Central
Index Register c.1919 to 1941
Certainly by the last year of the 19th century there
was discussion within a committee on manning for re-introducing a ‘register of
seamen’. In part this led to the issue of books of continuous discharge
certificates
as
of October 1900. As well as another committee again advocating this in 1904,
there were various questions asked in the House (of Commons) by an ex-mariner,
trade union official and Member of Parliament, Havelock Wilson. Taken up by the
Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee in 1907 (courtesy of the newly passed
Merchant Shipping Act of the year before) its report favoured also such a
register. The unions wanted this to protect their membership’s interests,
partially so that mariners with good records were not unduly penalised on the
loss, or destruction of their discharge books. It should be noted that the
Shipping Federation (representing a significant proportion of ocean-going
shipowners) also wished to see such a register: in order to more easily look
into the backgrounds of mariners and potentially keep persistent deserters and
troublemakers off their vessels.
By this time the President of the Board of Trade was Winston
Churchill, who no doubt on the recommendation of the most senior civil servants
within the Marine Department of the Board of Trade and the Registrar General of
Shipping and Seamen (who were vociferous in their opposition), called for a
Departmental Committee into this subject in May 1909. Although its terms and membership
were heavily weighted against reintroduction of such a system, in 1910 this
Departmental Committee also found
for a ‘register of seamen’. Even with continued pressure, still the Board of Trade refused to budge.
Some of the grounds for this opposition are not only intriguing
- they are bizarre. Apart from all the extra work involved by the office of the
R.G.S.S. and the Local Marine Boards, which was judged to be excessive, there
was also an important cost implication. Time and again it was cited that the 19th
century systems had failed because individual mariners could not be identified
and this one might fail too. (A fingerprinting scheme was looked into but
regarded as too expensive.) Significantly, it was maintained that feckless and
illiterate mariners, who misused their documents and did not co-operate in
making the system work, had led to a large number of mistakes by civil servants
and to the eventual abandonment of the 19th century system. This
apparently high rate of errors and inability to identify masters,
mates
and engineers also was
said to have led to their service not being recorded in the mid to late 1880s
in the registers of certificates. The illiteracy aspect is worthy of comment.
One can see that this would have been a distinct problem in the mid 19th
century, but to cite the same over forty years after the introduction of
mandatory primary
education in
Britain and if taken at face value is a real indictment of the standards of the
British educational establishment. While, I believe British education was poor, (and unfortunately,
remains so) study of crew-lists show very few mariners by the turn of the 20th
century ‘making their mark’, rather than signing their names.
Anyway, pressure continued to be applied by the Advisory
Committee through 1910. Interestingly, even though the senior civil servants
had been arguing their case on apparent legal grounds for over decade, when
this was finally placed before the Government’s foremost legal officers, they
came down in favour of a register in August 1911. However, this was not the end
of the matter by any means and it was not until October 1913 that the Central
Index Register, often referred to as the ‘Fourth Register of Seamen’, came into
being. Even then, this
only recorded the least amount of information possible and in no way addressed
the issues of both shipowners and trade unions.
Unfortunately, virtually all C.R. 1 and C.R. 2 cards for
the years 1913 to about 1918, or 1919 have been destroyed - in modern times
apparently on the advice of the Public Record Office’s management.
In 1941 a new series was produced, officially named the Central
Register of Seamen, but often known as the ‘Fifth Register of
Seamen’. As per the Registration for Employment Order the cards of mariners
then currently active, or who had been active since 1936, were removed from the
C.I.R. and transferred onwards to the C.R.S.
Go to the
Certification of Seamen officers
Go to the
Certification of Engineering Officers