The ‘Ticketing System’
Although the
threats (to Britain’s state) of the French revolution and later military
dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte had been seen off, post 1815 the ruling
elites of Europe were intensely scared of the capabilities of their peoples.
Life was difficult post war. In Britain the war-time boom ended with the crash
of corn prices and there was large-scale disaffection, including riots. There
was a very limited enlargement of the franchise in the First Reform Act of
1832, but this merely affected the middle classes. Nevertheless, something of a
cautious approach was made towards the lower orders.
Always a
controversial matter, in these worrying times the press fell out of political
favour - although apparently not with most senior naval officers. Although
partially solved with the run-down of the massive Royal Navy’s wartime
strength, there was another reason for the reform of R.N.: recruitment. With
France’s seaborne power, both naval and mercantile, all but destroyed, British
mercantile business was expanding and was seen as a great hope for Britain’s
future prosperity. Liberal politicians, as advocates of free-trade, regarded
naval impressment as a hindrance to this. (Incidentally, it is clear that not
all senior naval officers were reactionary. In 1835 and entirely overlooked in
modern understanding, there was a limited scheme that introduced engagements of
continuous service for boys and men joining as seamen.)
Returning to
merchant mariners, a ‘ticketing system’ had been part of a Bill of 1834, which
seems originally to have stemmed from an idea of Lord Nelson’s. However, this
was dropped. Instead a year later the Merchant Seamen’s Act was passed. This
required masters of vessels to forward their Agreements and Crew Lists (that
were required as early as 1747) to the newly formed Register Office of Merchant
Seamen, through customs officials, on the completion of voyages in the case of
foreign-going vessels and six-monthly for coasters. The idea was to then to
compile indexes of all British men, in order to force specific groups into the
R.N. in times of necessity and was at this stage, an Admiralty office.
The first
simple attempt at this alphabetical indexing is known as the Register of
Seamen, Series I and lasted less than a year. Deluged with Crew Lists, a new
system was instituted in 1836, known as the Register of Seamen, Series II. This
was far more complex, which created separate registers for foreign-going and home
trades. (Please note that home trade included voyages not only around Britain
and Ireland, but also within all sea areas from Brest to the Elbe.) Thanks to
the work of Chris Watts, of the Public Records Office., it is now known that
Series II consisted of two differing listings and was even more complicated
than realised. These forms lasted until 1845.
There had been
certain practical difficulties. One of these was that the clerks in London had
significant problems differentiating between men of the same name (and having
done lots of searches on these records I can understand why). Obviously some of
this was social, such as under the clan system of northern and island Scotland,
but also due to more common names. Of course, there also seems to be evidence
of deliberate obstruction by masters, shipowners and less than keen customs
officials. Studies of the records of the port of Lancaster at this time seem to
show all these traits. A number of family businesses not only operated tiny
vessels of apparently the same type and tonnage, they also gave two or more
craft the same name, with family crew members transferring between these as
required. In effect this makes tracing individuals highly difficult. This is
especially so for the example of the port of Lancaster, since the record
keeping by the customs officials is also most definitely lacking in
professionalism!
However, there
were also other considerations. Interestingly, the statistics showed that only
about a third of the number of apprentices by tonnage, under the 1823 Act, were
being taken on. (Additionally with no ‘quality control’ there was no guarantee
of high standards of training. In fact there is much evidence to show that
often there was no training as such and
apprentices were only used as unpaid labour. Through the workings of the Poor
Law, many apprentices were simply ten year old boys sold off by local
authorities for fifty shillings.) Wrapped up with the lobbying of a few
officers for the introduction of proper naval reserves (drawn from merchant
service) and separately, the working of the Merchant Seamen’s Fund, the R.N.
opted for the full ticketing system. This put off what was regarded as the
thorny question of reserves and the more complete records would allow for the
R.N. to take the pick of merchant seamen in times of war. This was enacted by
Parliament in September 1844.
Excepting
masters and surgeons, individually numbered ‘register tickets’ were issued by
Customs Officers at the main ports to all British merchant mariners, with the
details supposedly being forwarded to the General Register and Record Office of
Seamen. (Naval authorities also issued tickets to men on warships to some
lesser and unknown degree, as did coastguard authorities to their own.) As Crew
Lists and Agreements were also received, men’s movements were to be entered
into the registers. Also, mariners’ tickets were to be held by masters during
voyages and returned on discharge. However, since the Register Office was not
used in the prosecution of deserters, this did not have the desired effect in
curbing sometimes very high levels of desertion. Furthermore, in an era with no
state provision for education and a high rate of illiteracy, mariners saw no
reason to comply with the legislation and look after their tickets. Anyway,
even though money was stopped out of their pay they received no benefit from
the Merchant Seamen’s Fund (which being bankrupt, was wound up in 1851). There
is both considerable statistical and anecdotal evidence to show high levels of
an illegal trade in forged tickets, which could be acquired for about a quarter
of the fine imposed by the authorities for the loss of tickets.
In London
there were other practical difficulties which bear heavily on modern use of
these documents. Because of an apparent intolerable workload for the
shore-bound civil servants, legal opinion was sought as to the requirement of
keeping the registers. This led to entries of movements not being made for the
years 1849, 1850 and 1852 to 1854. Apart from this, the actual notations
themselves are far more complex. Until this time vessels’ names had been given.
However, this was replaced by a numerical system whereby vessels could only be
identified through ports of registration and voyage numbers. Added to all the
other shortcomings above and others such as incredibly poor handwriting both of
mariners and some civil servants, as well as genuine errors and omissions, this
can prove highly problematical. Where mariners had common surnames, it is
apparent that often there was no attempt by clerks to update entries, as
numerous entries showing the same ticket numbers can be found. Of course this
can be useful in checking numbers that are unclear, but it also adds greatly to
the time and effort spent in conducting modern searches. I find it difficult to
understand how the system for identifying men required for the R.N. could
actually have worked in reality, which is backed up by later Board of Trade
correspondence dealing with proposed the reintroduction of similar systems (in
the early 20th century) that brought up this same point.
In all
likelihood this was fully realised at the time by the powers that were and it
was done away with in 1853, by the Lords of Her Majesty’s Privy Council
appointed for the Consideration of Matters relating to Trade and Foreign
Plantations - as the Board of Trade was still officially known. With the
formation of the Marine Department of the ‘Board of Trade’ in 1850, through the
Mercantile Marine Act of the same year, they had taken over the Admiralty’s
‘Register Office’ and submissions were made to reduce what was regarded as a
severe workload. As well as a second and relatively large-scale scheme
encouraging continuous service for seamen ratings in the R.N. as of 1853,
legislation was passed that for the first time allowed for the ‘calling out’ of
merchant seamen in times of war. This had a knock-on effect for those lobbying
for naval reserves. It is interesting to note that no recourse
was made to the new powers of the state (relating to merchant mariners) during
the Crimean War (1853-56) though.
A paper
hangover of the above remained between 1853 and 1857 in the form of the
Register of Seamen, Series III (or ‘third register’). Again this was an alphabetical
system for mariners’ names, but retaining the complicated numerical form of
port of registry and voyage numbers for identification of vessels.
Nevertheless, Crew Lists and Agreements continued to be relayed to London and
were filed under the new bureaucratic systems to follow.
All of the
above-mentioned records are held at The National Archives, Kew, Surrey, in the
United Kingdom. Because of the nature of these, they are viewed on microfilm
and searches require great care and
attention.
In some areas the original civil-servants were organised and efficient,
entering information neatly and in strict alphabetical order. Elsewhere, they
are a complete mess, entries made haphazardly and in what seem to modern readers
to be illiterate scrawls. It should also be pointed out that at the stage of
recording the mariners’ entries in London, there was a separate register for
masters. As a matter of interest, there is at least one surgeon entered into
the masters’ entries.
The bulk of
the historical information for this section came from Archibald Hurd’s: The Merchant Navy (London:
John Murray, 1921) volume I and Frank C. Bowen’s: History of the Royal Naval Reserve (London: The
Corporation of London, 1926): the former which has been reprinted by the
Imperial War Museum, the latter more difficult to find. Additional and
pertinent information also came from P.G. Parkhurst’s: Ships of Peace - A record of some of the problems
which came before the Board of Trade in connection with the British Mercantile
Marine from the early years to the year 1885 (New Malden, Surrey: private
publication, 1962), but this seems to be something of a ‘rare’ book.
Click on the
icon below for an example of a Register Ticket.
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This is only partly researched at this time, but seems to have been issued to a young lad, named William Scott at either Hong Kong, or more likely Shanghai, in June 1846. Unusually, this seems to have been from a block of tickets issued to mariners onboard R.N. warships. |
Interestingly
William Scott predominately served on steamships, including paddle-driven R.N.
vessels and auxiliary screw-driven merchantmen. In the 1850s he spent time on
the early
steamships of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, before leaving the
sea. I am indebted to Kenneth Scott of Dunedin, Florida, for allowing me to use
this image. For those interested in learning more of this mariner’s career,
there is a website dedicated to him at http://www.kenscott.com under the ‘Sailing
Career of William Scott b.1833’.
Go to
Crew Lists and Agreements
Go to
the Certification of Seamen Officers
Go the
Central Index Register c.1919 to 1940