Royal Navy Days and Afterward

[Ian Burns]

Royal Navy Days and Afterward by An Ex-Naval Officer who was disabled in service.

This was published ca.1940 and relates the ex-Naval Officer's experiences with Kite Balloons and the Grand Fleet in WW1. It is a fictionalized memoir.

It was written with the assistance of Ellis Middleton (Novelist), and has a foreword by Admiral Sir W. E. Goodenough.

The name of the ex- Naval Officer appears lost to time, but may have been Gibb.

 

Anyone able to name that author?

[seaJane]

After a brief hiccup because the last word of the title is recorded as afterwards with an s:

 

https://copac.jisc.ac.uk/search?&title=Royal+navy+days+and+afterwards reveals the publishers to be Morrison & Gibb.

 

One of the National Maritime Museum's copies has an author entry for William J. Rawson, the other joins Oxford in entering Ex-Naval Officer (copy-specific information on the database makes me fairly sure that these are not the same item catalogued twice).

 

There may be an unrecorded inscription in the first item, but you'd have to ask the librarian to look at the book itself.

 

Following up, from TNA Kew I can offer:

 

William Jeremiah Rawson, officer in the RNAS:

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C9750956

 

or William Joseph Rawson, RNVR Tyneside Division, who may not have been an officer:   http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D7701217

 

Those are the only two William J Rawsons in Admiralty files during the GW period (that I can find).

 

 

 

Edited 22 February , 2019 by seaJane

[seaJane]

William Jeremiah is in the Navy List for 1917 and Google suggests that he may have been in the RFC at some point. I can't find William John in the Navy List which tends to corroborate my feeling that he was not an officer.

[alf mcm]

William Jeremiah Rawson's R.A.F. service record is on Findmypast. https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=GBM/AIR76/418/0/0462&parentid=GBM/AIR76/74665  He certainly served with kite baloons.

 

Regards,

 

Alf McM

[seaJane]

The same record available for £3.50 from TNA: date of birth 18 June 1876.

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D8218942

[Ian Burns]

Thank you seaJane  and alf mcm.

 

Having taken a look at ADM 273/16/13 William Jeremiah is my man.

 

He was a Kite Balloon officer, based at Houton Bay air station (Scapa Flow), the main base for Grand Fleet kite balloons, and attached to HMS Orion.

Further his record shows : 6.5.18 Admitted Granton Hosp. Injury to Head. It is surprisingly easy to read around TNA watermarks!

 

Thank you, a minor mystery solved.

Ian

[seaJane]

All you need for full confidence is the reason for the NMM assignment of authorship to him - I may have a contact, and will ask.

 

[edit] A search on "royal naval hospital granton" 1914-1918 brings up a fair few general images of the hospital.

 

[edit #2] Ah, knew I had something on it! Probably worth toggling to full screen and then zooming in using the button in the lower right corner of the display.

https://archive.org/details/JRNMSVOL4Images/page/n241

 

sJ

Edited 22 February , 2019 by seaJane

[Ian Burns]

Thank you.

1) Re; NMM assignment. That is most kind, I would really appreciate the effort.

2) The Granton Hospital article is most interesting, as is the publication itself. I never cease to be amazed at what turns up on Archive.

Best regards

Ian

[seaJane]

2 hours ago, Ian Burns said:

The Granton Hospital article is most interesting, as is the publication itself. I never cease to be amazed at what turns up on Archive.

 

The Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service was digitised by grant which did not include OCR (optical character recognition) unfortunately, so the volumes aren't searchable. Also, you have to know to search by JRNMS + year or JRNMS + volume number; the full title won't find it, as far as I know. However, main articles can be identified by searching for author or title at https://jrnms.com/Archive?search=True - as long as the person who typed the details in spelt the words right. ...