§ MR. E. H. LAMB (Rochester)To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that John William Davidson, who served for over fifty years as a civilian clerk in the School of Military Engineering, Chatham, and who is now in his sixty-eighth year, has been discharged without any pension, although he has no means of his own with which to support himself, on the grounds that his fifty years service was merely a temporary engagement, and that he had no Civil Service certificate; and, if so, whether Mr. Davidson, having entered the service of Honourable East India Company in 1855, is entitled to superannuation under The Government of India Act, 1858; is he aware that he had served twelve years before any intimation was given him that his appointment was temporary; and further, that the War Office have acknowledged that his failure to receive a certificate was due to an inadvertence on their own part; and, if so, what steps will now be taken to remedy the injustice that he appears to have suffered.
(Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) Mr. Davidson was discharged with a gratuity of £188 13s., but without a pension, because the Treasury after repeated consideration was satisfied that he was not 1232 entitled to one. The Treasury is not in possession of any evidence showing that Mr. Davidson has any claim under the Government of India Act, 1858, but any inquiry on that point should be addressed to the India Office. I do not know whether he had served twelve years before any intimation was conveyed to him that his appointment was temporary, but no explicit assurance was at any time given to him that he would be entitled to a pension, and any erroneous impression which he may have been led to form on the point was corrected as long ago as 1868. I cannot admit that the omission to obtain for Mr. Davidson a Civil Service certificate or other formal evidence of a title to pension was due to inadvertence on the part of the War Department, seeing that, so recently as 1895, an increase of salary was applied for and granted to him on the express ground that he was not entitled to pension.