RNVR Mersey Division Victory VI T Burnett Z/5860 - help with records

[LBD]

Hi, this is all totally new to me, but I am trying to research my grandfathers military / home service history for both world wars.  The attached is his record of service for The Great War and I understand that Victory VI was a land based posting in Crystal Palace.  The queries I have are as follows:

1. Is it feasible that a lad from Lancashire came down to London, because no-one in the family has any knowledge of him ever leaving the north (although we are now three generations removed).

2. Can anyone make out what his rating was and why he was discharged, because I cannot read that for the life of me.

3. Is there anywhere else other than The National Archives that would have further information regarding RNVR / Mersey Division; because this one page document is literally all TNA have and it doesn't really tell us much.

3. We believe that he was some sort of fire watchman during WWII, so probably home guard - any suggestions on where to find information regarding that - because a search on TNA website for his name, doesn't bring anything up.

Sorry the questions are probably very basic, but as I said this is the first time doing anything like this and its all new to me.

Thanks in anticipation, Louise Burnett

T Burnett service record.pdf

[Michelle Young]

Welcome to the forum, we can’t help with WW2 as this forum deals with WW1 exclusively. We recommend ww2talk.com

His rating OS Ordinary Seaman I believe. Discharge Shore and Demobilisation. 

[horatio2]

Welcome to the Great War Forum. Louise. I will confine my answers to WW1 as the GWF does not concern itself with WW2.

Your GF volunteered  to join the RNVR as a Seaman rating and he was enrolled into Mersey Division. His RNVR enrolment papers are held in the archive of the Fleet Air Arm Museum (National Museum of the Royal Navy). If you wish, you can purchase a copy of the documents. 

As noted above he served seven months as an Ordinary Seaman (OS) but was never drafted away from the Crystal Palace Depot where he underwent recruit training. With the end of the war he was discharged  to Shore on Demobilisation. The PIC number quoted at the top of the page refers to the Protection and Identity Certificate which was issued to him on demob.

"no-one in the family has any knowledge of him ever leaving the north" - such lack of knowledge is a common feature of 'family [his]tories. In this case he did, indeed travel south, abandoning Merseyside for seven months.

The Admiralty RNVR Medal Roll shows that, with no sea service, your GF only qualified for the British War Medal. However, it was never issued because he never claimed it, as he needed to.     Too late now!

A brief introduction to the RNVR in this document   -

   https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c054140f0b63f7572ad85/a-history-our-Reserves-Epub-v2.pdf

 

Edited 29 April by horatio2