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Naval Officers’ Service Record Cards and Files

What are the naval officers’ service record cards and files?

What could these records help me to discover?

What do the records look like?

Introduction

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You can search and download over 5,000 selected officers' service records, recorded on cards and files, for men and women serving in the Royal Navy, Royal Naval Reserve, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and Women's Royal Naval Service. These records, held by The National Archives in the series ADM 340, generally detail an individual’s time as an officer recording a chronological list of ships served on, rank, training undertaken and promotions attained.

At present only the cards are available to download (pieces 1 – 150). We hope to release the service records held in files during 2012.

What are the naval officers’ service record cards and files?

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The Admiralty had traditionally recorded service details in books and registers. The new format of cards and files was introduced early in the twentieth century for all officers then serving, including some with service dating back to c.1880 (and possibly earlier still in a few cases).

Whereas so often an entry in a book or register would relate to only one period of an officer's service, the introduction of the individual record card/file brought in the concept of a single continuous record spanning the length of the officer's service. Some records in this series therefore detail service through both World Wars and into the 1950s.

Searching the service records

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You can search by entering any or all of the following:

First name(s)
Last name
Year of birth
Place of birth
Rank/Service number

Alternatively, you may wish to browse details of the whole collection.

What could these records help me to discover?

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These records might tell you:

Name
Date of birth
Place of birth
Rank
Date of seniority
Training undertaken
Names of ships served on, with dates of joining and discharge from each ship
Period of time served
Address

What do the records look like?

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Cards

Service records held in pieces 1 - 150 have been recorded on card. The image you receive will contain both the front and reverse of the card. In some instances an officer may have more than one card.

The top of the record cards contains an officer’s name, date of birth, place of birth, previous service, rank, and date of seniority. The lower section of the card records any obligatory training undertaken and a list of ships the officer served on. The reverse of the card contains a list of ships served on, retainer pay and any voluntary training undertaken. In some instances an officer’s address is also noted on the record. To get an idea of what the records look like, see the record of William Holmes Hossack.

Why can't I find an entry?

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It could be that the officer died before records were systematically kept.
The officer's record you are searching for may be held in the files from ADM 340 yet to be made available on DocumentsOnline.
If you are searching for records of officers of the Royal Naval Reserve you may wish to search the Catalogue for records within ADM 240.
If you are searching for records of officers of the Royal Naval Volunteers Reserve you may wish to search DocumentsOnline for records within ADM 337.
It is possible that you should be searching for a Royal Navy rating. Ratings records from 1853 to 1923 are available on DocumentsOnline.

Further research

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Duplicated and additional information on many of the male officers whose records appear in this series can be found among the books and registers in the earlier ADM series, especially ADM 240.

Duplicated and additional information on some of the female officers (i.e. of the Women’s Royal Naval Service) whose records appear in this series may be found in the two series containing WRNS First World War officers' service records - ADM 318 (available to download from DocumentsOnline) and ADM 321.

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.