Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Royal Naval Reserve Ratings' Records of Service...

BT 377

1908-1958

This series contains microfiche copies of service record cards of Royal Naval Reserve ratings, mainly covering men who served during the First World War, maintained by the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen.

Digital copies of Royal Naval Reserve service records 1860-1955 can be searched and downloaded.

A representative sample of earlier records of service cards covering the period 1890-1908 are preserved in original form as BT 164/20. Reference to these cards may be found in BT 377/7.

Fleet Air Arm Museum

Public Record(s)

English

27 microform

The availability of these records was reviewed in 2013-2014. Records for individuals with a date of birth less than 100 years old are not available, but will be released gradually.

Available in digital format and microform only

Ministry of Defence

Topics

Conflict

Navy

Merchant seaman

Operations, battles and campaigns

The Ministry of Defence held the records in order to respond to war pension queries. They did not, however, maintain or add to the records in their custody. It cannot be established when the records were passed from the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen. Approximately 139,800 cards were captured on the 5825 fiche that make up BT 377/7. The original cards contained many different coloured inks, as well as pencil written words, also the fact that these were working documents until the 1950s caused many of the cards to become badly soiled. Consequently, some of the information on the microfiche may not be legible on some of the images. The cards came to the Public Record Office in 2000 and were returned after being filmed. They were later presented to the Fleet Air Arm Museum.

File series ran from 1908 to 1955

The originals were intended for disposal but were returned after completion of filming. All surviving record of service cards have been microfiched.