If you can’t locate your seafaring ancestor during World War One, then he may have been part of the Royal Naval Division. The men of this division were deployed like soldiers but had their origins in the Royal Navy. To successfully trace an ancestor, it’s important to understand something of the RND’s origins and organisation.

Navy reservists
Finding enough men to serve on the Royal Navy’s ships during wartime was a long-standing issue even in the 19th century. The problem was that governments tended to quickly downsize the navy when a conflict was over to save money. Yet when war broke out, there was a rapid need to deploy a large floating military force. Up until the first few years of the 19th century, the navy relied upon paying volunteers a bounty to join or used press gangs to quickly obtain the men it needed. But these emergency solutions were not very resilient, and did not allow for any kind of forward planning.

After various other initiatives, the navy hit on the idea of a formal reservist service. The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) was born in 1859, and consisted of men with seafaring experience, such as fishermen and merchant seamen. They were trained in readiness for naval deployment in wartime. In 1903, another force the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) was also created. This allowed men without seafaring experience to be reserves, often with an eye on non-seagoing naval roles such as writers, researchers and so forth. Finally, men who had retired from the navy were allowed to become part of a force of reservist veterans called the Royal Fleet Reserve (RFR).

The RND story
Ensuring there was a sufficient supply of men for the navy’s ships was important, but at the beginning of World War One it was realised that the navy’s recruitment machine was being too successful. There were too many reservists and newly enlisted Royal Navy recruits, and not yet enough naval jobs to go round. So these surplus men were joined with a body of Royal Marines to form an army-style division intended for deployment on land rather than at sea, and this was called the Royal Naval Division (RND).

Initially the division was divided up into eight battalions, named after famous admirals, but this was soon reduced to six named Nelson, Anson, Hawke, Drake, Hood and Howe. Eventually these each had their own characteristic cap badges which you can often see in photographs of an ancestor.

Despite being a land-based fighting force, the RND was managed by the Admiralty, and fought at Ostend and Antwerp early in the war, but most notably in the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign in 1915. Now known more familiarly as ‘Gallipoli’, this notorious phase of the Great War resulted in great loss of life among the RND. Following this, the management of the RND was transferred to the army, additional men from the regular army were added, and it was re-named as the 63rd (RN) Division. This revised division fought on the Western Front from 1916 onwards, including in the Second Battle of Passchendaele. Much to the extreme irritation of the army hierarchy, the RND kept many of its naval traditions while serving in the trenches – they insisted on their own versions of the army uniform, employed ships’ bells to tell the time, grew beards, used nautical slang and, perhaps worst of all, they exercised their right to sit down rather than stand to toast the king.

Tracing an RND ancestor
The most useful documents for tracing a career in the RND are the service record cards for officers and ratings. These are found in series ADM 339 at the National Archives (TNA), but they have been digitised and can be searched by name via the TNA discovery service http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. To do this, click on Advanced Search and then type your ancestor’s name into the ‘All of these words’ box; don’t put your ancestor’s name in speech marks. You must then enter ‘ADM 339’ into the box labelled ‘Any of these references’; then press Search.

These records can provide information such as date of birth, address, next of kin, former occupation, religion, and a physical description. They also, of course, describe the deployment, military action, training, promotions, awards, and roles for each man. Details of injuries or disease are documented, and often bring you closer to an ancestor as a human being because they reveal the suffering that a man was exposed to. James Crawford, for example, had to be taken off active duty because in the trenches of the Western Front he was found to be suffering from mustard gas poisoning and trench foot; he also had syphilis and gonorrhoea which were very common among soldiers during the Great War.

Other sources
Apart from service records, there are other sources that may help you. The Commonwealth War Graves website will identify an ancestor who died while serving in the RND (www.cwgc.org) but keep an open mind about whether they will be described as serving in the navy or army. Around 45,000 men of the RND died in World War One and there is a monument to them in Horse Guards Parade in London.

Men from the RND also received campaign and service medals which may be found with army awards NAME or those of the Royal Navy http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1880 .

If you can’t find an ancestor who served in the RND, then you may need to broaden your search and look in the wartime service records associated with the RNR, RNVR, Royal Navy, Royal Marines or army. The research guides on the TNA website can help you with this.