Indian Navy

In 1830 the Bombay Marine was renamed the Indian Navy, based at Bombay. The Indian Navy, a combatant force, co-operated with the Royal Navy in policing Asian waters and also carried out regular marine surveys. In 1863 it was disbanded and replaced by two non-combatant marine services based in Bombay and Bengal respectively. In 1877 it was decided to combine the Bombay and Bengal Marines into a new combatant service entitled HM Indian Marine, with Western (Bombay) and Eastern (Calcutta) Divisions - HM Indian Marine was renamed the Royal Indian Marine in 1892 and the Royal Indian Navy in 1934.

FIBIS resources

• FIBIS database: Bombay Marine - Indian Navy multiple databases.
• FIBIS database: Indian Navy Family Pension Records located in Military records/Pensions and Funds, from the British Library records :Indian Navy Fund: Family Register, compiled c 1855 with additions IOR/L/AG/23/18/2 and Indian Navy Fund: Family Register, compiled Jun 1864 with additions IOR/L/AG/23/18/3.

These records are also available, with images, on the findmypast website.

• FIBIS database: WW1 British Officers of the Indian Army and Royal Marine. Casualty lists of Officers and Civil Servants in the Indian Army and Royal Marine who died in the Great War (1914-1920).

Records

The Navy List

For at least some periods, The Navy List, mostly about the Royal Navy, also included details about officers in the Royal Indian Marines etc. For editions available online, see Military periodicals online - Navy List.

India Office records at the British Library

FIBIS Chairman Peter Bailey wrote the following about officers in the Second World War, but his advice is generally applicable:

"Generally speaking the Personal Files of those who served as officers in the RIN during the Second World War, are to be found in the India Office Records at the British Library under Catalogue Number L/MIL/16/10 et sequ. However, since there is some chance that the persons concerned may still be alive, you may have to show proof that you are the person concerned or that they are no longer with us and that you are directly related to them. Some records of service for Seamen as well as officers may be available in L/MIL/16/1-9 which cover the period c1840-1947 and an index is available on the open shelves.

Records of leave and duty pay from 1886-1950 are to be found in L/AG/20/13 and leave accounts and records of the payment of gratuities for officers released in the UK from 1945-47 may be found in L/AG/20/13/37-45. Finally, records of service pensions paid to retired officers in the UK from 1886-1968 are in L/AG/21/21 or L/AG/21/11"

Military Department Records

Search for the following catalogue entries in the British Library Archives and Manuscripts Search.

• Royal Indian Marine and Royal Indian Navy IOR/L/MIL/16 c1840 - c1947.
• Departmental Papers IOR/L/MIL/7
  • Naval cadetships IOR/L/MIL/7/1345-1348 1881-1904
  • Royal Indian Marine: confidential reports on officers and engineers IOR/L/MIL/7/2208-2215 1889-1919
  • Indian Marine: appointment of Assistant Engineers IOR/L/MIL/7/4105-4136 1879-1916
  • Director of Royal Indian Marine: appointment of etc IOR/L/MIL/7/11211-11235 1876-1943
  • Royal Indian Marine and Royal Indian Navy: appointment of officers IOR/L/MIL/7/15381-15502 1878-1942
• Military Department Library IOR/L/MIL/17/9 1870-1948. Includes publications on the Bombay/Indian Marine/Navy such as Navy Lists; Orders; Circulars; Notifications; Instructions; Regulations; Troop and Transport Service and Administrative miscellanea.
  • Bombay/Indian Marine/Navy List ‎ (1870-1949) IOR/L/MIL/17/9/1-291. The frequency varies: half-yearly 1870-77, monthly 1878-Jan 1882, quarterly Apr 1882-Apr 1923, half-yearly Oct 1923-Jul 1925, and quarterly from 1926.

Marine Department Records

• Marine Miscellaneous Records IOR/L/MAR/C 1600-1879. These records include “personnel records of the Company's maritime service (at all levels of employment, but including particularly the appointment and services of commanders and mates of East Indiamen), the Bombay Marine, the Indian Navy, and the Bengal Pilot Service”.

Findmypast records

• Bombay Marine and Pilot Service Appointments 1822-1832, IOR/L/MAR/C/688 and Volunteers (cadets) for the Indian Navy, 1838-1859 IOR/L/MAR/C/710-714, are available, with images, on the findmypast website, in The British in India Collection, believed to be located in British India Office Births & Baptisms.

FamilySearch digitised microfilms

• IOR Marine records on LDS films include microfilms from the series IOR/L/MAR/C which contain wording "Bombay Marine" and "Indian Navy" in the film description.

See FamilySearch Centres for access details. Most appear to be available both at FamilySearch Centres and FamilySearch Affiliate Libraries.

The National Archives, Kew

• Royal Indian Navy: War Diaries ADM 199/769 1943

Marine Survey of India

The Marine Survey Department was established as a separate Department in 1874. Previously this work was carried out by naval officers.

Persian Gulf 1909–14

A clasp to the Naval General Service Medal (1915), "Persian Gulf 1909–14" was issued for operations against pirates, gun-runners and slavers. This clasp was awarded to an officer on RIMS Palindurus, an indication of the type of operations during this period.

First World War

During the First World War ships of the Royal Indian Marine carried troops and other war stores from India to Egypt, Mesopotamia and East Africa. When mines were detected off the coasts of Bombay and Aden during the First World War, the Royal Indian Marine went into action with a fleet of minesweepers, patrol vessels and troop carriers. The Royal Indian Marine also played a leading role in landing troops in Mesopotamia and their small river craft did very useful work on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

Many of the duties in Mesopotamia were subsequently transferred to the Inland Water Transport, which was part of the Royal Engineers, in September 1916. Following this, some of the Royal Indian Marine officers were transferred to the Royal Engineers, in addition to other personnel. Officially, they appear to have been regarded as attached to Inland Water Transport, and to have remained part of Royal Indian Marine.

Second World War

• Hans Houterman & Jeroen Koppes’ World War II unit histories and officers includes
  • Royal Indian Navy (RIN) Officers 1939-1945
  • Royal Indian Naval Reserve (RINR) Officers 1939-1945
  • Royal Indian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RINVR) Officers 1939-1945
  • Burma Naval Volunteer Reserve (BRNVR) Officers 1939-1945

Related articles

• Royal Navy
• Bengal Pilot Service
• Bombay Marine
• Ships of the Bombay Marine and Indian Navy

External links

• Indian Navy Bharat Rakshak including
  • Indian Naval History
• Indian Navy: Naval History
• Details of the 3 volume China Medal Roll 1856-60 by K.J. Asplin Savannah Publications London 2004 from The Asplin Military History Resources, now archived. Includes Volume 1: Royal Navy including Indian Marine Also see 2nd China War
• Naval-History.net includes various information relating to the Indian Navy during WW1 and subsequent years including
  • WW1: Mesopotamian (Iraq) Campaign, 1914-1918
  • WW2: Royal Indian Navy Ship Histories, Convoy Escort Movements, Casualty Lists 1939-1947
• Role of Royal Indian Marine in WW I Indian Navy, now an archived page.
• "Port trust employees, Parsis were in WW I" August 15 2014. nergish.sunavala@timesgroup.com. The Times of India (Mumbai), now archived. Memorial in Mumbai (Bombay) to seamen who died in WW1, including those in the Royal Indian Marine.
• WW I: Baffling end in Tigris by Andrew Stone. 11 September 2014. nzherald.co.nz. Lieutenant Bernard Edmund Tibbs from New Zealand.
• Royal Indian Navy Mutiny, February 1946
  • Royal Indian Navy mutiny Wikipedia
  • Royal Indian Navy (Mutiny) Hansard 22 February 1946
  • "Indian Navy Mutiny Spreads, Leads To Rebellion In Bombay As Mobs Loot, Wreck City" The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld.) 23 February 1946.
  • "Uncle Lawrence in the 1946 Naval Mutiny" by Reginald Massey 2014 indiaofthepast.org
  • "RIN mutiny gave a jolt to the British" by Dhananjaya Bhat. February 12, 2006 Spectrum: The Tribune
  • "Military meals and mutinies" by Vikram Doctor, December 12, 2012 The Economic Times. Mentions the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny in 1946.
• Commander Arthur King - obituary [1917-2014] 01 February 2015 The Telegraph, archived page. He was in the Royal Indian Navy 1936-c 1947. He is probably "Commander King, who commanded HMIS Talwar" whose actions led to/aggravated the 1946 Mutiny, mentioned in Reginald Massey's article above.
• Slideshow: A peek into India's enduring maritime history Photographs by K.K. Mustafah. The Southern Naval Command’s Maritime Museum, located at Fort Kochi, hosts a variety of exhibits tracing the origin and evolution of the Indian Navy. The Hindu May 21, 2013
• "Old Conways & India – Part I: The Indian Navies v10" by Alfie Windsor, 2017. Accounts by Old Conways, old boys from the British training school ship HMS Conway. hmsconway.org
• Great War Forum contains a category "Sailors, navies and the war at sea"

Historical books online

• History of the Indian Navy. (1613-1863) Volume 1 by Charles Rathbone Low 1877. Covers the period 1613-1830. Volume 2. Covers the period 1831-1863
• ‪The Shannon's Brigade in India‬: ‪being some account of Sir William Peel's Naval Brigade in the Indian Campaign of 1857-1858‬ by Edmund Hope Verney, Lieut. R.N. 1862 ‪Google Books
• General Report on the Operations of the Marine Survey of India from the commencement in 1874, to the end of the Official Year 1874-75 by Commander A Dundas Taylor (late I N) 1876 Archive.org
• Issues of The Naval Review, Journal of the Naval Society. During most of WWI the Journal was not published, but information was collected and published after the War. “In World War II there was no censorship, and the regular “Notes on the War at Sea” and "Diary of the War at Sea" are important records of naval events during World War II. “ Although previously available without restriction, now only available to members (subscription required), or in some other circumstances, see Royal Navy-Historical books online for details.
  • 'The Royal Indian Navy" (scroll down) by Vice- Admiral A E F Bedford, The Naval Review May 1938 Vol XXVI no. 2, pages 212-220, now an archived webpage.
  • World War 1 at Sea - Contemporary Accounts: The Navy Records Society and The Naval Review Scroll down to Part 2, Naval Review letter R “Royal Indian Marine”, then access the articles mentioned in the Naval Review Archives. naval-history.net
• The Inland Water Transport in Mesopotamia by Lieut.Col L J Hall, R.E. 1921 Archive.org. The initial part of the book sets out the problems being experienced which led to the formation of the Inland Water Transport: Page xii states that the work of controlling and managing the fleet of river craft "was not in the usual line of Army or Royal Indian Marine experience".
• "The Royal Indian Marine" page 79 Report Of The Army In India Committee 1919-20 (1920) Archive.org
• "The History Of The Royal Indian Marine" by E. J. Headlam, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts Vol. 77, No. 3985 (April 5th, 1929), pp. 519-540 (22 pages). jstor.org. Register with JSTOR and read online for free, limits apply, see Miscellaneous tips
• "The Royal Indian Navy" by Commodore J. T. S. Hall C.I.E., R.I.N. pages 68-79 Journal of The Royal Central Asian Society Volume 32, 1945 - Issue 1. Download this journal from Pahar-Mountains of Central Asia Digital Dataset If download icon does not display, locate under Journals.
• 1919. Signal Letters of British Ships (formerly the British Code List) for the use of ships at sea, and for signal stations Prepared by Charles H Jones, Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen. Published for the Committee of Lloyd’s. Memorial University of Newfoundland Digital Archives Initiative (DAI). Direct link for pdf download. Page xix “Ships belonging to the Royal Indian Marine”
• The Royal Indian Navy 1939-1945 by Instructor Lieutenant D.J.E. Collins, B.A.L.T. Indian Navy. 1964. Part of the series Official History of the Indian Armed Forces In the Second World War by the Combined Inter-Services Historical Section (India & Pakistan). From "HyperWar: World War II on the World Wide Web"
• Under Two Ensigns: The Indian Navy 1945-1950 by Rear Admiral Satyindra Singh (Retd) c 1986. Scribd.com version, Docslide version
• No Easy Answers: The Development of the Navies of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka 1945 - 1996 by James Goldrick. Papers in Australian Maritime Affairs No 2 1997. Chapter 1 is a history to 1947. Pdf from the Australian Navy website navy.gov.au
• General Report on the Operations of the Marine Survey of India from the commencement in 1874, to the end of the Official Year 1874-75 by Commander A Dundas Taylor (late I N) 1876 Archive.org