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Remembered Today:

List 14 on a ship's books


Tawhiri

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I was wondering whether anybody might be able to tell me what List 14 is on a ship's books. I think I have finally exhausted all the WW1 Royal Navy connections on my wife's side of the family after our enforced lockdown of the past two months, with the discovery that the older of the two half-brothers of the two brothers who served on HMS Foyle, Ernest Edward Pauley, also joined the Royal Navy. His younger half-brother was the only one of the two sets of half-brothers who did not serve in the Royal Navy, being accidentally killed while serving with the Rifle Brigade in France in 1918. My first surprise was looking at his service record and the date that he joined the Royal Navy, and then realizing that he had entries pre-dating the date of engagement in his service record. It turns out that he apparently joined the Royal Navy as a boy seaman in June 1912, when he was aged 15 years and 3 months, before signing on for the standard engagement period of 12 years on his 18th birthday in April 1915. 

 

Looking at his service record much of his early career seems to have been spent at various shore establishments, but it looks as though he did go to sea on both HMS Thesus, from February 1913 to May 1913, and again on HMS Hibernia from October 1914 to May 1916. In both cases he is shown as being on List 14 on the ship's books, and I was wondering whether anybody could enlighten me as to what List 14 is. He later serves on HMS Alecto from June 1916 to April 1917, which was a submarine depot ship for the Eight Submarine Flotilla, and in this case he is shown as being List 5, which I now know means he was serving as crew on HMS Alecto, rather than being attached to HMS Alecto for administrative purposes while serving on a submarine (hopefully I got this right RNCVR and horatio2).

 

He was subsequently invalided out of the Royal Navy in February 1919, although it could not have been a serious injury as at the time of his marriage in August 1923 he was working as a police constable in London, England. He and his family subsequently emigrated to Australia in August 1926, before returning to England in February 1934. The longest living of the two sets of half-brothers he lived to the ripe old age of 87, before passing away in 1984.

 

Source: Ancestry/The National Archives

43343_683_0-00121.jpg

Edited by Tawhiri
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6 hours ago, Tawhiri said:

before signing on for the standard engagement period of 12 years on his 18th birthday in April 1915. 

Not quite correct. He signed his continuous service engagement when he hoined as a Boy in June 1912 but hif 'time' did not start until his 18th birthday.

 

6 hours ago, Tawhiri said:

I was wondering whether anybody could enlighten me as to what List 14 is.

List 14 covered men serving in the ship temorarily as supernumeraries. i.e. additional to the ship's company (List 5). You are correct, he was List 5 (Ship's company) in ALECTO - had he been serving in a submarine he would have been List 12 (with the name of the submarine - or possibly not). List 15 were also supernumeraries of various categhories

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3 hours ago, horatio2 said:

Not quite correct. He signed his continuous service engagement when he hoined as a Boy in June 1912 but hif 'time' did not start until his 18th birthday.

 

 

Horatio, does your comment mean  that I should take it that the date on records when boy service started would be the date when the continuous engagement contract was signed in all cases.  I had definitely made the same assumption as the poster when looking at other seamen's records.

 

Keith

 

 

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Yes, if you look at the date they joined their first ship you'll see it's always before the continuous service engagement date (which always coincides with 18th birthday - or at least what the RN thought the 18th birthday was).

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2 hours ago, David_Underdown said:

Yes, if you look at the date they joined their first ship you'll see it's always before the continuous service engagement date (which always coincides with 18th birthday - or at least what the RN thought the 18th birthday was).

Agreed. The engagement had to be signed by the man/boy (and a Parental Consent if under 17) before the first day of service.

Engagement papers and Parental Consent papers are held in the archive of the Fleet Air Arm Museum (National Museum of the Royal Navy).

2 hours ago, David_Underdown said:

or at least what the RN thought the 18th birthday was

Which means what the man or boy declared. Per KR&AI - " [on entry confirm] That in the case of boys the written proofs of age and parents' consent which are adduced are not falsified or forged,  but the age as stated by the man or boy on entry is conclusive against him, and no alteration is to be made in the books without the sanction of the Admiralty."

Edited by horatio2
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Just following on from the previous comments, this effectively means that a boy seaman, if he served his full 12 years of his time, could have actually served for three or four years longer depending on how old he was when he joined.

 

As far as List 5/List 14 goes, how many supernumeraries would a typical ship have normally carried, recognizing that this would likely have varied according to the type and role of the ship? His time on HMS Thesus seems to coincide with her joining the Queenstown Training Squadron in February 1913, so I can understand him being a supernumerary on this ship given the short period of time he was on her. His period on HMS Hibernia covers a period of 20 months, so a little harder to understand being a supernumerary for that length of time. I presume though, that in all cases his roles aboard ship would have been indistinguishable from those seamen on List 5.

 

I must confess that given List 15 always seems to coincide with being ashore, I had just assumed it was the standard list for a seaman to find himself on when ashore.

 

Once again, thanks to everybody who replied.

 

Craig

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2 hours ago, Tawhiri said:

a boy seaman, if he served his full 12 years of his time, could have actually served for three or four years longer depending on how old he was when he joined.

Correct. No service before the age of 18 was allowed to count towards engagement or pension. The time lost was noted as 'Under Age'.

 

2 hours ago, Tawhiri said:

how many supernumeraries would a typical ship have normally carried,

An answer would be pure conjecture and there is no such thing as a "typical ship".

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horatio2

 

54 minutes ago, horatio2 said:

An answer would be pure conjecture and there is no such thing as a "typical ship".

 

Thank you, I did rather walk into that one with my eyes closed :)

 

All the best

Craig

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David Underdown and Horatio2, thank you both for the clarification. I had until a few years ago, when I started researching some Portsmouth men, pretty much only had to investigate army service, and I'm far from expert on some aspects of that; but I had to work up my understanding of RN matters in somewhat of a hurry and had never picked this up at all.

 

I look forward to the time when it will be possible to use the material at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, and had actually stated sorting a very long list of names, when everything came to a halt.

 

 

Keith

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