Our records are the records sent to us for permanent preservation by the central government of the United Kingdom. Most of the records related to emigration are policy and administrative documents, rather than records of emigrants themselves. As we hold relatively few records of people leaving Britain, you are more likely to find records of migrants in their destination country (see section 3). There are, nonetheless, large numbers of records in our collection in which you can identify individual emigrants, but there is no single index for them so tracking them down means looking in a variety of different record series.

The records of emigrants divide into two broad types: records of the journeys that emigrants made and of their lives once settled overseas. Records of British emigrants once they were settled abroad were much more likely to have been kept if they moved to a British colony. The bulk of the records we hold for British emigration were originally kept by the government departments concerned with life in the colonies.

The government departments, past and present, most concerned with matters of emigration are the following (each with its National Archives department code in brackets):

• Colonial Office (CO)
• Dominions Office (DO)
• Home Office (HO)
• Board of Trade (BT)

3. Records of emigrants in their destination countries

Of course, emigrants from the UK become immigrants in the countries they travel to. In general, you are more likely to find a record of a person, after they emigrate, in the destination country.

The following libraries and record offices in popular destination countries for UK emigrants have much material on immigration:

An advertisement from 1889 for the White Star Line (catalogue reference COPY 1/930). White Star Line ships transported tens of thousands of British emigrants to Canada and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Buy a high-quality reproduction of this image through our Image Library.

USA

• US National Archives
• Library of Congress
• The Ellis Island Foundation

Canada

• Library and Archives Canada

Australia

• National Archives of Australia
• National Library of Australia
• State Library of New South Wales
• State Library Victoria

New Zealand

• Archives New Zealand

South Africa

• National Archives of South Africa

Other significant collections of emigrant records are available through:

• The Society of Genealogists
• FamilySearch

4. Online records

Most of our online records in this subject area are documents listing individual emigrants. If you cannot find who you are looking for in the records described in this section, your search is likely to become very much more complicated and will probably require consultation of original documents at The National Archives in Kew (see sections 5 to 11).

4.1 Outward passenger lists, 1890-1960

Search outward passenger lists on findmypast.co.uk (£) for lists of passengers leaving by ship from UK and Irish ports and travelling to places outside Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, including the USA, Canada, India, New Zealand and Australia.

The lists include citizens of other countries who travelled through the UK on their way to other destinations. Lists were not kept for every ship and some have been lost.

The information on any list can vary from the next but some of the details you may find on a list include:

• age at departure
• profession
• last address in the UK
• country of departure
• country of destination

A cross section of a passenger list from 23 September 1940 for the RMS Samaria, bound for New York from Liverpool (catalogue reference BT 27/1557). This list shows passengers who were not British nationals.

4.2 Early emigration from Britain, 1636-1815

Search a variety of early emigration records, largely of emigrants to North America and the West Indies, covering intermittent year ranges between the 17th and early 19th centuries. These are records brought together from the Treasury, the Exchequer, the Colonial Office and the Audit Office, on findmypast.co.uk (£) including details of emigrants from Britain to:

• Canada 1815 and 1818-1822 (AO 3/144)
• America and the West Indies 1634-1638 and 1740-1761 (CO 1/8-9 and CO 324/55-56)
• North America and the West Indies, 1773-1775 (T 47/9-12)

4.3 Registers of travel to Europe, New England, Barbados and other colonies, 1573-1677

Search the Registers Of Licences To Pass Beyond The Seas 1573-1677 (E 157) on findmypast.co.uk (£) for records of soldiers leaving for the Low Countries (1613-1633), individuals travelling to Europe (1573-1677) and to Barbados, New England and other colonies (1634-1639 and 1677).

4.4 Emigration to Barbados, 1678-1680 and 1715

Search for details of emigrants from England, and later Britain, who settled in Barbados on findmypast.co.uk (£) within Colonial Office papers and correspondence (CO 1/44 and CO 28/16), which include a census of the white population in Barbados from 1715.

4.5 Immigrant Ancestors Project

The Immigrant Ancestors Project – sponsored by the Center for Family History and Genealogy at Brigham Young University – uses emigration records, including sources at The National Archives, to locate information about the birthplaces of immigrants in their native countries. Volunteers working with scholars and researchers at Brigham Young University are creating a database of millions of immigrants based on these emigration sources.

4.6 Migration to the New Worlds

The Adam Matthew website (£ institutional subscription required or free to view at The National Archives) includes a selection of National Archives records relating to emigrants and emigration to the New World, covering the period 1800 to 1924.

5. Passenger lists

6. Emigration to North America

This section covers records and record series specific to emigration to North America. For more general advice on colonial era documents for this region see our guide to records of American and West Indian colonies before 1782.

6.1 Lists of 17th-century emigrants

John C Hotten compiled Original lists of persons who went from great Britain to the American plantations 1600-1700 (London 1874) based on Colonial Office records, as well as the Registers of Licences to Pass beyond the Seas kept by the Exchequer (series E 157) for passengers requiring licences to travel to New England, Barbados, Maryland, Virginia and other colonies 1634-1639 and 1677.

See the ‘Online records’ section of this guide for advice on how to view the registers in series E 157.

6.2 Records of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1667-1991

The Hudson’s Bay Company was founded in 1670. Its chief interests were originally the fur trade, exploration and settlement. After 1870, when its territory of Rupert’s Land was incorporated into the Dominion of Canada, its interests became more varied.

The Hudson’s Bay Company archives, covering 1667-1991, are held on microfilm at The National Archives in record series BH 1. The original Hudson Bay Company archives are held at the Archives of Manitoba, Canada. The records include names and information about settlers who emigrated to North America and worked for the company.

6.3 Records of the West New Jersey Society, 1675-1921

The West New Jersey Society records in TS 12, covering 1675 to 1921, relate to tracts of land in West and East New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New England and elsewhere, divided up as shares of the company. The records contain many names in the original correspondence, minute books, registers of shares, original deeds, and papers about claims.

6.4 Directory of Scottish settlers in North America

David Dobson’s Directory of Scottish settlers in North America 1625-1825 (Baltimore, 1984) draws on records in the Audit Office accounts (AO 3), Prince Edward Island original correspondence (CO 226/23), Home Office correspondence and papers, Scotland (HO 102) and the Treasury registers (T 47).

6.5 Records of the American Loyalist Claims Commission

Search for records of the American Loyalist Claims Commission in T 79.

There is an index to these records printed in Lists of the Records of the Treasury, the Paymaster General’s Office, the Exchequer and Audit Department and the Board of Trade to 1837 (Public Record Office Lists and Indexes No XLVI; London 1922) pp.105-110. A similar list of East Florida claims for compensation for territory ceded in 1783 to Spain is in the same volume, pp.95-97.

6.6 Records of emigrants to America, 1773-1775

Bernard Bailyn’s Voyagers to the West: Emigration from Britain to America on the Eve of the Revolution (I B Tauris, 1986), utilizes the registers kept by port customs officials of emigrants leaving for the New World – these register are held in T 47/9-12 and are available to view on Findmypast.co.uk (£) – see section 4.2.

They give a person’s name, age, occupation, reason for leaving the country, last place of residence, date of departure and destination.

6.7 Colonial Office correspondence

Colonial Office records on North America are mostly for colonies which later became part of Canada. Some of the records in the following record series contain names of people who emigrated. Click on the catalogue reference and browse the series by reference and date:

7. Emigration to Australia

See our guide on Criminal transportation for information about the records available on convicts transported to Australia.

Many of the record series referred to in this section refer to both convicts and settlers since, once in Australia, the two were often less distinct than when they set out. The National Archives holds no lists of passengers who sailed to Australia as ordinary emigrants until 1890.

The website of The National Archives of Australia has more information about emigration to Australia. In addition, details of some 8.9 million free settlers to New South Wales, 1826-1922 can be searched and downloaded online at Ancestry.com.au (£).

This notice dates from 1841 (catalogue reference CO 384/66). It was issued after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which stipulated that provision could be made for the emigration of the poor, with the cost being borne by the pauper’s home parish (see section 9).

8. Emigration to New Zealand

The first European settlement of New Zealand was around 1820. The New Zealand Company was formed in 1839 and incorporated in 1841 with power to buy, sell, settle and cultivate land in New Zealand, and details of British emigrants can be found in the company’s records, now held at The National Archives. It surrendered its charter in 1850 and was dissolved in 1858.

For further information see the Archives New Zealand website.

9. Pauper emigration

We hold records of the Poor Law Commission and related bodies. These records include material about pauper emigration under the terms of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. The act stipulated that provision could be made for the emigration of the poor, with the cost being borne by the pauper’s home parish.

• Search Poor Law Union papers 1834-1900 in MH 12 using keywords like ‘emigration’, ‘emigrant’ or ‘emigrate’. Try adding words and phrases such as ‘lists of persons’, ‘children’ ‘Australia’, ‘New Zealand’, ‘Canada’ or ‘Quebec’.

These records include lists of paupers who were ‘seeking to emigrate’ as well as those of paupers who had already emigrated to the colonies.

Look for correspondence between the Poor Law authorities and the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners in:

• MH 13/252 for 1853-1854
• MH 19/22 for 1836-1876

Some of the correspondence of the Poor Law Commission and Board with other government departments and local government services relates to emigration:

• Use the registers of correspondence in MH 20 to locate items of correspondence in MH 19. The registers, as with the correspondence itself, are arranged by government department so to have an idea of where to look for records of emigration you will need to determine which departments the Poor Law Commission would be corresponding with on that subject – the departments listed in section 2 would be a good start.

10. Child emigration

Child emigration schemes operated in Britain from 1618 to 1967. About 150,000 children were sent to the British colonies and dominions during this time, with numbers peaking between the 1870s and 1914 when approximately 80,000 children were sent to Canada alone.

Many of them were pauper children, often in the care of voluntary organisations (in the mid-18th century around one in three of all paupers was under 16). The enormous strain on poor law authorities meant they could not find apprenticeships for all pauper children. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1850 provided a response, allowing Boards of Guardians to send children under 16 overseas for the first time. The majority of schemes began in 1870. Frequently it was the voluntary organisations that arranged for the child’s migration.

They were sent mainly to North America and Australia, but also Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), New Zealand, South Africa and the Caribbean.

An exhibition and website on child migration called On their own – Britain’s child migrants has been developed by the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

10.1 Records of pauper children sent abroad

This notice dates from 1841 (catalogue reference CO 384/66). It was issued after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which stipulated that provision could be made for the emigration of the poor, with the cost being borne by the pauper’s home parish (see section 9).

We hold few emigration records for child paupers and those that we do hold tend to record only statistical information on the numbers of children sent overseas, though they sometimes include poor law union posters giving notice of the names and ages of children being sent abroad. See section 9 for advice on how to search for records of pauper emigrants, including children, in general.

Among the most detailed records we hold of this kind are the reports on pauper child emigrants resident in Canada, 1887 to 1892, held in MH 19/9. The reports comment on the children’s condition, health, character, schooling, frequency of church attendance, and each child’s view of their new homes. They cite the Poor Law Union or parish from which they were sent, as well as each child’s name, age and host’s name and address.

The following archives may provide a better chance of finding details of individual children:

• Registers and case files of child emigrants (subject to 100-year closure periods from the date of birth) within the records relating to Maria Rye and Annie Macpherson, who both championed child emigration, and to the work of Dr Barnardo’s, held by the University of Liverpool’s Department of Special Collections and Archives.
• Photographs of former Barnardo’s residents in Barnardo’s Photographic and Film Archive.
• Canadian government inspectors’ reports and statistical information regarding child migrants in Parliamentary Papers (institutional subscription required).
• Home Children’s record collections on Findmypast brings together Canadian records of child immigrants to Canada including searchable inspection reports and records of children sent to Canada by Boards of Guardians.

10.2 Children’s Overseas Reception Board, 1940-1944

In May 1940 the growing threat to the UK from both invasion and mass air attack led to offers of hospitality for British children from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and the USA. About 11,000 children were evacuated overseas via private schemes before, on 7 June 1940, the creation of the Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB).

A total of 3,100 children were sent to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa under the CORB scheme between July and September 1940. Evacuation stopped on 17 September 1940 when SS City of Benares was torpedoed with the loss of 77 Canada-bound children on board. All future CORB sailings were cancelled, but the Board remained active until its disbandment four years later. Many CORB children returned to the UK after the hostilities to be reunited with their families.

Search our catalogue using the search box below by name for case histories of the CORB children evacuated overseas during the Second World War (DO 131).

Narrow your search by using quotation marks to find a person’s full name, such as ‘John Williams’

2. How to begin your research

Start by reading a specialist publication on the Jacobite Risings. See section 10 for a list of recommended publications.

These can help you identify relevant records held at The National Archives and elsewhere. They do not cover all the potential records but are a good place to start.

Often, to identify relevant records you will need to use indexes and calendars which summarise documents in particular record series. The sections below will tell you which finding aids to use.

3. Administration and policy

For insights into government policy on the Jacobite issue, political and military correspondence, and other material such as lists of prisoners and trial papers, the following record series are particularly useful:

• state papers Scotland series II: SP 54
• state papers domestic George I: SP 35
• state papers domestic George II: SP 36

Use the search box contained within SP 54 to search by keyword (for example, Jacobite).

To identify relevant SP 35 records, search by keyword or use the following finding aids:

• calendars in List and Index Society vols 139, 144, 155 and 165
• index in List and Index Society vol 173

SP 36 contains 163 volumes, they can be searched by keyword in our catalogue. There is also a four-volume manuscript list of the whole series, in the reading rooms in The National Archives at Kew.

Other series of state papers contain supplementary information. In particular:

• military in SP 41, which you can search by keyword
• naval in SP 42, which you can search by keyword for 1715-1723 and 1740-1747
• entry books in SP 44 (see catalogue description for series for finding aids)
• Scotland, out-letter books in SP 55

You can also view all these records and calendars via State Papers Online (institutional subscription required). Many are also searchable on State Papers online as well as through our catalogue.

4. Finance

For Treasury records relating to the 1715 rising, look at the

• calendar of Treasury Books Vols. 29-30 (HMSO, 1958-1959)
• calendar of Treasury Papers, Vol 5 (HMSO 1883)

For the 1745 rising look at the Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers, Vol 5 (HMSO 1903).

You can find other useful financial records within the Audit Office Declared Accounts in AO 1.
Search these by date, you can sort your search results by date ascending or descending.

5. Military and naval campaigns

War Office and, to a lesser extent, Admiralty records contain a lot of information about the campaigns against the risings.

The most useful series are likely to be the following which you can often browse by date:

• Secretaries of State: state papers foreign, military expeditions in the Duke of Cumberland SP 87 sub-series
• War Office, marching and militia orders in WO 5
• Secretary of War out-letters in WO 4 and departmental out-letters in WO 7
• Admiralty and Secretariat, papers in ADM 1 and out-letters in ADM 2. For help searching ADM 1 see our research guide on finding naval correspondence.

6. Trials

The records of the Court of King’s Bench contain:

• some of the treason trials which followed both risings in KB 8, the Baga de Secretis
• a diversity of legal records, many relating to the 1745 rising including draft indictments, some trial transcripts and list of prisoners, in KB 33

See our research guide on the Court of Kings Bench (crown side cases) 1675-1875 for further information.

The Treasury Solicitor Papers in TS 11 and The 1745 Rebellion Papers in TS 20 are rich in material on the judicial and administrative aspects of proceedings against those captured in 1745. They include trial records, lists of prisoners and papers relating to their backgrounds and fates. You can search these by keyword in our catalogue. Pardons are in The Patent Rolls: C66.

Although trials of prisoners held outside London were heard by Special Commissioners and the routine criminal business of the assize courts were largely suspended after each rising, a few documents and entries relating to rebels are among the assize records.

See the following ones in particular:

• the north-eastern circuit in ASSI 41-47
• the Palatinates of Chester in CHES 21 and CHES 24, Durham in DURH 17 and DURH 19 and Lancaster in PL 25-28

7. Forfeitures

The estates of many rebels were forfeit to the Crown.

After the 1715 rising a Forfeited Estates Commission was established. You can search by keyword the papers in FEC 1 and books in FEC 2 of the Commissioners for England and Wales. They are also described in The Records of the Forfeited Estates Commission (PRO Handbooks no 12, HMSO 1968).

The records of Greenwich Hospital in ADM 74-80 contain many estate and some family records of the Earl of Derwentwater whose lands, after forfeiture, passed to the Hospital. A smaller collection of records relating to forfeitures after the 1745 rising are in T 64.

8. Other resources at The National Archives

View our classroom resources for the 1715 rising and for the 1745 rising. You can download documents and each one comes with a transcript. These resources come with teachers’ notes and additional links to other archives and websites that you may find useful.

9. Other archives

The National Records of Scotland holds the records of the Forfeited Estates Commissioners for Scotland, together with many other valuable sources.

The Royal Collections Trust holds the Stuart Papers 1579-1823 (the papers of the Old Pretender, Prince James Francis Edward Stuart and of his sons, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, and Prince Benedict). These can be viewed online via State Papers Online (institutional subscription required).

The private papers and estate records of politicians, members of the armed forces, local officials and landowners can also provide useful detail. Find information about such collections from our catalogue and the National Register of Archives (Scotland).

10. Published sources

T B Howell, A Complete Collection of State Trials and proceedings for high treason and other crimes and misdemeanors (London, 1816) vols XV and XVIII. These include the trial records of some of the more notable prisoners. Some of the texts are derived from the reports of Sir Michael Foster, one of the trial judges, who himself compiled A Report of Some Proceedings on the Commission for the Trial of the Rebels in the Year 1746 … (3rd edition, ed M Dodson, London, 1792).

R C Jarvis, Collected Papers on the Jacobite Risings (2 vols, Manchester University Press, 1971-1972). Gives references to unpublished material in The National Archives and elsewhere.

R C Jarvis, The Jacobite Risings of 1715 and 1745 (Cumberland County Council, 1954). Extracts from the Lieutenancy and Quarter Sessions records of Cumberland. No parallel study has yet been published for other counties.

B Lenman, The Jacobite Risings in Britain 1689-1746 (Methuen, 1980). Gives full references to a wide range of published material.

J Riding, Jacobites: A New History of The ’45 Rebellion (Bloomsbury, 2015).

The Prisoners of the ’45 edited by B G Seton and J G Arnot (Scottish History Society, 3rd series, vols XIII-XV, 1928-1929). Contains a tabular analysis of the career and fates of most prisoners, with references to the documents on which the study is based.

Szechi, The Jacobites, Britain and Europe 1688-1788 (Manchester University Press, 1994).

Szechi, 1715: The Great Jacobite Rebellion (Yale University Press, 2006).

Please note, none of these printed sources exhausts the available manuscript material.

The Act of Supremacy in 1534 declared Henry VIII the Supreme Head of the Church of England, thus separating England from papal authority. This and subsequent acts gave the Crown the authority to disband monasteries in England, Wales and Ireland, appropriate their income and dispossess them of their assets.

The term ‘dissolution of the monasteries’ encompasses all the religious establishments that were appropriated by the Crown in this period. This guide, therefore, covers records relating to the dissolution of all kinds of religious houses, including abbeys, priories, convents and friaries, all of which can also be considered component parts of monasteries.

2. How to start your research

The best place to start is with the published volumes of Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. These are available via British History Online and State Papers Online (institutional subscription required), as well as in their published form. Use the indexes at the back of the published volumes to locate person, place name and subject index terms which you can use to search for documents in our catalogue. See our research guide on the letters and papers for more information.

Alternatively, you can use Discovery, our catalogue, to search many of the records series listed in this guide, using search terms such as:

• “dissolution”
• “monastic”
• “monastery” or “monasteries”
• “abbey”
• “priory”
• “Benedictine”
• “Dominicans”

It will often help to combine these words with a place name, using the following format:

• Whitby AND abbey

3. The dissolution and the build up to it 1524-1540: key records

You can trace the build up to the dissolution of the monasteries and the dissolution itself through the records described below. Not all of the records have been described in our catalogue in detail, making a search within them tricky, and most are not viewable online. To view records which are not online you will need to visit The National Archives at Kew or pay for research.

Try searching the following records using keywords in our catalogue or, if this proves fruitless, browse each series by clicking on the links:

3.1 1524–1528

Cardinal Wolsey’s dissolution of about 30 religious houses:

• E 21, C 142/76-77 and E 24

3.2 1534–1535

The Valor Ecclesiasticus, the greatest survey of ecclesiastical property since 1291. The survey valued taxes paid to the Crown from ecclesiastical property and income that had previously been paid to the Pope:

• E 344, E 346 and PRO 31/16/66

3.3 1534–c.1538

The Oath of Supremacy, with which all religious houses were ordered to acknowledge royal supremacy over the Church and the consequences of taking or not taking the oath:

• E 25: acknowledgements of royal supremacy
• KB 8: trial records of clerics who refused to take the oath
• SP 1 and SP 5: correspondence about the Oath of Supremacy and the visitation of monasteries (searchable on State Papers Online and British History Online)

3.4 1536

The Compendium Compertorum, which recorded whether or not the monasteries were complying with the Oath of Supremacy, detailing any alleged offences against the Crown:

• SP 1/102 ff 91–114 (viewable on State Papers Online)

3.5 1536–1540

The dissolution of the monasteries:

• E 315/2: copies of the acts relating to the dissolution
• E 322: surrenders of monasteries and other religious institutions
• KB 8: treason trial records of clerics who refused to surrender their houses

4. Consequences of the dissolution: key records

The Court of Augmentations was established for the purpose of managing the confiscated estates of religious houses. Consult records of the Court of Augmentations within the Exchequer records department.

Many of the following series cover more than the subject matter listed and with some series you may have to browse through them, by clicking on the links, to find relevant records. Alternatively, use the advanced search in our catalogue to try searching any series using your own search terms or those recommended in Section 2, above.

4.1 Audits and inventories of ex-monastic estates

• LR 1 and LR 2: audits of land revenue for land confiscated from the monasteries
• DL 41: monastic lands confiscated in Lancashire
• E 301, E 315, LR 2, DL 38 and SC 11: surveys of religious land and institutions taken over by the crown
• E 315/67-68 and DL 14: details of the sale of land and property
• E 117: inventories of religious houses

4.2 Managing the ex-monastic estates and their personnel

• LR 6, DL 29 and SC 6: local accounts of ex-monastic estates
• SC 2 and DL 30: court rolls which include accounts for ex-monastic estates
• SC 11, SC 12, LR 2, LR 10 and E 315: surveys and rentals of monastic lands
• C 66: sales and leases of ex-monastic land if above a certain annual value (calendared in Letters and Papers of Henry VIII)
• LR 1: sales and leases of ex-monastic land if below a certain annual value
• E 318: particulars for grants (There is a published alphabetical index of grantees’ names in the Deputy Keeper of Public Records’ 9th and 10th Reports. There is also a manuscript index of place names)
• E 315/244–247 and LR 5: warrants for pension grants to former monks and nuns
• SP 5, LR 1, E 314 and E 101: some lists of monks, nuns and other dissolution pensioners

4.3 Legal records

• E 315/108–133: court records of monastic lands confiscated as a result of the treason of their abbots
• E 321, E 314, E 315/19–23, E 315/108–133, E 315/165, E 315/516 and E 315/522: court records of the settlement of disputes over the former monastic lands
• E 134: later disputes about ex-monastic land
• E 324: records ratifying the new owners of ex-monastic property legal right to this property

5. Monastic property in Ireland

In 1540, royal commissioners surveyed monastic property in Ireland. Consult Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII for summaries. Also use the Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, available online through State Papers Online (institutional subscription required). Both are available at The National Archives’ library at Kew.

Most Irish records relating to the dissolution were destroyed in 1922, but there are some printed records in the Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland, Vol I (Dublin, 1861), also available in our library.

6. Records in other archives

Consult the English Monastic Archives database on the University College London website, for information on the types and current locations of documents generated by medieval English monasteries.

7. Further reading

The following publications are all available in The National Archives’ Library at Kew.

D Knowles, The Religious Orders in England vol III (Cambridge University Press, 1959)

J Youings, The Dissolution of the Monasteries (Allen and Unwin, 1971)

C Haigh, The Last Days of the Lancashire Monasteries and the Pilgrimage of Grace (Manchester University Press, 1969)

W C Richardson, History of the Court of Augmentations, 1536–1554 (Louisiana State University Press, 1961)

B Bradshaw, The Dissolution of the Religious Orders in Ireland under Henry VIII (Cambridge University Press, 1974)

A H Lawes,’The Dissolution of the Monasteries and Chantries’, The Genealogists’ Magazine vol 27 No 11 (September 2003)

4.5 Seamen who died in service but not in conflict

5. Superannuation pensions, 18th and 19th centuries

A superannuation pension is a pension granted upon retirement of the individual.

5.1 Candidates for Greenwich Hospital pensions or other relief

5.2 Registers of candidates for admission to Greenwich Hospital

5.3 Greenwich Hospital in-pensioners admission papers, entry books and registers 1704-1869

Many of the records listed in the table below are from record series ADM 73, a series which contains a variety of other related record collections. Use the catalogue to browse the contents of the whole series or use the series search to search by name for admissions papers 1790-1865 which include dates served and date of admission to Greenwich Hospital.

5.4 Greenwich Hospital out-pensions 1781-1809, 1814-1869 and 1879-1921

6. Certificates of service, 1802-1894

Certificates of service, issued by the Navy Pay Office, were used as proof that a rating qualified for a pension. The certificate was an abstract of successive postings derived from the ships’ musters. Before the introduction of continuous service registers for ratings, in the mid 19th century, these certificates formed the only official evidence of the careers of ratings. Collections survive of both the original certificates as received by Greenwich, and the Pay Office’s entry books of the certificates as issued.

Certificates of service provide the following information on seamen:

• rating (rank/job description)
• ships served on
• length of time on each ship

Search for ratings’ certificates of service (ADM 29) by name on Ancestry (£) for certificates issued up until 1894 (includes warrant officers up until 1919). However, you can find service details (such as rank, dates served and date of birth) for some ratings from the descriptions for a number of ADM 29 documents in our catalogue. Although they do not include images of the records themselves, the descriptions are free to view. To search for a seaman’s details in this way, either browse through ADM 29/2-73 or search by name using the ADM 29 series search.

Some seamen were issued with certificates of service years after they joined the Royal Navy and certificates do not necessarily cover all the service to date. If a Continuous Service (CS) or Official Number (ON) is given you should find further details in Royal Navy ratings’ service records 1853-1928.

7. Wounds and disability pensions, 1653-1799

Pensions for permanent disablement or grants to wounded ratings were paid by the Chatham Chest (later The Greenwich Chest), up until 1814, on production of a certificate known as a smart ticket.

Browse through ADM 82 by date in our catalogue to search for the records of payments to pensioners 1653-1799 from the Chatham Chest.

8. Widows’ and dependents’ pensions, 1675-1917

8.1 Pensions paid from the Chatham Chest, 1695-1779

The pay books of the Chatham Chest record payments of pensions to widows of ratings who died in service, 1695-1779: see ADM 82/12-119.

8.2 Royal Bounty payments

A lump sum of one year’s wages known as the Royal Bounty was payable to widows, dependent children or mothers (aged over 50) of ratings killed in action. Papers submitted to claim the bounty often include marriage and death certificates, with other documents attesting the age, relationship or poverty of the applicants.

Pay lists of the Royal Bounty, 1739-1787, giving name, address and relation of the payee, the name, quality and ship of the dead man, and the sum paid, are in ADM 106/3018-3020.

8.3 Greenwich Hospital pensions, 1882-1917

Search through the registers of Greenwich Hospital pensions and allowances paid to widows and children 1882-1917 in ADM 166/1-11.

8.4 Pension applications and awards 1892-1917 for men killed in conflict (but not in First World War)