Deaths of Mariners at
Sea (along with Births, Deaths and Marriages of Passengers)
Already stated
in the page on ships’ official logs, through the
Mercantile Marine Act of 1850, these were to be kept by masters. Amongst the
information to be recorded were deaths of mariners onboard. In 1854,
through the Merchant Shipping Act, further entries in logs and additionally
within crew-lists and agreements were required of masters: for births,
marriages and all deaths onboard.
However, the
Seamen’s Fund Winding Up Act of 1851 and which came into force in 1852 required
on the death of crew members including apprentices, that their ‘Clothes and other
perishable or saleable Effects’, as well as any other money due to them in
wages or otherwise, to be auctioned by the relevant master mariners and the
proceeds sent to the Board of Trade in London (via Shipping Masters, Customs
Officials, or Consular Officials). Presumably, this was for onward transmission
to their widows, or families. This system was administered by the office of the
Registrar General of Seamen. The ledgers used for this were especially printed
and used when the Act came into force in January 1852, giving all salient
information, including amount of monies received. They were also separately and
neatly indexed by men’s names: from 1855 also by ships’ names.
Totally
separately, the Passengers Act of 1855 demanded not only that masters produce
lists of passengers on vessels leaving the United Kingdom in duplicate (one
copy which was to be kept by Customs Officers), but also that relevant
officials, whether Shipping Masters, Customs Officers, or Consular Officials be
informed of births due to and deaths of passengers. It was then these shorebound officials’ duty periodically to inform the
Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in London of these
occurrences. Another section of the Act also dealt with the deaths of incomers:
those from outside Europe and the Mediterranean. Complicating matters was a
different Act in Scotland, of 1854. This required ships’ masters to inform the
Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Edinburgh, by post, if
‘any Child of a Scottish Parent’ was born onboard British vessels and similarly, if
‘any of Her Majesty’s Scottish Subjects’ died onboard
British vessels.
It is not
unlikely then that this was judged unwieldy and the Registrar General of Seamen
took on the responsibility of informing the Registrars of Births, Deaths and
Marriages in both London and Edinburgh, in an ‘administrative agreement’. This
would explain the form which the registers for the first four decades took,
inasmuch as even the headings were written up in long hand and whilst indexed,
these were internal and less than well thought out.
In the absence
of any written evidence (so far found) I am of the opinion that this was a duty
taken on for other reasons as well. It was not even until 1874 that it became a
legal requirement for the R.G.S.S. to be informed of births, deaths and
marriages at sea, even although they had been making note of these events since
1854. And, even with a number of reorganisations, both types of records
continued to be separately kept well into the 20th century. This
again points to these records being kept for differing reasons and under
differing Acts of Parliament.
It should be
noted that the details of a great number of deaths appear never to have found
their way to the civil Registrar Generals of England, Scotland etc. A fair
proportion can be seen as having got as far as the office of the R.G.S/R.G.S.S.
but did not get any further. Yet more did not even get to London in the first
place. On the subject of these latter disparities in reporting, these may in my opinion, have come from Shipping Masters
not fulfilling this duty in part. After all, these were not main-stream civil
servants in the vein of the Civil Service Commission of 1855 (‘liberally’
educated in the classics, Latin and ancient Greek, with a zealotry
to maintaining paper empires ‘under the rules,’ but ignoring everything else outwith). I can think of a number of traits which could
account for non-compliance, including incompetence and downright sloth.
On a practical
level, as already intimated the records dealing with deaths of mariners should be easy enough to use. These are to be found
at The National Archives, Kew and as original ledgers. As a point of interest,
the records dealing with passengers are also at the P.R.O. Until 1890 these are
in microfilm form, whilst after that the original ledgers are to be seen.
However, there
are exceptions to my point on the ease of use of these documents and this is
not only in my opinion, but also of other researchers. The early indexes to the
Registers of Wages and Effects of Deceased Seamen (for the 1850s) simply do not tally with actual surviving registers in places.
This is rather perplexing. For some time I reckoned that it may have been that
these indexes were used for more than one series, which can be seen in other
records occasionally. In time I have come to the conclusion that this was
merely down to significant levels of incompetence by the nineteenth century
civil servants. Secondly, there is a significant hole in the actual registers
relating to the wages and effects of these hapless mariners during the 1880s.
Thirdly, and potentially this is very important,
I have found that the alphabetical indexes for those in the first and second
decades of the twentieth centuries contain not insignificant omissions.
Therefore, to be safe researchers should physically check every month in the
annual registers.
There is also
potentially another way of finding of deaths at sea. This is through the marine
registers of the General Register Office. However, it would appear that these
were exclusively compiled from the information supplied by the R.G.S./R.G.S.S. Interestingly, these begin in 1837 (for reasons
not yet uncovered by this author) and continue through to 1965.
From the late
19th century through to the mid 20th century the State
was concerned at the apparently high level of death among stokehold ratings.
Among the voluminous evidence within Board of Trade precedent books, there are
some useful reports and returns regarding named individuals. In TNA: PRO BT
167/72 there is a very small number of reports on individual suicides between
1889 and 1907. In the next volume, TNA: PRO BT 167/73, there are a number of
tables relating to deaths in stokeholds and men missing presumed dead variously
from 1892 through to 1900. These name some men. In later precedent books, TNA:
PRO BT 167/121 (1913 to 1925) and 122 (1925 to 1940)
there are registers of deaths of firemen and trimmers. These can be useful in
getting additional information, such as the temperature in the engine room at
the time of death.
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