# looking for a crew list - City of Colombo



## steven201070 (Jan 1, 2015)

hello all,

my father (Willy De Backer - nicknamed 'Belgian Bill' from Belgium) sailed with Ellerman lines in the 1960's. He's going on 80 and would like to find out if any of his old ship mates are still around. Does anyone have a crew list of Ellerman lines' City of Colombo, or City of Wellington, or City of Swansea? 

My father is especially looking for Alan Rowe (2nd engineer) from Glasgow. Does anyone have any information on him or his relatives or whereabouts? Many thanks in advance. 

Steven De Backer


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## Roger Griffiths (Feb 10, 2006)

Hello,
Crew agreements for the vessels you mention should be held by the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Maritime History Archive.
Unfortunately they are not indexed for the dates you require.
E mail them with exact dates your father served and they will do there best to find the crew agreements. Maybe cost you though.
https://www.mun.ca/mha/holdings/searchcombinedcrews.php

regards
Roger


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Crew agreements for British ships are held at the National Archives for the years ending in -5, so if you can find out which ship or ships he was on in 1965 you may find the ship's logs and crew agreement at Kew. You will need to know the names and official numbers of the ships before you can check on line with the NA website to confirm that the records are available. Thereafter you can arrange to visit or to pay for a researcher to get the required information for you.

As explained above, for all other years, the information was obtained by the Maritime History Archive in Newfoundland and cannot be found in the UK.

Good luck


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## Hugh MacLean (Nov 18, 2005)

That's not true I am afraid Ron. 90% of Agreements for 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985 and 1995 are held at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Only 10% sample being held at Kew.
Regards 
Hugh


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Hugh MacLean said:


> That's not true I am afraid Ron. 90% of Agreements for 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985 and 1995 are held at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Only 10% sample being held at Kew.
> Regards
> Hugh


Thanks for that information, Hugh. I knew that when disposing of British ships log/agreements from the decades between 1950 and 2000, the decision was taken to retain only 10% of information in the UK; the rest (or what remained of the rest) was obtained by the Newfies. Retaining only the records from the years in each decade that ended in the number-5 (i.e. 1 year in every 10) was how they selected the 10% of ships. I had also read somewhere that the records from Cardiff had been moved to the NMM in Greenwich.

Some years ago, when trying to obtain a copy of the log and crew agreement for a ship that I sailed on in 1965, I contacted the NMM in Greenwich by email. After a lot of unanswered emails and responses to telephone calls where I was offered a variety of excuses - the person who could answer your enquiry is presently on leave or sick; we are in the middle of a reorganisation and the records cannot be accessed; I suggest you contact us at a future date (several months ahead); and the like. Some months later I pursued the matter and was eventually advised that, if they existed, merchant ship records might be held at the NA in Kew.

When I checked the on-line index at the NA, the ship was indeed listed and I paid a visit and copied the information. The fact that the records that I sought were there, coupled with the absence of knowledge at the NMM, gave me the impression that all of the British holdings for 1965 (and hence all the British records) were at Kew. I assumed that a reorganisation had moved everything on from Greenwich to Kew. But it would appear that I was just fortunate in that my particular ship was one of the 10% of the 10% of British ships whose records that are held at Kew. I should have bought a lottery ticket that day, my luck was clearly in.

I found the staff at Kew to be most helpful and pleasant, as are the people in Newfoundland. On the other hand my limited contact with the NMM has given me the impression that their involvement with (and interest in) 20th Century merchant shipping was minimal, at a lower degree than applied to RN and sailing ship subjects and felt their attitude to be almost dismissive. I may be doing them an injustice but found their responses far inferior to those that they afforded me when researching the RN vessels on which my wife's uncle served in WW1.


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