IntroductionThe British Board of Trade began a central index for merchant seamen in 1913. During the Great War, the seamen's union, under James Havelock Wilson, successfully resisted attempts to make them subject to naval discipline and liable for conscription. The origin of the identity card scheme is in the manpower crisis of 1918. The government wanted to check that men registered as merchant seamen went to sea, and were not using the system to avoid conscription. The original index cards are held in Southampton Civic Archives and cover a multinational workforce of 270,000 seamen. (CR10 series) All jobs and ranks are covered. Each card lists personal and foreign voyages detail for the seaman together with a photograph to match that on the seaman's identity card. The overall standard of the photographs is very good. The system operated from late 1918 until the end of 1921. It is surprising that it continued after the war because the clerical cost to operate it must have been considerable. It is also fortunate that Irish born seamen are included because they were not liable for conscription. The system was simplified with no photographs in 1922. In 2002 I found and used 50 of these CR10 cards for Rush born seamen as an important part of an exhibition I put on in Rush, County Dublin. One of my objectives was to coax the local community into giving me more information. The photographs of local seamen as young men proved to have tremendous drawing power for their children and descendants. I was delighted with the feedback of memories and documents. Father Kit Sheridan, who opened the exhibition, described the photos as 'visual DNA'. His grandfather, great uncle and great aunt's husband looked down on him. In late 2006 I decided to try to get details of all the Irish born seamen on to a database. I was fortunate that my wife Pat and younger daughter Jenny were prepared to join the research team. We have been able to complete the search for Irish born seamen because my brother, sister and sister-in-law joined me for a push to complete the initial data collection in Southampton in November 2008. The final total will be around 23,000 Irish born seamen. We are now correcting some of our errors and omissions. |
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