Admiralty, and Ministry of Defence, Navy Department: Ships' Logs

ADM 53

1799-2008

These logs were books maintained by the Officer of the Watch for every ship of the Royal Navy in commission. They provide a permanent and consecutive daily record of the ships movements and position, recording all wheel and telegraph orders, weather encountered and other events, such as the employment of the ship's company, any deaths on board, disciplinary action (i.e. the reading of punishment warrants), loss or damage to stores and any other items of interest, such as visits by dignitaries of foreign officers. Logs were not kept by ships under major refit, which account for some gaps in sequence.

PLEASE NOTE: selections of digitised log books for key periods and shipping lanes are available on the external UK Colonial Registers and Royal Navy Logbooks (CORRAL) project dataset site.

The lists are maintained on an annual basis where possible, and under each ship alphabetically by months. (Prior to World War II, some of the vessels were listed alphabetically, with several years logs in each sequence, especially in the 19th century. During the 1930s batches, the lists contain two years of logs.) Any logs, out of sequence due to being retained as exhibits in Boards of Enquiry or Courts Martial proceedings, are placed at the beginning of each new annual batch and cross-referred where possible in the Standard list set. (Note that in this electronic catalogue some redundant cross-references have been removed). Where sequences are not consecutive, this could be due to either the ship being lost (in the War years), paying off or re-commissioning after extended refit, or on commissioning from the building yard. Explanations of some of the anomalies in more recent years are given where possible.

Whilst all ships logs are continued for 1939 and the early months of 1940, thereafter, the majority of logs for ships smaller than cruisers appear not to have survived for the remaining war years.

Public Record(s)

English

• Admiralty, 1832-1964
• Board of Admiralty, 1708-1964
• Ministry of Defence, 1947-1947

212412 files and volumes

Open unless otherwise stated

Ministry of Defence From

Board of Admiralty From

Topics

Labour

Population

Navy

Communications

Armed Forces (General Administration)

Series is accruing.

Ships' logs were inspected weekly by the Captain, then sent to the appropriate Administrative Authority, before being forwarded to the Head of the Record Office at the Admiralty.

From April 1967, a new ship's log came into use, which was similar in size and format to the minor vessels' log. The changeover to the new logs took some time to occur, so some vessels continued to use the larger logs for some time after 1967.