How did the Seamen actually get their Register Tickets

[Pam Heggie]

Good afternoon. I know very little about the Merchant Navy but have recently discovered my 2nd great grandfather Thomas Whittey or Witty [both seen in documents] was a Mariner sailing mainly in/out of Hull and Goole I think. He was born in Beal, North Yorkshire in 1819 and married a girl from Amlwch, Anglesey, in Liverpool, in 1849. She was still in Anglesey in 1841 and her parents never moved, so I was somewhat curious as to how they met.

I found an article in the Shipping and Mercantile Gazette 19 November 1847 about 3 British seamen, including Thomas Witty, who appeared before the magistrates at the town hall in Hull to account for the non production of their register tickets at the Custom House in that port and their application for new ones. They acknowledged having left their ships in St John [presumably Canada] without being discharged and two of them, including Thomas, had run away from one ship. [I obviously don't know how they got back!]

I then found an entry for Thomas Whittey being issued with a Register Ticket on 2nd August 1848 and it was issued at Beaumaris. When I looked at the entry above the Ticket was for a William Mack issued the same day and he was from Amlwch, Anglesey. This seemed too much of a coincidence and I wondered if the men had to actually travel to where the Tickets were issued and the 2 men met there and became acquainted? I cant find any evidence that they were on the same ship at any time.

I would be very grateful for any advice

Many thanks

Pam

[Doc Vernon]

Very hard one Pam as the Records for Seaman of that era were not kept!

So unless you have a Ships name i think that it will be impossible to try and trace if the 2 were on the same Ship!
Cheers

The black hole in the records: 1858-1913

Between 1858 and the First World War the Merchant Navy did not keep registers of its seamen. This means that for these years the only record you are likely to find of an individual merchant seaman is his appearance in agreements and crew lists, for which you usually need to know the names of the ships he served on.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Pam.
This is more of a guess than proof, but if that register you are talking about is like an Abs ticket he could have obtained another copy, from what in those days would have been like a mercantile Marine office, in more modern times we had a discharge book with ships sailed on stamped in it, if you missed or jumped ship the Captain had your book and entered the appropriate reason . the book was given to the shipping office on the ships return to Britain where the seaman could then have it returned, he had a bit of a job getting a further ship, unless the particular ship found it hard to get crew then they would sign him on, and if he was a good lad it would fix him up for further ships.

[Johnny Kieran]

I wonder how dodgy discharge books were recorded? I know they were usually accepted as genuine when joining ships before all this computer/internet started, but I just wonder if anyone with one, ever got tumbled?
These "dodgy books" were easily obtained (at a price of course), usually after having real books confiscated for one reason or another, or too many DRs.

[j.sabourn]

#4 dodgy discharge books and certificates of competency any and most publications and medals if so required , could be acquired in Taiwan years ago Johnny. As regards certificates the only thing for spiking the guns of those who purchased was the number on them. Today also that would also be the only way as well of proving they were the genuine article. Hong Kong before Taiwan held the leadership in these forgeries later passing it on to Taiwan. Think today it is not so bad as it was years ago though. Anyone especially of the British Merchant Service of the past who can’t remember his number be wary of being genuine. JS

[Johnny Kieran]

I think they were very good at it in the UK too JS, Royal docks London was a good place. They would use an original number, plus a few clean ghost discharge stamps.

[j.sabourn]

Well if they could match up with next of kin , their own peculiarities such as tattoos and birthmarks etc etc they must have been keen to get the job. Hope they could do it as well. JS.
PS have had only two cases of people sailing under false pretences both were sailing on documentation belonging to family members , they were both exposed. That is on British ships . On foreign vessels they could have all been poseurs as far as I was concerned as paperwork from them was very sparse . Cheers JS
Crews supplied through Bombay joined the vessel all armed with chest X-Rays to prove supposedly they were free of TB and other chest complaints, and you don’t have to be a doctor to know that most of those plates had been purchased from another and belonging to a different individual. JS

[J Gowers]

Only ever heard of a forged ticket once, I was on a semi-sub drilling rig in the North Sea, 1990, and a temp. relief captain ( on a semi called a 'Barge Engineer' for some reason) was flying out on a chopper and one of the girls in the personnel department spotted he had too many numbers in his ticket ID number when she compared it with a copy of the existing captain's ticket, she called the MCA and they told her it was a forged ticket. When the guy arrived on board he was told to wait on the chopper and was round tripped back to Aberdeen. As far as I know the company took no action only blacklisted him for future employment with the company.

[j.sabourn]

If you told me his name I would tell you if was one of the two I knew. Maybe best to not know though I suppose. Cheers JS