The Ministry of Pensions Act 1916 created a single Ministry of Pensions to administer naval and military war pensions to former members of the Armed Forces and their dependants, and to provide medical care for the disabled.

[1] It was expanded rapidly during the opening months of the Second World War by secondment of civil servants from the Inland Revenue and other government departments.

In 1940, most of the Ministry was moved to Cleveleys, north of Blackpool, Lancashire.

[1] The Rossall School was taken over initially, but later several hundred employees worked in prefabricated one-storey office buildings assembled on a site that had been part of the Holt's farm in the Norcross section of Carleton.

The Ministry moved to buildings on Millbank in London in 1949.