Photograph album from R.N.A.S. Base, Malta
Building on the success of the Merchant 1915 Crew List Index project, we have once again joined forces with the National Maritime Museum (NMM) and the Crew List Index Project team (CLIP) to create a new free-to-search database resource relating to all the Royal Navy officers and ratings that served in the First World War – Royal Navy First World War Lives at Sea – based principally on service records held by The National Archives.
This resource, which will be hosted by the National Maritime Museum, is scheduled to launch in mid June 2016 (with 5,000 records) with the aim of completing the project by November 2018. It will be based principally on the Royal Navy service records held by The National Archives.
With the help of a team of e-volunteers from all over the world, the project will create the most significant online data resource for the study of the Royal Navy during the First World War.
This unique resource marks and commemorates the Royal Navy’s contribution to the First World War effort through the lives of those officers and ratings who served.
Our hope is that it will allow and promote a wide and diverse variety of research into the composition and operations of the Royal Navy during the war.
This could be specifically in relation to individual officers and ratings through their personal and service histories, to wider studies; such as where men were recruited from and from which trades, and to enable the creation of crew lists for ships and submarines for given dates.
Such lists do not survive for the First World War and so for the first time researchers will be able to place officers and ratings in naval battles of the war.
Additionally, the information derived from the database can be used as a platform for accessing other Royal Navy records including ships’ logs, ships’ photographs and wider naval First World War operation records at The National Archives, as well as logs and journals, ship plans and photographs available at the National Maritime Museum.
Royal Navy First World War Lives at Sea will be launched in mid June – keep checking back for more details.
If you would like to volunteer to help us with this project by transcribing these service records please email us.
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