Issue 120 / April 2023

Social History

Your merchant navy photographs

Your merchant navy photographs

Simon Wills presents a useful pictorial guide to the details that can aid research into maritime forebears

Dr Simon Wills, genealogist and historian

Dr Simon Wills

genealogist and historian

Photographs of ancestors in the merchant navy are common because in the past this industry was a very large one, employing hundreds of thousands of people. Photos were also a means for family at home to have a reminder of their relative at sea who might be away for months or even years. Quite often, photos were taken to mark a specific event such as a person’s first appointment as an apprentice, their qualifying as a ship’s master (’captain’), or the receipt of an award for bravery. Photos may also denote occasions such as a ship’s maiden voyage, a wedding or someone’s retirement from the sea. The details in a person’s dress may give clues to your ancestor’s role and employment among much else.

P&O junior officer.
P&O has existed since 1837 and was one of the first large shipping companies to adopt a standard uniform for officers across all of its crews. This young man is a junior officer working for that company. The photo dates to the 1860s. The long knee-length frock coat, with six pairs of gilt buttons, mirrors the elegant formal attire of the period. It also has a strong resemblance to the uniform of Royal Navy officers at this time. The overall impression, in fact, is of a military-like appearance – a style adopted deliberately to emphasise the wearer’s status as both a ‘gentleman’ and someone with an important job. P&O’s cap badge was a gold ‘rising sun’ design and a pale band runs around the cap, which was another distinctive P&O feature. This officer shows no markings of rank, such as stripes on his cuffs, and his relative youth suggests that this photo was probably taken on his first appointment as a junior officer.
Pacific Steam Navigation Company seaman
Shipping lines did not all adopt uniforms at the same time. Initially, they were largely confined to the more upmarket companies running ocean-going passenger ships such as Cunard and P&O. Many of them introduced uniforms for officers long before providing them for seamen. This photo shows a seaman working for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company in about 1860. This British shipping line mainly operated vessels to and from South America. Notice the company initials ‘PSNC’ on his cap and also on the chest of his jersey. His jersey has a miniature version of the company flag woven into it as well. These were all very common methods of identifying an employer and persisted well into the 20th century. You will often need a lens to see them clearly in old photos. The jersey and trousers were usually blue, and the text on the chest was often red while that on the cap was white or gold.
crew of a cargo sailing ship, Sheila
Although passenger ships’ crews were wearing uniforms in the 1860s or earlier, the crews of commercial cargo ships – especially small ones – typically did not adopt them until very much later in the 20th century. This photo features the crew of a cargo sailing ship, Sheila, in about 1914. There is no uniformity of appearance because crews usually wore their own clothes. This means it can be difficult to tell the difference between, say, cargo ship crewmen and other seafarers such as fishermen. Sometimes there may be clues in the background to help you such as fishing equipment or a lifebelt with the ship’s name on it. The diversity of clothing may help you to date the image by analysing fashion clues. For example, the slightly ‘oversized’ cloth caps worn by two of these men were prominent in the 1910s.
telegrapher or Marconi Man
It’s important to realise that the merchant navy employed people other than sailors and deck officers. Specialists such as surgeons and engineers often wore officers’ uniforms as did the purser and the chief steward. So you may need to keep an open mind about an officer’s potential role. This man is a telegrapher – an officer responsible for operating the telegraphy equipment, a predecessor to radio that sent Morse code messages over the airwaves from about 1903 onwards. Early telegraphers were trained by the Marconi Company and were hired out to vessels. They were known as ‘Marconi men’, and they were used by most of the large shipping lines of the early 20th century. Note the large and ornate letter ‘M’ which constitutes this man’s cap badge, and the same letter is also clearly visible on his jacket buttons. This ‘M’ stands for Marconi and not master – in other words it is not an indication that the man is the ship’s captain. This is the uniform that Jack Phillips and Harold Bride of the Titanic wore as they desperately broadcast the international distress signal while the ship sank. However, during the 1910s some shipping lines began to employ their own radio or ‘wireless’ officers and they stopped wearing the Marconi uniform.
Evan Thomas, Radcliffe and Company
Identifying the seniority of merchant navy officers can be difficult because the numerous shipping lines adopted many different ways to display rank. Some companies had varying numbers of gold stripes encircling caps, while others had bars or epaulettes on the shoulders. However, the commonest method was to use cuff stripes as shown in this Edwardian photo. These stripes are in the Royal Navy style with a loop in the uppermost stripe, but not all companies adopted the loop. Whether he is a first mate or captain is uncertain because some companies used three stripes for a captain, while others used four. The easiest way to be sure that this is not a naval officer is to look at the cap badge. This man has a circlet of gold leaves with a miniature version of his employer’s flag in the centre. It consists of an anchor separating the letters T and R. This represents the Welsh shipping line Evan Thomas, Radcliffe and Company. Two other ways of distinguishing merchant navy officers from Royal Navy officers are also shown here. Naval officers were not allowed to wear a patterned tie and were forbidden to grow a moustache without an accompanying beard. Moustaches were common in the merchant navy.
cuff stripescrown-and-anchor cap badgecaptain in the 1920s
In 1919, as a tribute to the merchant navy’s vital wartime service, George V introduced a national uniform for its officers. This image shows a captain in the 1920s wearing that uniform. It was not compulsory, and there was some initial reluctance because the bigger shipping lines were proud of their own unique uniforms. The national uniform consisted of, firstly, a crown-and-anchor cap badge (top right), which often shows up very well in old photographs as its gold colour tends to catch the camera’s flash. The second element was a set of standardised cuff stripes to indicate role and rank. These feature a diamond shape within the stripes to distinguish wearers from Royal Navy officers and a number of these are shown in the diagram below. The uniform jacket was blue and the cuff stripes were gold. Engineers, surgeons and pursers were identified by each having a unique additional colour between their cuff stripes to indicate their specialisation – purple for engineers, red for surgeons and white for pursers. Unfortunately, although white is generally easy to see, the purple and red areas do not show up in black and white photographs. Some shipping lines only adopted the uniform partially. Most commonly this took the form of using the designated cuff stripes with their diamonds, but continuing to use the company’s own cap badge rather than the national one.
SS Demosthenes
This photo was taken to mark the completion of the maiden voyage of SS Demosthenes to Australia in 1922. It shows mainly non-seafarer officers and crew. Among them are apprentices, waiters, catering staff, stewards, electricians, the purser’s team and others. The women in the photograph dressed like nurses were in fact stewardesses. As you can see, women were still a tiny minority of the crew of ships even in the 1920s. On a large ship like this it was quite common for the crew to be photographed in separate large groups – sailors, deck officers, the engine room crew and finally ‘all the rest’ as shown here. Photos of this kind tend to have a semi-standardised format. Apprentices are typically shown sprawled on the deck at the front – you can see some in the lower left of this photo. The most senior officer is usually seated and in the centre, flanked by other officers in order of seniority. If present, sailors normally stand at the back.
Seamen working for Cunard
An image of seamen working for Cunard in about 1930 and looking remarkably like sailors of the Royal Navy. By this time, many larger shipping lines were adopting this navy-like uniform for seamen. Close examination with a lens shows that all these men have two crossed anchors on their left upper sleeves. Although no national uniform was provided for seamen in 1919, there were badges specified that could be used to designate certain senior positions. The boatswain could wear two crossed anchors on his left sleeve like petty officers in the Royal Navy; the boatswain’s mate had a fouled anchor, and a quartermaster had ship’s wheel. The six men in the photo all display the double anchor of a boatswain on their left sleeve, and all have the word ‘Cunard’ on their caps. The boatswain was a senior seaman responsible for discipline, and for supervising and organising the work of more junior seamen.

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