The office of Vice-President of the Board of Trade is a junior ministerial position in the government of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

at the

Board of Trade The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...

. The office was created in 1786 but fell into abeyance in 1867. From 1848 onwards, the office was held concurrently with that of

Paymaster-General His Majesty's Paymaster General or HM Paymaster General is a ministerial position in the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom. The incumbent Paymaster General is Jeremy Quin MP. History The post was created in 1836 by the merger of the posit ...

. The office of Vice-President itself was effectively succeeded by that of

Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade in the United Kingdom was a member of Parliament assigned to assist the Board of Trade and its President with administration and liaison with Parliament. It replaced the Vice-President of the Board ...

but the role is extant. Notable holders of the office of Vice-President include

Lord Grenville William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, (25 October 175912 January 1834) was a British Pittite Tory politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807, but was a supporter of the Whigs for the duration of ...

William Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...

Lord Goderich Frederick John Robinson, 1st Earl of Ripon, (1 November 1782 – 28 January 1859), styled The Honourable F. J. Robinson until 1827 and known between 1827 and 1833 as The Viscount Goderich (pronounced ), the name by which he is best known to ...

and the

Earl Granville Earl Granville is a title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of Great Britain and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It is now held by members of the Leveson-Gower family. First creation The first creation came in the Pee ...

. In 2020, there was an unusual appointment of a Deputy President of the Board of Trade to assist the President, but the holder remained only an adviser to the Board. This appears to have been a one-off appointment, and this role no longer exists.

Vice-Presidents of the Board of Trade, 1786–1867 (currently in abeyance)

Deputy President of the Board of Trade, 2020

As some point on or before 8 June 2020, when it was mentioned in answer to a written parliamentary question, the Board of Trade had begun to be served by a Deputy President, in the person of the

backbencher In Westminster and other parliamentary systems, a backbencher is a member of parliament (MP) or a legislator who occupies no governmental office and is not a frontbench spokesperson in the Opposition, being instead simply a member of the ...

Marcus Fysh MP. This was later mentioned in a press release about updated membership.

References

*{{cite book , first=J.C , last=Sainty , author-link=John Sainty (civil servant) , title=Office-Holders in Modern Britain Vol. III: Officials of the Board of Trade 1660–1870 , year=1974 , url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.asp?pubid=73 , chapter=Committee of the Privy Council for trade and plantations 1786–1870: General department , chapter-url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=16804 Trade, Vice-President of the Board of