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Royal Naval Officers' Service Records

You can now search and download service records of officers who served in the Royal Navy. These records were kept by the Admiralty from the 1840s and record service for warrant officers joining the Royal Navy up to 1931 and commissioned officers joining the service up to 1917.

Below are some points to help you understand more about these service records. Use the links below to jump to the topics you are interested in.

Introduction

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Portrait of King George VI (Cat ref: INF 3/78)

The main source for Royal Naval officers' service records is series ADM 196. The records were kept by the Admiralty from the 1840s and record service for warrant officers joining the Royal Navy up to 1931 and commissioned officers joining the service up to 1917.

We have digitised the records of about 57,000 officers who joined the service between 1756 and 1917, although before the 1840s the records were not systematically kept. The pieces from ADM 196 that have been digitised are 1-6, 8-25, 29-32, 36-56, 68-71, 73-82, 84-85, 117-124, 130-137, 153, 156-161, 164-165 and 167-172.

Types of officer

Royal Navy officers can be split into two groups: commissioned officers and warrant officers.

Commissioned officers included the following ranks: Admirals (also known as flag officers), Commodores, Captains, Commanders and Lieutenants.

Warrant officers included: Gunners, Boatswains, Carpenters, Surgeons' Mates, Armourers, Sailmakers, Master At Arms, Caulker, Ropemakers and Coopers. In addition, Masters pre-1808, Surgeons pre-1843, Pursers pre-1843, Chaplains pre-1843 and Engineers pre-1847 were all warrant officers. After these dates these ranks were all commissioned officers.

Searching the service records

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We have created a specific search form for the officers' records. You can also use the Quick and Advanced Search facilities, which search across ALL documents. You can search by entering any or all of the following:

To search by date of birth, write it in the keywords field in the following format: 01 December 1880. Use spaces between the day, month and year but no hyphens. The majority of the service records don't include a date of birth, so if you don't get a result try omitting it from your search.

For more general help on searching, please see our search tips.

What could these records help me to discover?

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The majority of these service records will contain:

Early ADM 196 service records tend to be very basic; it is only from the late nineteenth century that details such as the officer's date and place of birth and next of kin are provided. It is also worth noting that these records are not one single collection of records, but several series of service records, so it is possible for an officer to have multiple service records. If an officer has multiple records in ADM 196, we have joined these into one download.

How to interpret a record

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The first two examples, below, are taken from the service record of Sir Fleetwood Broughton Reynolds Pellew.

The first page, ADM 196/5, is an example of an early service record. It lists the various ships that Pellew served on and his rank during each service.

The second page, ADM 196/37, tells us of Pellew's various promotions, and the date these took effect. This record also includes other details of interest; we find that on 14th December 1852 Pellew hoisted his flag whilst on board Neptune at Portsmouth, and that on 6th February 1853 he was ordered to take his flag down. Lastly the record tells us that Pellew died on 28th July 1861.

The third example is a page from King George VI's service record, ADM 196/118, which dates from the early 20th century. We learn that King George was granted numerous awards and distinctions, and the dates that these were granted.

We also learn that in 1914 King George VI was operated on for an attack of believed appendicitis and was making 'favourable progress'. George VI's death on 6th February 1952 is also recorded.

Why can't I find an entry?

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Continuing your research

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The Navy List

You can piece together the careers of officers using The Navy List, which lists both commissioned and warrant officers in the Royal Navy and ancillary naval reserves. Copies of these lists from 1782-1987 are held in The National Archives' Reading Rooms. From 1810 they list names of officers serving on ships and contain surname indexes from April 1847.

Passing certificates

Most commissioned and warrant officers in the course of their career passed a qualifying examination and were issued a passing certificate. These are key documents for tracing genealogical information and the initial stages of an officer's career. The National Archives holds lieutenants' passing certificates between 1691 and 1902 in ADM 6, ADM 13 and ADM 107. A nominal index to these records has been compiled by Bruno Pappalardo; Royal Navy Lieutenant's Passing Certificates 1691-1902, List and Index Society, volumes 289-290 is available in The National Archives' reading rooms and from the List and Index Society . Nineteenth century passing certificates for various warrant officers' ranks can be found in ADM 6 and ADM 13.

Logs

You might be able to look up specific ship logs if you have discovered which ship(s) an officer served on:

Usually ships' logs contain details about ship's movements, weather conditions and routine duties. References to ships' logs can be searched by ship's name using the Catalogue.