HMS SUNHILL

[hymac]

My father was born in 1900 in London. In 1916 he was serving on ship called Whakatane O.N. 111348. On crew agreements his previous ship is shown as Sunhill. (I have details of his later ships and crew agreements.) What was the Sunhill and how would I be able to get any info on him while there.

Thank you

[KizmeRD]

HMS Sunhill was the Parent Unit at Portsmouth for men appointed to commissioned fleet auxiliaries. Such men were generally former merchant navy ratings who signed on under so called T.124 forms which then brought them under The Navy Discipline Act and made them liable for service in the Merchant Marine Reserve. If you do a search of this Forum, you'll find plenty more on Sunhill.

Michael

[Joe R]

A little bit more on the ship can be found here.poheritage.com/Content/Mimsy/Media/factsheet/94974WHAKATANE-1900pdf.pdf

Respectfully,

Joe R

[KizmeRD]

Did I really repeat the error of refering to Sunhill as 'HMS' in my earlier posting? - should of course be RFA Sunhill.

Michael

And for Merchant Marine Reserve, read Mercantile Marine Reserve

PS Actually between 1916 and the end of the war, there is clear evidence that the prefix HMS was indeed used for the examination vessel HMS SUNHILL.

Edited 22 July , 2022 by KizmeRD

[sotonmate]

http://www.historicalrfa.org>rfa-sunhill

[hymac]

Thank you everybody for your info. The Whakatane sure had a run of bad luck (JoeR)

What would a 16 year old be doing on Sunhill (in 1916) Had a look on RFA Sunhill -Historical RFA and on Sep 23 1915 it was chartered by the Admiralty as an Accommodation Ship. How would I be able to find out anything about him?

I am tracing the family tree. All the crew agreements I have purchased came from Uni. of Newfoundland in Canada. Would there be anywhere I can find out anything about him prior to joining the ship Whakatane as a General servant.

His father was in the Royal Artillery .

I reside in New Zealand.

Regards

Bill

[KizmeRD]

After conscription came into force, there was no longer a pool of manpower available to fill vacancies in Commissioned Fleet Auxiliaries. Therefore the MMR was set up purely as a wartime expediency measure (see Admiralty Weekly Orders August 1916 - Formation of Mercantile Marine Reserve). Primarily it was a reserve of Merchant Navy ratings, however some men and boys withour prior MN training and experience were accepted by the Superintendent of Merchant Marine (and often employed as stewards and cabin boys). Perhaps they were otherwise unsuitable for military service, or simply keen and below the age of conscription (18), so free to join as they pleased.

FRA Sunhill was an accommodation ship used to house such men for a short time before being dispached to whatever ship had a vacancy to fill. Here they would have also been kitted out with uniform items and given some idea of what was expected of them in their new role at sea.

Michael

[horatio2]

HMS SUNHILL was commissioned from September 1915, so no longer an RFA. She had to be a commissioned ship for RN/RNR personnel to be appointed/drafted to her.

[sotonmate]

Out of interest there are Ship's Logs for SUNHILL II at Kew, running from ADM53/61727 (Mar 1916) to ADM53/61742 (Dec 1918).

[Kath]

Is Sunhill II the same ship as HMS Sunhill?

Kath.

[horatio2]

Essentially yes. It was a pay and admin office/accounting section for men serving in SUNHILL.

[Guest]

I see that there has been a few posts about this steam vessel, and some mention Crew Lists (Agreements?).

 

 

If there are members who have copies I would be interested to see them, if at all possible, for my research into this ship, SUNHILLl, O.N. 104354.

 

— Many Thanks,

John P.

[carrrb]

I went to the National Archives in Kew yesterday and looked at the logs for Sunhill II. I hoped i’d find information about a possible ancestor whose RNVR service record shows that he was at/on Sunhill a few times between 1917 and 1919 before ‘disposal’ to other vessels. But I left with more questions than answers.

The log books show that the ship sailed from Rosyth to Portsmouth 15-17 May 1916.    The log book for 18 May - 8 July is missing. From 9 July to 5 November 1916 she was at various places on the south coast  (Portsmouth, St Helens Bay, Southampton) before leaving Portsmouth on 6 November for Grimsby. She reached Grimsby on 10 November 1916 and remained either there, at Immingham or at sea in that area for the remainder of the War. When she was at sea (usually only for a few days at a time) she was frequently at what is called in the log books [an] ‘Examination station’.

How does this square with her being a ‘parent unit at Portsmouth’, an ‘accommodation ship’ there or a ‘pay and admin office/accounting section for men serving in SUNHILL’ (see some of the contributions above)? I’m probably misunderstanding something and would be grateful if anyone can clarify things.

Thanks,

Rich

[carrrb]

I've just come across http://historicalrfa.org/rfa-sunhill in which Sunhill II is described in early 1917 as an examination vessel (Wikipedia: used to inspect ships and boats entering a port during wartime). Can she have been used for both that purpose and as an accommodation ship? It all suggests that Sunhill and Sunhill II were separate ships/units and that they've since been incorrectly linked in various ways. But what exactly was Sunhill and what, if any, records exist for it?  

Rich

[Keith_history_buff]

Sounds like the vessel participated in the Port Examination Service activities

 

[Keith_history_buff]

4 hours ago, carrrb said:

How does this square with her being a ‘parent unit at Portsmouth’, an ‘accommodation ship’ there or a ‘pay and admin office/accounting section for men serving in SUNHILL’ (see some of the contributions above)? I’m probably misunderstanding something and would be grateful if anyone can clarify things.

Thanks,

Rich

The indirect answer to this question is that you need to look into the Naval Discipline Act 1866, which was repealed in 1957 when it was superseded by an Armed Forces Act, I believe. Unfortunately there is no definitive thread on this forum that I am aware of, to talk about this in greater detail.

In essence, every sailor had to be linked to a capital ship. The term in use was "Accounting Base". For small vessels, such as a squadron of destroyers or submarines, it was their depot ship that was the Accounting Base.

Some of the following threads talk about this very subject, which I hope will give a better understanding of the way that the Royal Navy posted men to Accounting Bases, and the implication this has on record keeping.
 

 

 

 

 

 

[carrrb]

Thanks very much, Keith. That helps a lot. While I was aware when I went to Kew that I’d be unlikely to find much, if any, info on my possible relative, I was really surprised that the Sunhill II logs showed the location and function of the ship to be so different to what I’d expected. But now I understand (correctly, I hope) that Sunhill (rather than Sunhill II) was probably a land establishment at Portsmouth parented for Naval discipline reasons to Sunhill II. Presumably it would have been named Sunhill and started to function as an accommodation unit for Merchant (Mercantile?) Reserve men after Sunhill II had been commissioned in 1915. It puzzles me that the parent ship was named Sunhill II and the parented unit called Sunhill? Why not the other way around?

Rich

[Keith_history_buff]

Hello Rich,
The details about HMS Sunhill and its iterations are likely to be found in the following book. I don't know which libraries would have a copy:
 

• Warlow, Ben, Shore Establishments of the Royal Navy, Liskeard : Maritime, 2000. ISBN 978-0-907771-73-9

From memory I think there were two HMS Attentive accounting bases in existence in WW1.

It seems "interesting" to me that there are RNVR ratings alongside MMR ratings in respect of having Sunhill as their Accounting Base, and this having a MMR "flavour". That said, sailors were deployed where needed, be it on warships, Q-ships, patrol craft, minesweepers or trawlers.

You could start a new thread under "Sailors...." and look to get an interpretation of his statement of service from his ADM 337 record. 

[Keith_history_buff]

For anyone reading, here is a revised URL
http://www.historicalrfa.org/rfa-sunhill

[KizmeRD]

‘Sunhill II’ became the accounting unit for all mercantile marine ratings (and officers) serving on naval auxiliaries. Such men signed so called T.124X agreements and frm 1916 onwards were collectively referred to as the Mercantile Marine Reserve.

MB

[horatio2]

It is difficult to weave together the various threads of information about SUNHILL and SUNHILL II, some of which are contradictory. My best interpretation of the data leads me to conclude that SUNHILL and SUNHILL II were, in fact, different accounting identities for the same ship. That ship was launched on 25 May 1895 at Messrs J Laing, Sunderland as Yard Nr: 541 and was named SS GENERAL HAVELOCK for Messrs R.M. Hudson & Sons, Sunderland. In 1901 she was purchased by Royal Mail Steam Packet Co, London and renamed KENNET. In 1915 she was  purchased by Sun Shipping Co Ltd (Mitchell, Cotts & Co, Managers) London and renamed SS SUNHILL. So much for the pre-Admiralty history of the actual ship.

On 23 September 1915 SS SUNHILL waschartered by the Admiralty for use as an Accommodation Ship. She was fitted out at Royal Victoria Dock[yard] in London in Oct 1915 for service at Rosyth from Nov 1915. I have not been able to pin down on whose books those accommodated in her at Roosyth were borne but SUNHILL, at this stage, was not commissioned and men must have been borne elsewhere – perhaps on the books of HMS COLUMBINE.

In May 1916 she was moved south to Portsmouth and commissioned there (becoming HMS SUNHILL) on 15 Jun 1916 as Nominal Depot Ship for mercantile ratings in RN Barracks. She is noted as taking this role from HMS SYRIA  (I have not traced this ship) and retained the role until 1920.This change of her role was confirmed by Admiralty Weekly Order No.1856 dated 8 August 1916 which laid down some new rules for Mercantile Marine Ratings. The AWO stated inter alia that arrangements had “been made for the maintenance of a Reserve at the RN Barracks, Portsmouth, of the principal Ratings required to fill vacancies in Commissioned Fleet Auxiliaries. Such men will be engaged from time to time as necessary by the Superintendents of Mercantile Marine and will be signed on the Agreement Form T.124X for the SS [sic] SUNHILL, which will be regarded as the parent ship for Mercantile Ratings at Portsmouth…”.

So far so good but this left me seeking a clearer definition of HMS SUNHILL II. Despite her new nominal role as the parent ship of the Reserve of MM ratings in the Portsmouth Barracks, it would appear that HMS SUNHILL was given an operational role and, as revealed by the ship’s logs, moved away from Portsmouth: in Jul 1916 from Portsmouth to Southampton; in Nov 1916 to Grimsby; and from Jan 1917 to Dec 1918 at Immingham. It would appear that, while based on the Humber, she was employed as examination vessel. On 6 Mar 1917 she was in collision with SS KOLPINO in River Humber while operating in this role. The Navy List records this ship as SUNHILL II, a Mercantile Fleet Auxiliary (MFA).

HMS SUNHILL is noted as running a  separate ledger, HMS SUNHILL II, “for officers and men serving in SUNHILL”. I interpret this to mean that there were two sets of SUNHILL ledgers, both presumably run from a Portsmouth Base pay office:

HMS SUNHILL – for MM ratings (and, later, some officers) in the Portsmouth Barracks Reserve.

HMS SUNHILL II – for those actually serving in the ship’s company of HMS SUNHILL on the Humber.

Still very muddy and contradictory but my best shot.

Edited 23 July , 2022 by horatio2