Discharge Book numbering from WW 2 to 1972 for British seamen

[DeepSea]

Mike

The number you researched in the other post was not a Discharge Book No. it was the ID Card No. 403740 belonging to a John Logan Dis. A. No. 933170.

[DeepSea]

I've missed the info somewhere Mike. Where do you actually find the numbers? Is it in N.A. or somewhere else

The Dis. A. numbers he is finding are from Seamen's Pouches held at Kew under BT372 covering the years 1941-1972, though not all have survived and over 95,000 have been destroyed prior to 1988.

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[Robert Brown]

My Discharge book number is R540-161 issued ion August 1950

[John Albert Evans]

My Discharge Book Number is R668413 issued 1st March 1957 at Tilbury.

John Albert Evans

[Keith Moody]

mine is dated 25 nov 1955. number #R 635978 and issued at tilbury.
have not seen many with the number stating with "63" on this site.

keith moody

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi All.
I was at the Vindicatrix from 4/4/49 to 24/6/49 and all the lads in my class were given consecutive discharge numbers, so it looks like sometimes they were given in batches maybe for different sea schools or areas Mine is R510868 . Very close to Colin Hawkins who was there I think overlapping me.
Cheers Des
Attachment 12025

[Terry Worsley]

My discharge book number is R 289123 issued August 1943. I wonder if there are many survivors with a Discharge Book number close to that. I cannot remember if it was issued by the Fireman's Training School in Newcastle of by the Federation in Salford

[graham browning]

hi David,my name is Graham Browning,i was down below on The Orsova, may 1969.My seamans card number was R854... Hope this is usefull

[Russ Garbutt]

I've done some research on Discharge Books and Discharge A numbers from WW2 to 1972 to try and get an idea of the turnover of British seamen over the period.
Typical numbers issued for various years are

1940 R 217400
1943 R 230000
1945 R 310000
1956 R 658000
1965 R 816000
1972 ??? Was R prefix still used at this time.

I would be grateful for feedback on whether these numbers look reasonable and also for some information on the numbers issued around 1972.
thanks
David Snook

September 1964 R806695. Stamped on my brain!

[Ray Manley]

R 601166 1953