A political pensioner enjoys a

pension A pension (, from Latin ''pensiō'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...

awarded due to his or political career or significance.

UK domestic politicians

By the

Political Offices Pension Act 1869 Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

, pensions were instituted for those who had held political office. For the purposes of the act, political offices were divided into three classes: # those with a yearly salary of not less than £5,000; # those with a salary of less than £5,000 and not less than £2,000; # those with a salary of less than £2,000 and more than £1,000. For service in these offices there may be awarded pensions for life in the following scale: # a first class pension not exceeding £2,000 a year, in respect of not less than four years service or its equivalent, in an office of the first class; # a second class pension not exceeding £1,200, in respect of service of not less than six years or its equivalent, in an office of the second class; # a third class pension not exceeding £800 a year, in respect of service of not less than ten years in an office of the third class. The service need not be continuous, and the act makes provision for counting service in lower classes as a qualification for pension in a higher class. These pensions are limited in number to twelve, but a holder must not receive any other pension out of the public revenue, if so, he must inform the treasury and surrender it if it exceeds his political pension, or if under he must deduct the amount. He may, however, hold office while a pensioner, but the pension is not payable during the time he holds office. To obtain a political pension, the applicant must file a declaration stating the grounds upon which he claims it and that his income from other sources is not sufficient to maintain his station in life.

Colonial

Other

Similar 'golden cage' arrangements were often made later by other (not only British) governments. An extreme case was the French Emperor

Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...

, for whom the Italian island of

Elba Elba ( it, isola d'Elba, ; la, Ilva) is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino on the Italian mainland, and the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago. It is also part of the Arcipelago Toscano Nationa ...

was turned into an operetta 'empire' until his escape,

Hundred Days The Hundred Days (french: les Cent-Jours ), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on20 March 1815 and the second restoratio ...

revolt and miserable banishment to St. Helena.

India

Political pensioners were formerly reigning dynasties of Indian

princely states A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to ...

that had been dethroned and their states annexed by

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

under the

doctrine of lapse The doctrine of lapse was a policy of annexation initiated by the East India Company in the Indian subcontinent about the princely states, and applied until the year 1858, the year after Company rule was succeeded by the British Raj under the ...

Sources and references

{{Reflist History of the British Empire History of India Pensions Pensioners