British Seamen’s Discharge Book

 Three generations of seafaring

A seamen’s discharge book is a record of the employment of a seafarer. All seafarers need one and it is issued by the maritime authority of the country the seafarer is a citizen of.[1]

I am lucky to have the discharge books of my grandfather, father and myself over a period of 80 years. Collectively they tell a story of ships, employment and voyages from the 1890’s to the 1970’s. This article will describe the changes in discharge book entries over three generations.

The hard bound cover of the book has changed little over this period.

The colours and wording may have changed on the covers but from the black edition of my grandfather through the red one of my father to my blue one, they all serve the same purpose, to catalogue the voyages of the holder and provide a character reference for each voyage.

You might be wondering why there are 4 books for three mariners. The twist and turns of our time at sea through two world wars will reveal many interesting events that will explain this apparent anomaly.

Let’s look inside my father’s discharge book. The first page holds personal details that identify the seafarer and their next of kin.

Much like a passport it provides evidence of identity. However, there is an interesting handwritten comment in the upper right corner.

Renewal, original lost when vessel sunk by enemy action!

Therefore, there are no earlier discharge book records of my father. More on this later.

Photographs were included later. My personal record page shows a gawky 16-year-old schoolboy before his first trip to sea.

  

The first British discharge books were issued around 1900[2] and were identified by a number until around 1920 when a decision was made to renumber then with the prefix R.

My grandfathers discharge book number is 163200 with a first entry of February 1901. My father had 2 books numbered R123850 with a first entry 9.7.39 and the second book also numbered R123850. The reason for two books is that one was lost on the SS Stonegate that was sunk in WW2. See the story here. My discharge book issued in 1957 is R677594.

However, my grandfather, FGW Randall, was indentured to a Whitby shipowner Richard Smailes for 4 years starting in 1898 at the age of 15 before discharge books were issued in the UK.

Subsequently his record of ship employment until early 1900’s was on individual paper certificates. Here is his first one. One interesting item is that normally you start a voyage in port and the fact is verified by the local marine office. Here it states his engagement was “At Sea” and there is no official stamp. It was unusual for someone to join a ship away from a port where there was a marine office. It can mean literally he joined at sea from another ship or boat or at a port without a marine office.

Entries in the discharge book are made by the Captain and the British Maritime authority at the port of engagement or discharge. There can be multiple entries on each page.

In the early discharge books a voyage entry took two pages, one for voyage details and another for the captain to report on the seaman. In my grandfather’s discharge book seen above you can see details of the ship, the date and port of engagement, the rank of the seaman, the port and date of discharge, a brief statement on the voyage and the signature of the master.

The second page was divided in two, each side relating to a voyage on the previous page and reporting on the seaman during the voyage. There are two aspects of character, “ability” (assume that relates to job specification for the rank of the seaman) and “for general conduct” probably relating to his conduct in a team/social environment.

There are two possible entries “VG” or “DR”. Very good or Decline to Report. The latter can have consequences for future employment.

Note that it is the master who makes this report, and it is endorsed by the marine authority at the discharge port.

30 years later my fathers discharge book was a little different.
Now both the record of a voyage and the character report on the same double page layout. Note the entry in the first row relating to the SS Stonegate. He was discharged at sea and under the column for the voyage description it states, “Ship sunk”. This relates to the article I referred to earlier. Note also the captain making the report is my grandfather!! They served on the same ship.

There is little change over the next 20 years until I went to sea as an apprentice officer.

The only element is that the masters never recorded the ships I was on during my indentured 4-year period. Hence, I have no record of the ships I served on, but I do remember I sailed to India and back a number of time whilst sometimes calling at the southern states of America after Port Said before returning to Liverpool.

 You may have noticed that the first image had four discharge book covers. Well, my father had a new discharge book after a long layoff from the sea. Now he was a Captain, the person who makes the reports in a seamen’s discharge book so why did he need a discharge book. The rules are clear everyone needs one so he was issued with one that only related to voyage descriptions, presumably because a Captain should report on his own character!

 

So the discharge book is an important certificate for its owner and a valuable source of information for those interested in writing about the voyages of seafarers. More on this later.

References

GOV.UK. ‘Get a Seaman’s Discharge Book or British Seaman’s Card’. Accessed 19 November 2024. https://www.gov.uk/get-seamans-discharge-book-or-british-seamans-card.

Ships Nostalgia. ‘Discharge Book Numbers’, 18 November 2005.

 

https://www.shipsnostalgia.com/threads/discharge-book-numbers.288819/.

 

Acknowledgement

I need to recognise the detailed search work of my brother Peter E. Douglas, the family archivist

 

 

 

 

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[1] ‘Get a Seaman’s Discharge Book or British Seaman’s Card’.

[2] ‘Discharge Book Numbers’.