Major peacetime accidents resulting in serious injury to, or loss of vessels

(See below for ‘Black Books’ and ‘Confidential Circulars’)

One obvious implication of the introduction of certification of merchant officers, was the right of the state to withdraw these from officers who had acted unprofessionally. Accordingly, as of 1850 under the auspices of the Board of Trade, local Marine Boards have held investigations into damages to and losses of vessels. (When further legislation brought engineers into the system of certification, they too became subject to the same procedures.) Anyway, if initial investigations indicated fault of officers, full and formal enquiries could be and were held. However, the legislation in which the Local Marine Boards were operating under allowed a great deal of leeway and advised that only the worst breaches should result in prosecution.

As far I know, no examples of initial investigations made by local Marine Boards have survived. However, while not complete the main public library in Southampton, Hampshire now holds the former Department of Transport, Marine library’s collection of these formal inquiries. The Guildhall Library in the City of London also has a number of these, but only beginning in 1908. There are also some reports pertaining to vessels owned by railway companies at T.N.A. These are within the general class RAIL. Some of these are relatively early and may be the only surviving copies. It should also be noted that major accidents were regularly reported in the shipping press and often in very great detail.

Additionally there was parliamentary papers emanating from the Board of Trade, dealing with marine casualties. Some of these were statistical abstractions, but others gave more detail.

Other Disciplinary Matters

(including ‘Black Books’ & ‘Confidential Circulars’)

There was also a highly important ‘moral’ aspect to the legislation of 1850 and after. Drunkenness, which might well have been covered relating to matters above, was regarded as a crime in itself. So, too was ‘tyrannical’ behaviour towards crews and passengers. These were, theoretically at least, punishable too by suspension or cancellation of certificates. Conviction ashore of criminal offences seems also to have later automatically incurred immediate loss of tickets.

In relation to all these types of behaviour the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen compiled ‘Black Books’. Held in The National Archives, Public Records Office, Kew, these are indexed and appear to be complete. They now cover the period from 1851 until 1950 (those from 1893 onwards being much further on in the catalogue.) The physical form of these changed with time. It seems that ‘suspect’ officers were listed early on, but this practice was subsequently dropped. Sometimes these entries are far more detailed than those in Lloyd’s Captains Register, but especially where there were press editorials on particular enquiries Lloyd’s entries sometimes give far more information than the ‘Black Book’ entries.

Held by the Guildhall Library, in the City of London, is a collection of records known as ‘confidential circulars’. The actual forms are headed ‘Confidential Reports from Registrar General of Seamen’ and in fact are ‘Black Book’ entries transmitted to Lloyd’s (of London) by the R.G.S.S. Nominally these cover between 1900 and 1946. However, there are comparatively few of these and most years are not represented at all. Nevertheless, there is a relatively large percentage for the First World War period within these.

In both collections there are a variety of offences shown. As well as professional negligence and incompetence, there are a great many relating to drunkenness, a lesser number to assault and a relatively small number for other criminal offences such as murder and rape. It should also be noted that there were whole classes of new criminal offences in wartime (especially under the oppressive Defence of the Realm Act, 1914).

Interestingly, I have found one case where there is no Board of Trade ‘Black Book’ entry, but is shown in a Lloyd’s ‘Confidential Circular’. So, at least in a minority of cases, it might be worthwhile searching both bodies of reports.

Five examples of entries from the ‘Black Books’

Four examples of Great War ‘confidential circulars’

Go to Great War investigations

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