First World War Medal
Rolls
- Merchant Service
& Naval Reserves
The
medal rolls of the Merchant Service, which are at The National Archives, Public
Records Office, Kew give some pertinent detail, but
usually there is not all that much information of great use. It is obvious,
from numerous searches that these rolls are far from complete.
There
are also medal rolls for the Royal Naval Reserve, the Royal Naval Volunteer
Reserve, and the Mercantile Marine Reserve, which are split into officers and
ratings. Those rolls dealing with campaign medals, however, follow normal
military fashion. Therefore, potentially useful genealogical information is
limited. Official numbers are recorded for the R.N.R. and R.N.V.R. ratings that
can be essential in locating their service sheets. Also, in the case of the
M.M.R. official numbers can be shown (I suspect if joining from mid 1916
onwards) that are of no known use. However, sometimes individual commissioned
Mercantile Fleet Auxiliaries and even men-o-war are sometimes shown - for
service prior to mid 1916.
There
were also separate rolls for wartime martial honours and awards and can require
multiple searches. Also held at the P.R.O., there are different card
indexes for those ‘mentioned in dispatches’; those given British awards; and
separately those who were awarded foreign decorations; as well as others. These
are not particularly well labelled. Those of the ‘Royal Navy’ officers, also
contain R.N.R. and R.N.V.R. Anyway, from these cards, references to ‘honour
sheets’ can be made, which can be particularly important in dealing with
individuals who were ‘mentioned in dispatches’. It can be far more difficult, however, trying to get further information on
those awarded foreign decorations.
Additionally,
within miscellaneous medals rolls at Kew are those of the Australian Naval
Forces, Maltese R.N.R, Newfoundland R.N.R. Incidentally, the officers’ roll for
the M.M.R. is to be found on the final microfilm devoted to R.N.R. officers.
This is after a separate roll for R.N.R. skippers that were warrant officers.
These, I found by complete accident. (I and other freelance researchers have
requested that the paper and computer catalogues be improved to reflect these
various rolls.)
These
rolls can be found in a number of formats, from original card-indexes, to
micro-filmed and micro-fiche copies. Needless to say, I have also found a
number of omissions in these military rolls as well. This seems to be particularly
the case with men with common surnames.
Example of a merchant mariner’s First World War medal roll card
Example of a rating’s entry in the First World War R.N.R. medal roll
Example of entries of a R.N.R. officer awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross and bar
Example of entries of a R.N.R. officer mentioned in
dispatches and awarded a foreign decoration
Example of a rating’s entry in the First World World War R.N.V.R. medal roll
Example of entries of a R.N.V.R. officer awarded
the Distinguished Service Cross
Example of entries of R.N.V.R. officer mentioned in dispatches
Examples of entries of naval campaign medals
Click
the icon below to see an example of a group of medals issued to a merchant mariner for both the Great War 1914-19 and the Second World
War 1939-45.
|
|
These
medals were issued to John Newcombe’s grandson, by
the office of the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen as recently as
2001. (I am indebted to Mr. Peter R. Newcombe of
Exeter, for allowing me the use of this image.) |
Go to the main Mercantile
page