A Government office which, as now constituted, dates from 1786, but whose functions within recent times have been considerably widened; consists of a president (a Cabinet minister), and ex officio the Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury, First Lord of the Treasury, the principal Secretaries of State, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Speaker, and others, but the actual work of the Board is left in the hands of the president and his secretarial staff; comprises five departments: statistical and commercial; railway; marine; harbour; financial.