Discharge Certificates

Contrary to popular belief discharge certificates were issued far earlier than 1854. In an effort to check desertion the first experiments in legally sanctioned discharge certificates are mentioned in legislation of 1729. ‘Masters of vessels proceeding to parts beyond the seas were then required to enter into Agreements in writing with their seamen and it was provided that a seaman should forfeit a month’s pay if he left his ship before he had a “discharge in writing from the Master”....’. However, there was no requirement for masters to issue written discharges until 1795, but only for those involved in the West Indies trade.

Moving on, in 1835 Section XIII of An Act to amend and consolidate the laws relating to the Merchant Seamen of the United Kingdom, and for forming and maintaining a Register of all the Men engaged in that Service required discharge certificates to be issued to merchant mariners by masters. These were to specify ‘the period of service and the time and place of the discharge’ and masters were liable to a penalty of £25 if failing to comply.

In 1844, courtesy of the ‘General Merchant Seaman’s Act’, the thirteenth section dictated that at the end of voyages mariners would have their register tickets returned to them and receive their pay as well as certificates of ‘Service and Discharge’. Under Schedule (E.) of this Act these were to take the following form:-

THIS is to certify, That ................whose Register Ticket

is numbered .................served as ..............on board the

.......................of the Port of ...................of the Burden

of........... Tons, from the...... Day of.................... to the

............Day of .................... and that he was discharged

from the said Ship on....................... at.........................

...Dated this Day of 184 .

......................................................................Master.

From 1854 the system was more complicated. For the coastal trade ‘E’ forms were used; for men of foreign-going vessels discharged in the U.K. there were ‘E-1’ forms; for those discharged in foreign countries there were ‘C.11’ forms; but those discharged in the Colonies there were ‘C.C.5’ forms. (This would seem to indicate that there had also been earlier discharge certificates of some kind issued abroad as well.)

Anyway, in time these were added to and there were slight changes in format. By the 1890s ‘Dis I’ forms were in use and there were various versions of these. However, as of October 1900 individual certificates began to be replaced with Books of Continuous Service. Also, contrary to popular belief (as internal Board of Trade correspondence shows) these books were not mandatory in the early part of the 20^th century and only appear to have become so in 1918.

As a point of interest, a notice issued by the Ministry of War Transport seems to indicate that during the Second World War (after the introduction of the Central Register of Seamen at least), books of continuous discharge and service were retained ashore: presumably at requisite Mercantile Marine Offices. This may explain occasional wartime errors and omissions in mariners’ discharge books.

Go to the Central Index Register c.1919-1941

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