Taking a dip into uncharted waters
IN SERVICE...the training ship Wellesley in the Tyne.
IMPRESSMENT into the Royal Navy – the Press Gang – cast a long shadow over Shields and the rest of Tyneside at the beginning of the 19th century.
But it still didn’t always fulfil the manning levels required in time of war.
Gradually, recruitment was formalised to where, by 1853, all boys from the ages of 14-17 joining the Navy had to sign an engagement to serve 10 years, with the possibility of serving further engagements, towards the 20 years required for a long-service pension.
Now, thanks to the National Archives, you can search and download more than 600,000 service records for most ratings who joined the Royal Navy between 1853 and 1923.
I’ve found it quite engrossing. Already I’ve found a chap who I’m pretty sure is a forebear of mine who joined the Royal Navy in 1899.
The records can tell you about your ancestor’s physical appearance, such as hair and eye colour, height and whether or not they had any tattoos; their “character” and “ability”, their occupation and which ship or ships they served on.
You can also find out about any wounds they may have received and their date of death, if it occurred in service.
You can search under the person’s name, their service number, and date and place of birth,
What I’ve also found fascinating is that you can cross-check the records with the names of some of those boys who served in the old training ship Wellesley, here on the Tyne – those for the 1880s, for instance, can be found online – and see which of them, if any, actually went on to join the Royal Navy.
The ships also include some famous names, such as HMS Victory, and in that respect, the records can show how haphazard the lives of some of those old seamen could be, such as George Smith, who served in Victory, but whose birth date isn’t known, other than “it was about a fortnight before Christmas in 1838”.
You can also view the naval service records of well-known First World War veterans, like the late Henry Allingham, who enlisted with the Royal Naval Air Service in 1915.
The records of seamen who entered the Royal Navy after 1923 are not held by the National Archives, by the way.
Visit www.nationalarchive.gov.uk Note that, after the initial search, there is a charge for downloading images.
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Weather for South Shields
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 8 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: East
Comments
There are 2 comments to this article
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magoonigal
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 10:52 PMThe story goes that Dolly Peel was a local Fishwife (and perhaps a bit of a Smuggler as well!) who's Husband and Son were Press-ganged during the Napoleonic Wars. She sneaked on-board the Ship to join them and hid. She was eventually discovered, put to work as a Nurse and allowed to stay on-board. She was rewarded with a Pardon (For upsetting Naval Law.) because of her dedication, her Husband and Son were released and exempted from further Press-ganging. When she got back home she was treated as a 'Local Hero'.
Brian. H.
Friday, February 17, 2012 at 04:47 PMIsn't this where "Dolly Peel" got her fame? She used to hide men up her skirts when the press gangs were about! Or am I mistaken?
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