Utility Steward

[Thomas David Williams]

Hi folks,

My uncle was a utility steward on the Oriana (I believe) in the mid-1960s. Can anyone here let me know what the job would have entailed?
Thanks for any help.
Best Regards,
Thomas

[Jim Brady]

Just a guess Thomas maybe he was in the platehouse doing the dishes.Then again I don't know if the Oriana had a "heavy gang" they did bar stocks etc maybe they would come under the title utility steward.
'regards.
Jim.B.

[Doc Vernon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steward's_assistant

May explain a wee bit more on top of what Jim had told you!
Cheers

[David Williams]

Utility Stewards were a back up gang who were
used wherever they were needed, through some
department or other being short handed for whatever
reason.If I remember rightly they spent most of the
time doing up cabins for other crew members(for a
small charge).
Dave Williams

[Thomas David Williams]

Hi all - thanks for the information and links - much appreciated

[happy daze john in oz]

The term utility steward meant different things to different shipping companies.

With UCL there would only be a small number who would do jobs such as night scrubs or general cleaning duties. BR's would serve on the tourist press at lunch time or wash dishes for the overtime. Utility stewards were not used for these tasks.

Heavy lifting such as bar carry was normally done early morning by wingers as their morning task before breakfast service began. They also had other tasks such as laundry carry, scrub outs and other tasks at the wish of the second steward. Each morning at turn to all tourist wingers had to report to the office of the second steward who would then issue the various tasks.

[j.sabourn]

Sounds a very controlled exercise John. To a lot of us on here is hard to envisage how the stewards and other staff performed the routine on a ship with so many foreign bodies on board. Whereas on a normal cargo ship you had the Chief Cook, 2nd Cook and baker, sometimes a galley boy, sometimes not. Chief steward, 2nd Steward, Assistant steward sometimes 1 sometimes 2, and a couple of cabin boys. I never really noticed, but each had his own special jobs, the only time their routine was put out of shape was when storing the ship, it was a job for all hands and the cook so to speak. I used to as mate on British ships go along in the morning to have a yarn in the Ch. Stewards cabin and the cook usually did at the same time. The cook then discussed the days and future menu"s, with the Ch. Stwd. which took all of 5 minutes, when the tea or coffee was consumed we would usually turn to a beer or two. If you wanted to know what was going on in a ship it was the best place to be, the cook usually had his finger on all the prospective sources of any sort of trouble. The Galley Radio was a real thing and not to be mocked. I always made a point of keeping on the right side of the cook, he was the font of knowledge on most ships. Cheers JS