How to look for records of... Royal Navy ratings’ pensions 17th-20th centuries

1. Why use this guide?

This guide provides advice on how to find pension records of Royal Navy ratings and of some merchant seamen who served in Royal Navy employment. These records may prove useful if you are searching for information on an ancestor who served with the Royal Navy.

The biographical information in these records varies considerably, depending on the type of pension and the type of record but can include:

• dates of service
• place of birth
• age on entry to the Royal Navy
• date of death
• names of widows and children of seamen killed in service

Most of the records covered by the guide are from the 18th and 19th centuries but they date back as early as 1653; a few others cover First World War service and beyond.

2. Where do these records come from?

These records are now held at The National Archives, primarily under the department code ADM. However, they were originally created by a variety of charitable and government bodies responsible for the payment of naval pensions at the time they were granted. The three most significant were:

• The Royal Greenwich Hospital

Founded in 1694 as a home for pensioned seamen, the Royal Greenwich Hospital admitted its first pensioners in 1705. As well as admitting a fixed number of in-pensioners, who lived in the hospital, from 1763 small out-pensions were paid to large numbers of applicants who had served in either the Navy or Marines. Although claimants of out-pensions had to have served in the Navy or Marines, there was no bar to them holding other employment: many out-pensioners of the hospital were in full employment as the pensions were scarcely sufficient to live on. It was possible for both in- and out-pensioners to re-enter the Navy, at which point their pensions lapsed until their discharge.

• The Navy Pay Office

The accounting department and paymaster of the Royal Navy.

• The Chatham Chest (later The Greenwich Chest)

Founded in 1581, this charity, supported by the monthly deduction of sixpence from officers’ and ratings’ pay, paid pensions to ratings wounded in naval service. Management of the Chatham Chest was taken over by the Royal Greenwich Hospital in 1803 and in 1814 it ceased to be a separate source of pensions, its funds melting into the wider Greenwich Hospital pension pot.

From the late 19th century, various other government departments became involved in the payment of naval pensions, such as the Paymaster General (PMG), and the Ministry of Pensions (PIN). For pre-19th century records it may also be worth checking for petitions for pensions in the records of the Secretaries of State (in SP) and the Privy Council (PC).

3. Who was entitled to a pension?

It was not until 1859 that pensions for service were granted automatically to all ratings who had served for 20 consecutive years in the Royal Navy. Up to 1859 there was no guarantee that a rating would receive a pension for service. Before then, pensions were rarely awarded to ratings unless they had been wounded or killed in action or on duty.

The majority of ratings entered as boys, signing their first engagement at 18 and therefore retired at 38, or 43 for those who signed on for a ‘fifth five’. This left a man with much of his working life remaining and naval pensioners were often still in employment, many of them in dockyards and other naval establishments.

4. Records covering First World War and later service

As for other periods, there are a hotchpotch of different pension records that survive for seamen who served in the First World War:

4.1 Selected First World War pension award files

A sample of disability pension awards from the First World War are held under references PIN 26/16684-17178. Search these records by name or number using the PIN 26 series search in our catalogue.

4.2 First World War widows’ pension forms

A random sample of First World War widows’ and dependants’ pensions forms were selected for preservation and are now held in record series PIN 82. They represent around 8% of all First World War armed services pensions. For more details see our research guide to disability and dependants’ pensions in the First World War or read the PIN 82 series description.

4.3 Pensions paid to widows and dependants between 1921 and 1926 for ratings killed in action

• Pensions paid 1921-1926 – PMG 72
• Pensions paid 1922-1926 – ADM 23/170

4.4 Merchant seamen in Admiralty employment

Allowances to widows, children and other dependants of merchant seamen killed during ‘warlike operations’ while serving on merchant ships and auxiliary craft commissioned into the service of the Royal Navy are in:

• PMG 56 – the records date from April 1914 to March 1928 and contain:
  • name and rank of person killed
  • name of ship/submarine
  • name and address of claimant
  • rate of pension
  • widow’s age (not always given)

Other similar records include:

• Pension grants 1918-1925 to officers and men of the mercantile marine killed or injured in Admiralty employment in PIN 15/1733-1736
• Claims to pensions 1919-1925 by seamen of the Royal Naval Reserve in PIN 15/209-211