1. Service before 1793
No original records of service of officers appointed before 1793 have survived. However, confirmation of a commission or an appointment can sometimes be found from documents or official publications of a later date. The London Gazette lists all commissions, promotions and resignations. The Commissions and Appointments Registers for the years 1703-1713 (ADM 6/405) and 1755-1814 (ADM 6/406) will give brief statements about an officer's appointment. There also survives a complete run of Royal Warrants for Commissions 1664-1782 in SP 44/164-196. This continues from 1782 in series HO 51. Outlines of officers' careers prior to 1793 can often be reconstructed from the information given about Marines officers on full-pay and on half-pay in the Army List from 1740 onwards. The Seniority List of Officers of the (Royal) Marines from 1757 to 1886 may also be used. This is to be found in both ADM 118/230-336 (1757 to 1850, indexed from 1770), and in ADM 192/1-44 (1760 to 1886).
Other publications that contain lists of marine officers are Charles Dalton, English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 1661-1714 (London: Eyre & Spottiswood, 1892, 6 vols), the Navy List from 1797 onwards and Hart's Army List from 1840 onwards. The New Navy List contains from 1840 a list of marine officers, and from 1846 provides short statements of service going back to the 1790s.
2. Service 1793-1925
Records of officers commissioned after 1793 are in Records of Officers' Services - ADM 196/58-65, ADM 196/83 and ADM 196/97-116. These records are searchable by name in Discovery and images are available to download. These give full details of service and include, in some cases, the name and profession of the officer's father. Note, however, that the first volume of the series (ADM 196/58) does not contain short service records but only those records of officers who served well into the 19th century. Furthermore, these records are complete only from about 1837. Volumes in this on-going series are open to public inspection 30 years after the date of the last entry in the volume.
3. Service after 1925
All enquiries concerning officers appointed after 1925 should be addressed to the
DPS(N)2
Building 1/152
Victory View
PP36
HMNB Portsmouth
PO1 3PX
4. Other sources
4.1 Obituaries
Very comprehensive information may also be found in obituary notices published in The Times and in the Royal Marines' magazine, The Globe and Laurel. The National Archives has online access to The Times in its reading rooms. The Royal Marines Museum has a full run of the Globe and Laurel and is indexing all back editions.
4.2 Admiralty Leave Books and Half Pay Lists
Leave books contain entries for Royal Marine officers for the period from 1804 to 1846, and are to be found in ADM 6/200-206, and 414. Lists of officers on half pay are held in ADM 6/410-414.
4.3 Surveys of 1822 and 1831
The results of a survey of Royal Marine officers' ages, conducted in 1822, is now in ADM 6/73-83 and ADM 6/409. For each officer it contains the following information: name, rank, date of seniority, actual age on 1 April 1822, whether in receipt of allowances other than pay, and amount of pay. An additional survey was carried out in 1831, now held in ADM 6/84, ADM 6/85.
5. Warrant Officers' service records
Only three volumes of Marine Warrant Officers' service records specifically so described are known to have survived. You can search in Discovery by the name of the individual and download images.
| Dates of entry | Latest date of discharge | Volume | Catalogue reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1875-1903 | 1946 | Volume 1 part 1 | ADM 196/34 |
| 1873-1907 | 1946 | Volume 1 part 2 | ADM 196/35 |
| 1904-1912 | 1923 | Volume 2 | ADM 196/67 |
| 1890-1920 | 1944 | Volume 3 | ADM 196/102 |
However, many Warrant Officers went on to become commissioned officers, and so their records will be found among the records of officers' services.
6. Royal Marine surgeons
References to surgeons will be found in the various lists of officers' services. A register of commissions and appointments covering the years 1755 to 1814 is in ADM 6/406. Other information may be found in records held by the Royal College to which they belonged and in the alumni lists drawn up by their university. Among the records of the Admiralty Medical Department will be found the Establishment Book of the Royal Marine Infirmary at Woolwich, 1817 to 1820, in ADM 104/3.
7. Further reading
Thomas, Garth, Records of the Royal Marines (Public Record Office, 1994)
Brooks, Richard and Little, Matthew,Tracing Your Royal Marine Ancestors (Pen & Sword, 2008)
Divall, Ken, My Ancestor Was a Royal Marine (Society of Genealogists, 2008)
