Royal Navy

Records

• National Archives Guides: A-Z index, letter R Select guides relating to the Royal Navy, Royal Naval Reserve, etc. Includes
  • Royal Navy ratings 1853-1928
  • If a rating entered the Royal Navy after 1928, or a Royal Navy officer entered after May 1917, his record will still be with the Ministry of Defence. For details of how to access a record from the MOD, see the equivalent Fibiwiki section British Army - Army personnel serving after January 1921, and select information in the links provided relating to the Royal Navy.
• A great number of service records for seamen who joined the Royal Navy between 1853 and 1928 are now online and can be searched and downloaded at the relevant documents online section of the The National Archives website. There is no charge for the initial search but a fee applies to obtain sight of the full record.

For a list of abbreviations used in service records, refer External links below.

• A new free-to-search database resource project Royal Navy First World War Lives at Sea, based principally on service records held by The National Archives, is being undertaken, with the aim of completing the project by November 2018.

• Other Navy Records held at the National Archives include Officers’ service records (1756-1917) and wills of Royal Naval Seamen (1786-1822). – many of these records can also be searched and downloaded.
• findmypast includes two associated databases located in Armed forces & conflict/Service Records

"British Royal Navy & Royal Marines Service and Pension Records, 1704-1919" and "British Royal Navy & Royal Marines Service and Pension Records Browse, 1704-1919".These include records from the National Archives series ADM 29 / 1-32, 34-131 – Admiralty: Royal Navy, Royal Marines, coastguard and related services: Officers’ and Ratings’ Service Records (Series II) 1802-1919.

• findmypast includes two databases located in Armed forces & conflict/First World War

"Royal Naval Division Records 1914-1919". These are death records researched by Jack Marshall and also available on Ancestry as "Great Britain, Royal Naval Division Casualties of The Great War, 1914-1924", (Ancestry location Birth, Marriage & Death).

"Royal Naval Division Service Records 1914-1920"

The RND transferred from the authority of the Admiralty to the War Office on 29 April 1916.

• Ancestry (pay website) includes a database "UK, British Army and Navy Birth, Marriage and Death Records, 1730-1960" (located in BMD records). This database consists mainly of Naval records, sourced from the National Archives, Kew.
• Ancestry released 3 October 2018, the first stage of records in the database "UK, WWI Pension Ledgers and Index Cards, 1914-1923", (located in Military), which are index records, with the images available on the Ancestry owned pay website fold3, (which requires an Ancestry All Access subscription, or a separate fold3 subscription). The first released records relate to Naval and Mercantile Marine explained in the WFA article "Release of Naval and Mercantile Marine Pension Records by Ancestry" October 2018.
• Royal Navy & Royal Marines Service Records held at the Fleet Air Arm Museum. The FAA Museum, part of the National Museum of the Royal Navy, is located at the Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, Somerset (also known as HMS Heron). The FAA Museum generally does not hold records of service for those who enlisted after about 1925, which are still held in the custody of the Ministry of Defence.
• Research guides: The Royal Navy Royal Museums Greenwich. Includes "Research guide B1: The Royal Navy: Tracing people" and "Research guide B3: The Royal Navy: Sources for enquiries".

Merchant Navy

• findmypast includes the following databases located in Education & work/Merchant navy & maritime
  • Britain, Merchant Seamen, 1918-1941. National Archives records BT 348, BT 349, BT 350 and BT 364. Images. Some records include photographs
  • England & Wales Merchant Navy Crew Lists 1861-1913. Transcripts and some images. Includes Lascars
  • Ireland Merchant Navy Crew Lists 1863-1921. Images of the original records from the National Archives of Ireland. Crew members were not only from Ireland but also from around the world.
• Research guide C1: The Merchant Navy : Tracing people – crew lists, agreements and official logs At the bottom of the page other guides to the Merchant Navy are listed including

Research guide C9: The Merchant Navy Find out about merchant ships involved in the First World War. Includes researching crew members, with links to additional guides. Royal Museums Greenwich.

• The book Lloyd's War Losses : the First World War : casualties to shipping through enemy causes, 1914-1918 is available at the British Library UIN: BLL01011394103. This is a 1990 facsimile reprint of the original held at Guildhall Library, City of London, now the London Metropolitan Archives.

Navy List

• For links to a selection from 1782 -1945 searchable online see the Fibiwiki page Military Periodicals online- Navy Lists
• Online Navy Lists are also available on the website of the National Library of Scotland, NLS, with transcriptions available, together with a Search facility, as Navy Lists: 1913 to 1944
• The pay website Ancestry has a broken range of editions of the Navy List from 1888 to 1970. These are searchable by name and linked to relevant page images. The same dataset is also available on the Ancestry owned pay website fold3.
• The National Archives catalogue entry 18th Century Royal Navy Lists 1782, 1790-1799 QLIB 3. National Archives Library. The full title of the Lists is Steel's Original and Correct List of the Royal Navy. The Lists were published monthly during war and quarterly during peace, and include details of ships of the Honourable East-India Company. All years are available as a pay download.
• For editions not available online, The Navy List is available at the British Library, UIN: BLL01012418229, from 1815, and also in the Library of the National Archives, from November 1814.

Medal Rolls

Free downloads of the Naval Medal Rolls are available from the National Archives website, or the same information is available on the pay website Ancestry. See the page Medal Rolls for details.

Also see

• Maritime Service

External links

• Naval-History.Net "Preserving Naval History Research and Memoirs ..... making Contemporary Accounts more readily available". All periods including WW1 and WW2.
• The World War I Document Archive includes a category The War at Sea which includes the category Bibliography. A slightly later dated Bibliography than appears on the website is WWI Naval Bibliography.
• Military Ancestors: Royal Navy from the National Archives' British Battles
• Naval: Late 18th, 19th and early 20th Century Naval and Naval Social History Index from pbenyon.plus.com
• Great War Forum includes a category "Ships and navies".
• The 63rd (Royal Naval) Division. longlongtrail.co.uk. The RND transferred from the authority of the Admiralty to the War Office on 29 April 1916.
• "Anglo-Japanese Naval Cooperation, 1914-1918" by Timothy D. Saxon Naval War College Review Winter 2000, Vol. 53 Issue 1, p62 . Website of Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia, USA.
• Navy Records Society. The Navy Records Society publishes in print and online rare and original documents on naval history. A subscription gives access to Digital volumes. Select Books, for details of the publications, including The Naval Brigades in the Indian Mutiny, 1857-58 (1947) and The Second China War, 1856-1860 (1954). Some sample pages from Volume 158 (2011), The Mediterranean Fleet, 1919–1929 edited by Paul Halpern. Google Books. Some of the earlier publications are available online, refer below.
• Obituary of John Winton [naval author], 1931-2001, pen name of Lieutenant-Commander John Pratt. 03 May 2001 The Telegraph. He wrote many books, both non fiction and fiction, relating to the Royal Navy. John Winton Wikipedia. Contains a list of his books.
• Service Record Abbreviations. Common abbreviations and phrases found in Royal Navy and Royal Marines Service Records from various periods. The National Museum of the Royal Navy.
• Naval Shore Establishments The National Museum of the Royal Navy. Includes India, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Singapore. Note: "This list is NOT comprehensive".

In addition, HMS Highfligher was the Royal Naval Base at Trincomalee in Ceylon, commissioned on 1 July 1943.

• East Indies and China Station Wikipedia. In existence 1831 to 1865, until separated into two separate stations. Rejoined in 1941 to form the Eastern Fleet.
  • East Indies Station Wikipedia. The East Indies Station had bases in Ceylon at Colombo and Trincomalee, and at Bombay, Basra and Aden.
  • Commander-in-Chief, China Wikipedia. Information about China Station. The formation had bases at Singapore, Hong Kong and Wei Hai.
• "The Royal Navy East Indies & China Naval Station: A brief History Including Letters from Officers and Seamen" by Gerald J. Ellott May 2011. Postal History and Philately.
• Listen to the 1990 interview with Henley Charles Claxton British seaman. Includes service aboard HMS Vindictive on China Station, 1925-1928 Reels 7-9. Catalogue number 11945. In most of the reels there is a delay before the sound commences, of up to approximately one minute. Imperial War Museums.
• www.royalnavyresearcharchive.org.uk. Use the Search facility to locate items. Includes
  • H M S Tamar, R N Base Hong Kong
  • Cyril H H Poole photographs including Submarines of the 4th Submarine Flotilla based at Hong Kong, Singapore, and Wei Hei Wei
  • Fleet Air Arm Bases, WW2
    • India: R N Air Section Juhu on the coast 7½ miles N. of Bombay city; R N Air Section Cochin; R N A M Y Tambaram 13 miles SW. of Madras; R N Air Section Vizagapatam
    • Ceylon RNAS Trincomalee; RNAS Colombo Racecourse
• Royal Navy Loss List Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust. Includes a link to a database to search or download.
• The Royal Navy, 1922-1930 : the search for a naval policy in an age of re-adjustment by Edward Des Rosiers. Link to a pdf download. Direct pdf link. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, McGill University, Canada, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History. August 1966.

Historical books online

Also see Military periodicals online for details of Navy Lists, also see above, and publications such as Army and Navy Gazette, Illustrated Naval and Military Magazine and Naval & Military Gazette.

General

• Royal Naval Biography 1828 by John Marshall googlebooks
• A New List of all the Ships and Vessels of Her Majesties Royal Navy ... pub 1711. Google Books
• ‪The Ship-master's Assistant and Owner's Manual: Containing Complete Information, as Well to Merchants, Masters of Ships, and Persons Employed in the Merchant-service, as to Officers and Others in the Royal Navy, Relative to the Mercantile and Maritime Laws and Customs by ‪David Steel. 9th Edition Very Considerably Improved and Enlarged 1801 Google Books.
• The Royal Navy: a history from the earliest times to the present by Sir Wm. Laird Clowes. Volume VII has title The Royal Navy, a history from the earliest times to the death of Queen Victoria. Archive.org. Volume I, Volume II,

Volume III 1898. Covers the period 1714-1792. Index entry East India

Volume IV 1899. Includes "Major Operations of the Royal Navy 1793-1802" page 196

Volume V 1900. Includes "Major Operations of the Royal Navy 1803-1815" page 44

Volume VI 1901. Includes "Military History of the Royal Navy 1816-1856" page 222

Volume VII 1903. Includes "Military History of the Royal Navy 1857-1900" page 91

• The King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions for the Government of His Majesty's Naval Service, Volume I HMSO 1913, reprinted 1916. Archive.org
  • "Regulation 553: Beards and Moustaches" page 163
• Publications of the Navy Records Society. Multiple volumes, from a Search using key words "Navy Records Society", from Volume 1, 1894, to 1926, some of which are catalogued according to year of publication, not specific title. Archive.org. There may be additional volumes catalogued by title. Refer External links above, for the Navy Records Society, whose website contains details of its publications.
• A voyage from England to India, in the year 1754, and an historical narrative of the operations of the squadron and army in India, under the command of Vice-Admiral Watson and Colonel Clive, in the years 1755, 1756, 1757 ... Also a journey from Persia to England by an unusual route. With an appendix, containing an account of the diseases prevalent in Admiral Watson's squadron, etc. by Edward Ives, formerly Surgeon of Admiral Watson’s Ship, and of His Majesty’s Hospital in the East Indies 1773 Google Books. Pdf download, Digital Library of India, Archive.org version.
• The Navy In India 1763-1783 by Herbert W. Richmond 1931. Pdf download, Digital Library of India, Archive.org version.
• Travels in India Ceylon and Borneo by Captain Basil Hall RN, FRS, Selected and edited by Professor H G Rawlinson 1931 Archive.org. Selected from Fragments of Voyages and Travels (in nine volumes). Captain Hall was appointed to the East India Station in 1812.
• Report on the Health of the Navy. Title varied. Initially titled Statistical Report on the Health of the Navy, and some editions possibly may have been titled Statistical Report of the Health of the Navy. Also A Statistical Return of the Health of the Royal Navy. Later titles may have omitted Statistical. It appears to have been published generally annually from 1830, through to c 1936 by HMSO [His/Her Majesty's Stationery Office] and also presented to the House of Commons as a Parliamentary Paper.
  • "The health of the Navy: the changing pattern" by FP Ellis Brit. J. Industr. Med., 1969, 26, 190-201. pubmedcentralcanada.ca
  • Statistical Reports on the Health of the Navy, for the years 1830, 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834, 1835 and 1836, etc. [A reprint of pt. 1, without the Appendices]. 1841 Google Books
  • A Statistical Return of the Health of the Royal Navy for the Year 1858 in Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons 1861 Volume XXXVIII 1861. Google Books. Includes "East India and China Station", page 113
  • Statistical Report on the Health of the Navy for the Year 1871 Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and Command, Volume 46 1873. Google Books.

  Includes "East India Station", page 218, with Map of East India Station, and "China Station" page 261

• Cover title: A Naval Cadet with H.M.S. Shannon Brigade in India: Journal of Edward Spencer Watson. Title page Journal. India: with H.M.S. "Shannon", Naval Brigade, from August 18th, 1858. Note however, there appears to be a typographical error, as correct date should be 1857. Catalogued as published 1858. Google Books.
• ‪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
  • Also see Fiction below for a novel, The Devil's Wind by Maj. Gen.G.L. Verney, concerning the Shannon's Brigade.
• Navy Estimates Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and Command, Volume 35 1863. Google Books. Includes
  • "China"
  • "Navy (China Seas)"
• Online articles from The Naval Review. Update Although previously available without restriction, now only available to members, or "Time limited access to the archive is open to researchers and historians after 10 years from an article’s original publishing date for a small administration charge". Book reviews are part of the website available to members of the public. Based on library catalogues, Oxford University Library appears to have a complete set of volumes, Imperial War Museums (LBY E. 5 / 229) some, but missing WW2; British Library UIN: BLL01012090056 ("stock incomplete").

Browse the Contents page for each issue, or there is an Index of articles 1913-1976. Pdf downloads. Many of the articles appear without authors, which appear in "Author List for the Naval Review 1913-1930" by James Goldrick.

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.“ The website Naval-History.Net, refer above, contains an index of articles relating to WW1.

• "A Naval Brigade In Burma in 1858" (scroll down) by W. B. R. The Naval Review May 1938 Vol XXVI no 2, pages 283-288. The destination was the frontier post and Fort at Meaday, on the Irrawaddy. Available as an archived webpage.
• "The Tigris Above Baghdad" by Lieut-Comr. A S Elwell-Sutton RN. Scroll to item 15 page 153 The Naval Review February 1923 Vol. XI No. I, produced by The Naval Society. Details of the Caddisfly, one of the 'Fly' class gunboats. Available as an archived webpage.

• "The First Commission of HMS Firefly" by Staff Surgeon FG Hitch RN JRNMS Volume 4, 1918 Archive.org. One of the 'Fly' class gunboats. Also details of other craft on the river Tigris.
• Fifty Years in the Royal Navy by Admiral Sir Percy Scott 1919. Includes Naval gunnery, the Boxer Rising, the China Station and WW1.
• History of the Great War based on Official Documents: Naval Operations.Volumes I-III by Sir Julian Stafford Corbett, Volumes IV-V by Henry Newbolt. Published 1920-1931. Archive.org and Hathi Trust (Vol. V): Volume I, Volume II, includes Gallipoli. Volume III Includes Gallipoli and Mesopotamia. Volume IV , includes Mesopotamia. Volume V. Naval-History.net has transcribed editions which additionally contain maps from a separate case for Volumes II and III.

History of the Great War based on Official Documents: The Merchant Navy by Archibald Hurd 1921-1929. Volume I, Volume II Archive.org. Volume III is available as a transcribed edition on Naval-History.net

• First World War books by E. Keble Chatterton, late Lieutenant-Commander RNVR:

Q-Ships and their Story 1923 Archive.org. Q-ship Wikipedia. Q-Ships were armed ships, originally merchant ships, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. Q-Ships of the Great War by Barbara J Coder a research paper April 2000. dtic.mil

Danger Zone: the Story of the Queenstown Command 1934 Hathi Trust Digital Library.

Dardanelles Dilemma: The Story of the Naval Operations by E. Keble Chatterton 1935 Hathi Trust Digital Library. Also available as a pdf to download Digital Library of India, Archive.org version.

Seas of Adventures: the Story of the Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Aegean [1914-1918] 1936 Hathi Trust Digital Library.

"Severn's" Saga by E. Keble Chatterton 1938 Hathi Trust Digital Library. HMS Severn in East Africa.

• Pushing Water by Eric P Dawson, Lieutenant, RNVR. 1918 Archive.org. The Auxiliary Motor Boat Patrol, also known as the Mosquito Fleet.
• Dover during the Dark Days by a "Dug-Out" (Lieut.-Commander Stanley W Coxon RNVR). With contributions by other officers of the Dover Patrol. 1919 Archive.org. A volume in the On Active Service Series.
• Britain's Sea Soldiers. A Record of the Royal Marines during the War 1914-1919. Compiled by General Sir H. E. Blumberg, Royal Marines 1927. Hathi Trust Digital Library. May be unavailable in USA etc. Also available on the Ancestry owned pay website fold3 as an online version (located in World War II/Military Books/Britain, the first of two books with the same title) of a Naval & Military Press reprint. Also available lib.militaryarchive.co.uk, which requires Flash turned on (click if you see a Flash icon).
• Indiscretions of the Naval Censor by Rear-Admiral Sir Douglas Brownrigg [1867-1939] 1920 Archive.org
• The Heroic Record of the British Navy; a Short History of the Naval War, 1914-1918 by Archibald Hurd and H H Bashford 1919 Archive.org
• The Naval Front by Gordon S Maxwell, Lieut. RNVB illustrated by Donald Maxwell, Lieut. RNVB 1920 Archive.org. Includes chapters on Gallipoli and Mesopotamia.
• The Navy in Mesopotamia, 1914 to 1917 by Conrad Cato 1917 Archive.org
• Books on Archive.org classified by the uploader World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations
• World War I Naval Staff Monographs. Compiled by the Historical Section of the Training and Staff Duties Division of the Naval Staff from Admiralty records and original papers in the temporary custody of the the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Website of the Royal Australian Navy. (Select Media Room/Publications/World War I Naval Staff Monographs).

Includes Volume 2 East Africa to July 1915; Cameroons, 1914; Volume 4: Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf; Volume 5 including China Squadron, 1914 (including Emden Hunt), and East Indies Squadron, 1914

• World War II Naval Staff Histories Eight volumes including Naval Operations off Ceylon. Website of the Royal Australian Navy.

BR 1886 (C.B. 4273 (52) H.M. Ships Damaged or Sunk by Enemy Action 3 Sep 1939 - 2 Sep 1945 Based on reports held in the Admiralty at the time of its publication in 1952. A publication in the Navy Department: Reference Books (BR Series). Website of the Royal Australian Navy.

• On Four Fronts with the Royal Naval Division by Geoffrey Sparrow MC, and J N MacBean Ross MC Surgeons RN 1918 Archive.org. Includes Gallipoli and Salonica. The Division was under the authority of the Admiralty until 29 April 1916.
• The Royal Naval Division by Douglas Jerrold 1923. National Library of Australia. Includes Gallipoli.
• Also see First World War and the various Fronts linked from that page, and Second World War.
• Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service, published from Volume 1, 1915. Archive.org. Originally published quarterly, bound in yearly volumes. Each quarterly issue contains “News of the Service” with Honours, promotions, appointments, relevant Admitalty Orders etc. There is an Index at the back of each yearly volume which includes page numbers for each "News of the Service".
• Vocabularies: English, German, Magyar, Serbian, Bulgarian, Roumanian, Greek, Turkish Compiled by the Geographical Section of the Naval Intelligence Division, Naval Staff, Admiralty. HMSO. 1920 Archive.org
• 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 xx is titled "Ships belonging to the War Department..."

Civilians in the First World War

• A Captive on a German Raider by F G Trayes 1918. Archive.org The author, who was retiring from Siam, was a passenger on a Japanese ship "Hitachi Maru" which was captured by the "Wolf" (see next section) on 26 September 1917, two days after leaving Colombo.

German Navy

• Review Of German Cruiser Warfare, 1914-1918 British Government report 1940. Archive.org
  • Page 17. German Cruiser "Wolf" was ordered to lay mines off various Indian ports.
• Der Kreuzerkrieg in den ausländischen Gewässern, published 1922 - 1937, part of the official series Der Krieg zur See 1914-1918 German language. English Series description by Google Translate. Book texts in German. Volume 1; Volume 2 which includes the Indian Ocean; Volume 3. The latter includes "S M Hilfskreuzer Wolf" page 237 with Map of mines around Bombay, laid 19/20 January 1917 by Wolf Archive.org. Note, there was a 2nd, revised version of Volume 1, published in 1927 which possibly also includes Volume 2 as one volume.

Other online volumes :

• Der Krieg zur See 1914-1918: Der Krieg in der Nordsee Volume 1, Volume 3, Volume 4 (of seven volumes). German language. National Library of Estonia - English webpage option available.
• Der Krieg zur See 1914-1918: Der Krieg in der Ostsee Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3. Archive.org. German language.

• Unsere Marine im Weltkrieg. Bd. 2, Krieg auf sieben Ozeanen Editor: Fritz Otto Busch, Georg Günther von Forstner Volume 2. 1935. German language. National Library of Estonia - English webpage option available.
• Lauterbach of the China Sea : the Escapes and Adventures of a Seagoing Falstaff by Lowell Thomas, 1930 Archive.org. A China Sea Captain, during WW1 Julius Lauterbach was navigator on the German SMS Emden which attacked oil tanks at Madras page 51. He was later a prisoner in Singapore at Tangling prison camp page 95, and helped ferment dissatisfaction which led to the Singapore Mutiny, during which he escaped and fled, initially to Sumatra. Julius Lauterbach [1877-1937] Wikipedia Google Translate English version, Original German version.

Fiction

• The Devils Wind by Maj. Gen. G.L. Verney 1956. Pdf download, Digital Library of India. Archive.org mirror version. An account of the actions of the Naval Brigade of H.M.S. Shannon,which participated in the Relief of Lucknow, during the Indian Mutiny of 1857 told through the eyes of a very young sailor.
• Yangtze Skipper, by Thomas Woodrooffe 1937. HathiTrust Digital Library. Set in 1919 Shanghai, Toby Warren is First Lieutenant on the "Beetle", a (fictious) Royal Navy river gunboat. The author had served in this period on HMS Scarab a river gunboat.

Note, this appears to be the American title. Appears to be the same book as River of Golden Sand by Thomas Woodrooffe, first published 1936. A review of River of Golden Sand

Naval Odyssey by Thomas Woodrooffe 1938, first published 1936. HathiTrust Digital Library. Toby Warren, on the (fictitious) British cruiser HMS "Cassiopeia", participates in the events in Turkey during the 1920s, and the Royal Navy's involvement in the crises there. A publisher's note about the book and the author, says "After the war he saw service …in the Mediterranean…is thus eminently qualified to write a book about things actually seen and experienced while in the Navy".

Thomas Bovius Ralph Woodrooffe was in the Royal Navy from 1917 and became Lieutenant-Commander in 1929, retired/was dismissed in 1933 and then served in WW2. In Good Company, published 1947 is a memoir about his WW2 service as a Naval Observer. He also wrote a number of other books on naval matters. His navy service is here scroll down to his entry. unithistories.com