Volunteer Voices: Researching Women’s Royal Naval Service in the First World War
Volunteer Voices: Researching Women’s Royal Naval Service in the First World War
The Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust’s volunteer researcher, Des, has been researching the history and stories of Chatham’s Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) in the First World War.
Read about Des’ research project:
Even today, over forty years after HM Chatham Dockyard closed, the local expression that ‘if you didn’t work at the Dockyard, you knew someone who did’ can still sometimes be heard.
This belief is not surprising, as the Dockyard certainly had been the dominant employer in the Medway Towns for many years, providing a secure place of work for generations of locals and internal migrants alike. But was there any truth in that expression?
If the preliminary findings of our new Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) in the First World War research project are anything to go by, there may well be a great deal of truth in that belief.
National Archives
The National Archives has made available the British Women’s Royal Naval Service Ratings’ Service Registers 1918-1919. Using ‘Chatham’ as a reference search word, the archive returned eighty-three names of the local women who had enrolled in the WRNS in the First World War.
The records are quite basic, a card, recording name, service number, age on enrolment, period of service, rating (job), character and ability assessments, gratuities paid and next of kin. However, rather than just collecting and collating this information onto a spreadsheet, we want to try and build a wider picture of these local WRNS. We aim to view their service records through a social history lens, e.g. what were they doing before enrolment in the WRNS; where were they living, were their fathers or siblings already working in the Dockyard and had they in turn followed their ancestors into the same job?
We are also interested in what happened to the Chatham WRNS after their mass demobilisation in 1919. (The Service was officially disbanded in October 1919, with members only receiving a certificate of service.)
By using census returns, in particular the census returns for England and Wales carried out in 1901, 1911, 1921, the September 1939 Register for England and Wales and birth, death and marriage records, we can trace their ancestors across the generations.
WRNS G730 Coleman
Take, for example, WRNS G730 Coleman, who enrolled in April 1918. The 1921 Census of England and Wales records that her father was a retired Shipwright who had worked at HM Dockyard Chatham and that three of her brothers were currently employed at HM Dockyard Chatham. WRNS G730 Coleman was married in 1927 at Chatham with her husband being a Ship’s Fitter employed in HM Dockyard Chatham. Her grandfather was a bootmaker who had relocated from Exmouth, Devon, to Rochester sometime before 1847 and, in his later years, became the caretaker of Rochester Castle. The 1921 Census for England and Wales records that WRNS G730 Coleman was employed as a shop assistant at The West End Boot Company, London. Starting from the basic information on her service record, we have come to know a lot more about WRNS G730 Coleman.
Dockyard Connection
In a social history context, HM Dockyard Chatham was deeply ingrained physically, economically and socially into the lives of the people that worked within its high walls but also into those who lived locally, leaving us with a rich social and cultural heritage.
What I would ideally like to see is a collaboration between our research results and the relatives or friends of those Chatham First World War WRNS who could fill in the gaps of our knowledge with photographs, stories or anecdotes that would help give us the whole story.
