Contents
1. Introduction
The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) was established in 1859 as a reserve force of officers and men of deep-sea merchant ships. By 1890 there were 20,000 men in the RNR.
Proposals for a naval reserve were discussed by the Registrar-General of Seamen as early as 1838 but it was not until the Royal Naval Reserve Act 1859 that provision was made for the Admiralty to maintain a reserve of up to 30,000 men. These men, recruited through local shipping offices came from among merchant seamen and fishermen and could be called upon for service in the Royal Navy in times of emergency.
2. Records of officers
2.1 Officers who served between 1862 and 1920
Service records of Royal Naval Reserve officers who served between 1862 and 1920, and of honorary officers from 1862 to 1960, are in ADM 240 arranged by rank and seniority.
They show details of merchant as well as naval service and are arranged in numerical order of commission. There are no separate indexes but some of the pieces can be used as indexes. Additional information can be found in the service cards and files in ADM 340. In particular, ADM 240/84-88 serves as an index to the records of service between 1914 and 1921 which are in ADM 240/37-50.
ADM 340 contains files and record-of-service cards, detailing the service of officers in the Royal Navy, the Royal Naval Reserve, the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS). You can search and download records of WRNS Officers. The Admiralty had traditionally recorded such information in books and registers, such as will be found in earlier ADM series. This new format - cards and files - was introduced early in the twentieth century for all officers then serving, including therefore some with service dating back to c1880 (and possibly earlier still in a few cases). Some records in this series therefore detail service through both World Wars and into the 1950s.
The Fleet Air Arm Museum also holds record cards for RNR officers including: Executive (X); Engineers (E); Cadets; and Warrant Officer Telegraphic.
2.2 Officers who served between 1929-1950
These service records are still held by:
Navy Search
TNT Archives Services
Textron Point
William Nadine Way
Swadlincote
Derbyshire DE 11 0PB
Tel: (+44) 01283 227913
Fax: (+44) 01283 227942
Email: navysearch@pgrc.tnt.co.uk
2.3 Officers who served after 1950
PPPA (Pay, Pensions, Personnel, Administration),
Centurion Building,
Grange Road,
Gosport, Hampshire, PO13 9XA.
2.4 The Navy List
RNR officers were first included in the Navy List in 1862. The official Navy List, published from 1814, contains much information of value to the naval historian and genealogist alike. During the two world wars much of the usual information was omitted from the published editions of the Navy List and confined to confidential editions for service use only. This series, Confidential Navy Lists (ADM 177), together with a complete set of published Navy Lists, can be found in the Open Reading Room at The National Archives. For RNR officers the Navy List gives name, rank, date of commission, and seniority. It should also indicate the names of the ships on which the officers served.
3. Records of ratings
3.1 RNR ratings serving between 1860-1908
A representative sample of RNR ratings service records is available in BT 164. These records can be searched by name, year of birth, place of birth and service number. They record a seaman's personal details and also provide a record of training and service, and of the retainers paid. The original records consist of volumes and cards, each page or card representing five years' service in the RNR. Any individual reservist may therefore be entered in several volumes or cards. Letters (A, B, etc) were given to successive five-year terms.
3.2 RNR ratings serving between 1908-1958
These records, arranged in service number, are held on microfiche in series BT 377. Name indexes are available within the same series on microfilm covering the period back to 1860. It is important to note that as the medal rolls also provide a man's service number, it may be far quicker to look for his medals before looking for a service record (see section on medals).
The document ADM 23/170 gives information on Admiralty pensions granted to RNR ratings from 1922 to 1925.
It may also be worthwhile checking the service records of Merchant Seamen for the war period. World War Two naval operational records may be helpful if you have the names of the ships or convoys. The Fleet Air Arm Museum also hold the original records for RNR ratings from 1908-1955.
4. Royal Fleet Auxiliaries
In 1911, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) was also formed. This arose from difficulties over the legal position of the crew of the hospital ship Maine, commissioned in 1902 with a civilian crew, although it was one of HM ships and part of the Mediterranean Fleet. Until 1921 the officers of the Royal Fleet Auxiliaries were nearly all RNR officers and ranked accordingly. Since then they have been ranked as other merchant navy officers.
The Fleet Air Arm Museum holds the crew books for Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) and Mercantile Fleet Auxiliary (MFA) (1915-1920 approx.). These contain alphabetical indexes of ships, crew lists (entries and discharges), rates of pay, next-of-kin, etc. See www.fleetairarm.com for more details:
5. Royal Naval Reserve trawler section - RNR(T)
The RNR was generally confined to officers and men of deep sea merchantmen but in 1911 it was felt that there was a need to employ trawlers in wartime as minesweepers and patrol vessels. The Royal Naval Reserve Trawler Section - RNR(T) was set up to enrol the necessary personnel. Although abolished as a separate section of the RNR in 1921, the RNR(T) always remained quite distinct from the RNR proper, and employed fishermen. In both world wars a large number of trawlers were taken up by the Royal Navy complete with their crews, who were entered on a form T124 by which they engaged to serve in a named vessel for the duration of the war only. Fishermen on a T124 formed the bulk of the RNR(T) during the First World War.
Service records of ratings who served in the RNR (T) can be found in BT 377/7. Their service numbers were prefixed with the letters DA, ES, SA, SB, or TS. The records of ratings whose service numbers begin with SBC have not survived.
6. Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR)
The Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), founded in 1903, was a force of officers and ratings undertaking naval training in their spare time, but not professionally employed at sea like the RNR. During both world wars the RNVR was the principal means by which officers could enter the Royal Navy for the period of the war only. In 1958, the RNR and the RNVR were amalgamated to form the present day RNR.
7. Shetland Royal Naval Reserve
In 1914, a separate organisation of the RNR was formed on the Shetland Islands. Known as the Shetland Royal Naval Reserve it was unlike the regular RNR in that it was a coast-watching and local defence organisation. It was disbanded in 1921.
Records for ratings who served in the Shetland Royal Naval Reserve are also found in BT 377/7 - the letter L prefixes their service numbers.
8. Royal Naval Division
From 1914 to 1916 a number of officers and ratings of the RNR served ashore in Flanders as infantry and formed the Royal Naval Division. In 1916 the Division was transferred to the army as the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division.
Records of Service for the Royal Naval Division (ADM 339) are available to search and download. This includes records for ratings/others ranks (ADM 339/1), ratings/other ranks - discharged dead (ADM 339/2), and officers (ADM 339/3).
It is also possible to see the war diaries and operational orders for the Royal Naval Division in WO 95/3118-3119, WO 95/4290-4291 and ADM 137/3063-3088d.
Royal Naval Division (RND) Record Cards for the Divisional Engineers, Divisional Train, RM Medical Unit and Ordnance Company are held at the Fleet Air Arm Museum and not at The National Archives.
9. Mercantile Marine Reserve
The Mercantile Marine Reserve (MMR) was formed of merchant seamen serving on merchant vessels requisitioned by the Admiralty for wartime service, some of whom may also have served in the Royal Naval Reserve. Service details can therefore be sought from BT 377. Although there is no separate sequence of service records, it may be possible to trace an individual who received the MMR medal in BT 351. You can search and download digital images of the medal cards in BT 351/1/1 and BT 351/1/2. It is also possible that records of service may be found among the merchant seamen's records of service.
10. Medals
Records relating to the award of the RNR Long Service medal are in ADM 171/70, ADM 171/71, and ADM 171/72. Honours and Awards for the RNR during the First World War are in ADM 171/77. Each volume is arranged in alphabetical order, although not strictly within each letter. Papers on awards to RNR officers during the Second World War are in BT 164/23.
The Roll of the Naval War Medals also contains entries for the RNR - officers in ADM 171/92-93 and ratings in ADM 171/120-124.
11. Records not held at The National Archives
Although no service records for RNR Officers are held at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, the Museum does hold an extensive series of nearly 100 First World War pay and appointing ledgers for officers of the RNR, RNVR and RNAS. These can offer useful information on pay movements (including tax bills and probate) to complement the officers' records held at The National Archives.
The National Maritime Museum does not hold the official records of the Royal Navy, however, it does have extensive collections of books, photographs, paintings, prints, drawings and manuscripts dealing with most aspects of the Royal Navy.
12. Further reading
The following recommended publications are available in The National Archives' Library. Some publications may also be available to buy at The National Archives' Bookshop.
K J Douglas-Morris, Naval long service medals 1830-1990 (The Naval & Military Press, 2002)
Bruno Pappalardo, Tracing your naval ancestors (Public Record Office, 2003)
Bruno Pappalardo, Using navy records (Public Record Office, 2001)
N A M Rodger, Naval records for genealogists (H.M.S.O., 1998)
N A M Rodger & Randolph Cock (eds.), Guide to the naval records in The National Archives of the UK (Institute of Historical Research, 2006)
Kelvin Smith, Christopher T. and Michael J. Watts, Records of merchant shipping and seamen (Public Record Office, 2001)
Christopher T.Watts and Michael J. Watts, My ancestor was a merchant seaman (Society of Genealogists, 2004)
