functions were the controller of army accounts, the Army Medical Board, the Commissariat Department, the Board of General Officers, the Judge Advocate General of the Armed Forces, the Commissary General of Muster, the Paymaster General of the forces, and (particularly with regard to the Militia) the Home Office.
The term War Department was initially used for the separate office of the Secretary of State for War; in 1855, the offices of Secretary at War and Secretary of State for War were merged, and thereafter the terms War Office and War Department were used somewhat interchangeably.
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History
The War Office developed from the Council of War, an ad hoc grouping of the King and his senior military commanders which managed the Kingdom of England's wars and campaigns. The management of the War Office was directed initially by the Secretary at War, whose role had originated during the reign of King Charles II as the secretary to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army. In the latter part of the 17th century, the office of Commander-in-Chief was vacant for several periods, which left the Secretary at War answering directly to the Sovereign; and thereafter, even when the office of Commander-in-Chief was restored on a more permanent basis, the Secretary at War retained his independence.
The department of the Secretary at War was referred to as the 'Warr Office' (sic) from as early as 1694; its foundation has traditionally been ascribed to William Blathwayt, who had accompanied King William III during the Nine Years' War and who, from his appointment as Secretary in 1684, had greatly expanded the remit of his office to cover general day-to-day administration of the Army.
After Blathwayt's retirement in 1704, Secretary at War became a political office. In political terms, it was a fairly minor government job (despite retaining a continued right of access to the monarch) which dealt with the minutiae of administration, rather than grand strategy. The Secretary, who was usually a member of the House of Commons, routinely presented the House with the Army Estimates, and occasionally spoke on other military matters as required. In symbolic terms, he was seen as signifying parliamentary control over the Army. Issues of strategic policy during wartime were managed by the Northern and Southern Departments (the predecessors of today's Foreign Office and Home Office).
From 1704 to 1855 the post of Secretary remained occupied by a minister of the second rank (although he was occasionally part of the Cabinet after 1794). Many of his responsibilities were transferred to the Secretary of State for War after the creation of that more senior post in 1794 (though the latter was also responsible for Britain's colonies from 1801, and renamed Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, an arrangement which only ceased with the establishment of the Colonial Office in 1854).
From 1824 the British Empire (excepting India, which was administered separately by the East India Company and then the India Office) was divided by the War and Colonial Office into the following administrative departments:
The Old War Office building
As early as 1718 letters from the Secretary at War were addressed from "The War Office". His department had several headquarters in London until it settled at Horse Guards in Whitehall during 1722. It remained there until 1858. Then, following the dissolution of the Board of Ordnance, the War Office moved into the Board's former offices in Cumberland House, Pall Mall. Over the ensuing years it expanded into adjacent properties on Pall Mall before it was relocated to purpose-built accommodation, in what is now known as the Old War Office Building, in 1906.
Between 1906 and its abolition in 1964 the War Office was based in a large neo-Baroque building designed by William Young, completed during 1906, and located on Horse Guards Avenue at its junction with Whitehall in central London. The construction of the building required five years to complete, at a cost of more than 1.2 million pounds. The building is somewhat oddly shaped, forming a trapezoid to maximise the use of the irregularly shaped plot of land on which it was built: its four distinctive domes were designed as a decorative means of disguising the shape. It has around 1,100 rooms on seven floors.
After 1964 the building continued to be used, under the name The Old War Office, by the Ministry of Defence.
On 1 June 2007 the building, other than the steps that give access to it, was designated as a protected site for the purposes of Section 128 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. The effect was to make it a specific criminal offence for a person to trespass on the building.
In August 2013 it was announced that the building would be sold on the open market, with a goal of realising offers above 100 million pounds. On 13 December 2014 the Ministry of Defence confirmed that the building would be sold to the Hinduja Group for an undisclosed amount. The building's sale was completed on 1 March 2016, for more than £350 million, on a 250-year lease, to the Hinduja Group (in partnership with OHL Developments) for conversion to a luxury hotel and residential apartments. The Hinduja Group and Raffles Hotels opened the hotel, named Raffles London at The OWO, in 2023.
War Office departments
The War Office departments were as follows:
Office of the Secretary of State
Military Secretary's Department (1870–1964)
Department of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for War
Directorate-General of Lands (?–1923)
Directorate of Lands (from 1923)
Directorate-General of the Territorial and Volunteer Forces (?–1921)
Directorate-General of the Territorial Army (from 1921)
Central Department (Department of the Secretary)
Department of the Chaplain-General
Department of the Judge Advocate-General
Publicity Section/Information Section
Department of the Financial and Parliamentary Secretary (Finance Department)
Directorate of Army Contracts (from 1924)
Imperial General Staff
Directorate of Military Intelligence (?–1922)
Directorate of Military Operations (?–1922)
Directorate of Military Operations and Intelligence (from 1922)
James Bond films
The former War Office building served as the filming location for the MI6 headquarters (M's office) in five James Bond 007 movies. The landmark building appears in Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985), The Living Daylights (1986), Licence to Kill (1989), Skyfall (2012), and Spectre (2015).