This is a brief guide to researching records of the Royal Naval Reserve. These records are incomplete and whilst many records are available at The National Archives, some service recordsservice record - a document recording the career of an individual in the armed forces are currently held by the Ministry of Defence.
This guide will help you to find out if the information you are looking for exists and, if it does, where to find it.
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What do I need to know before I start?
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Try to find out:
- the name and rank of the person
- the date range and service number to help focus search
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What records can I see online?
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Ratings' service records (1860-1955)
Search and download (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.) surviving ratings' service records for 1908- 1955 (BT 377/7) and a representative sample for 1860-1908 (BT 164) from Discovery, our catalogue.
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Royal Navy officers' service record cards and files (c.1840-c.1920)
Download (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.) selected RNR officers' service records (ADM 340) from our catalogue.
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Medal rolls (1914-1918)
Search by name for information about the award of honours, campaign medals and RNR long service medals in the Royal Navy medal roll (ADM 171) using Ancestry.co.uk (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.). These rolls do not usually contain biographical information.
Digital microfilm copies of these records are also available to download and browse from our website free of charge. See ADM 171/70 - 72, ADM 171/77, ADM 171/92-3 and ADM 171/120-124.
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Merchant seamen's campaign medal records (1914-1918)
Some Royal Naval Reservists served in the Mercantile Marine Reserve. Download (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.) from our catalogue, medal records of mercantile marine reservists within merchant seamen's medal records (BT 351/1/1-2).
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What records can I find at The National Archives at Kew?
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Indexes to ratings' service records (1908-1955)
Look in BT 377 for alphabetical name indexes to the service records which are arranged by service number. Some names appear only in indexes and not in records.
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Miscellaneous information sources on ratings
Look at ADM 23/170 for information on Admiralty pensions granted to RNR ratings. Service records of Merchant seaman for the war period and Second World War naval operations records may also be useful.
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Officers' service records (1862-1920)
Search officers' service recordsservice record - a document recording the career of an individual in the armed forces for this period in ADM 240 which are arranged by rank and seniority. They show details of merchant as well as naval service.
ADM 240/84-88 serves as an alphabetical index for the First World War period.
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Officer medals (1939-1945)
Browse papers on awards to RNR officers during the Second World War in BT 164/23.
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To access these records you will either need to visit us, pay for research (£there will be a charge) or, where you can identify a specific record referencea unique set of letters and numbers identifying a document in The National Archives, order a copy (£there will be a charge).
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What records can I find in other archives and organisations?
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Officers' service records (1921-present)
Consult the Veterans UK website to establish how to request a summary of an officer'sOfficer - a senior member of staff in the armed forces service recorda document recording the career of an individual in the armed forces from the Ministry of Defence.
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Records at the Fleet Air Arm Museum
Contact the Fleet Air Arm Museum about access to original Royal Naval Reserve ratings service records from 1909 to 1955, and officer record cards including: Executive (X), Engineers (E), Cadets and Warrant Officer Telegraphic.
The museum also holds crew books for Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) and Mercantile Fleet Auxiliary. These contain alphabetical indexes of ships, crew lists, rates of pay, and next of kin.
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What other resources will help me find information?
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Books
Consult the published Navy Lists to follow a Royal Naval Reserve officer's career. RNR officers have been included since 1862. Confidential Navy Lists (ADM 177) contain information omitted during the world wars.
For RNR officers the Navy List gives name, rank, date of commission and seniority. It should also indicate names of ships served on.
Use our library catalogue to find a recommended book list.
The books are all available in The National Archives' reference library. You may also be able to find them in a local library. You can buy from a wide range of history titles in our bookshop.
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Births, marriages and deaths in the armed forces
Royal Naval Division
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve