# Researching late fathers career at sea..



## Errol Chandler (Dec 18, 2011)

I have in my possession a copy of his CR10.
It is numbered 383619.
His name is given as:
Surname: *Leary Chandler*
Christian names: *Basil Clement Leeke*
d.o.b. 4th June 1893, place: Mold. Nth Wales

His photograph appears on the CR10 and it is him.
The next-of-kin details are correct.... my paternal grandparents.

BUT....the puzzling thing is that his name, as on his birth certificate is (and he was always known as): *CHANDLER, Clement Leslie*
No one in the family has a clue as to where all the extra names came from!

On the CR10 is a Dis A No. 61123
I am told that this cannot be right as a number that low would have been issued in about 1900....when he was about 6 years old.
So the question has to be....just what is this do***ent not telling us??

On the CR10 there are 6 different ships names, the first entry being 16 December 1918 and the final entry reads --/10/1921

I know for a fact that he was at sea until at least 1930, mainly (or only) with Union Castle. 
So why no entry on the CR10 after October 1921 ?

I also know that he was in the Boys Service of the RN for 5 months in 1910. According to the service record he went awol just before his 17th birthday and was not 'recovered' until February 1912....so he was absent for about 15 months.
He was not properly on the 1911 census but due to an incorrect entry which was crossed out I know he was at sea at the time of that census. On the form the whole family is recorded and the name Clement is included under children, then crossed out and the notation "At Sea" inserted.

So I now know of his brief time in the Boys Service RN during 1910.
I know he was "at sea" in 1911. 
I know he was "recovered" by the RN in February 1912.
But from 1912 to 1918 there is no record at all. 
I believe he was torpedoed early in WW1. 
I am also told that in 1917 he was in Russia as an interpreter and courier for the Foreign Office......he was fluent in Russian as he was educated in Kiev when his father was in Russia for the Singer Sewing Machine Co.
I have been unable to trace any do***entation of the Russian service. Nor any do***entation about his WW1 sinkings....I do understand that he was wounded slightly in those incidents. 
It is possible that he was invalided out of the merchant navy or that he was transferred to the Foreign Office because of his Russian ability.
It is all very intriguing and I would dearly love to get some answers.

Can anyone help or suggest other lines of inquiry?


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## Roger Griffiths (Feb 10, 2006)

Just a small question before I attempt an answer.
Did you get his CR10 from "Find my Past" via the internet, National Archives at Kew or Southampton City Archive?

Roger


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## ray1buck1 (Sep 4, 2005)

There has been a lot of replies to a similar post 
http://www.merchant-navy.net/forum/f17/understanding-seamans-identity-do***ent-13082/
Ray


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## Errol Chandler (Dec 18, 2011)

ray1buck1 said:


> There has been a lot of replies to a similar post
> http://www.merchant-navy.net/forum/f17/understanding-seamans-identity-do***ent-13082/
> Ray


Yes, I have posted similar appeals on other websites....I wondered how many would be interlinked and/or share a similar membership.


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## Errol Chandler (Dec 18, 2011)

Roger Griffiths said:


> Just a small question before I attempt an answer.
> Did you get his CR10 from "Find my Past" via the internet, National Archives at Kew or Southampton City Archive?
> 
> Roger


I got the CR10 from ancestry.co.uk but note that the source was the National Archives


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## Roger Griffiths (Feb 10, 2006)

Yes. I have seen that thread Ray and it do's little to answer the original posters questions. I presume that's why he has posted on this board.

regards
Roger


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## Errol Chandler (Dec 18, 2011)

Errol Chandler said:


> I got the CR10 from ancestry.co.uk but note that the source was the National Archives


Sorry, small correction. I traced the do***ent via ancestry.co.uk but then had to buy it on-line from the National Archives.


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## Errol Chandler (Dec 18, 2011)

I would like to clear up another point which may have some bearing on this research.
The RN Boys Service was, I am told, for boys aged 15 to 17 years and
if they completed the service they had to sign on to the Navy for 10 years from their 18th birthday.
What is unclear is...what were their options if they decided not to sign on..... could they opt out of the boys service if they decided a future career in the Navy was not for them? 
If they could opt out....at what stage could they do so?


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## Errol Chandler (Dec 18, 2011)

Roger Griffiths said:


> Yes. I have seen that thread Ray and it do's little to answer the original posters questions. I presume that's why he has posted on this board.
> 
> regards
> Roger


I could send you his CR10 as an attachment if I could work out how to do it!


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## Hugh MacLean (Nov 18, 2005)

Errol,

From 1853, all boys from the ages of 14-17 joining the navy *had *to sign an engagement to serve 10 years, from the age of 18. There was the possibility of serving further engagements, towards the 20 years required for a long service pension. This form of service was also extended to those joining aged 18 and over. 

It is not clear whether they were held to that. 

A couple of links for you:
http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/RN/Pay_and_Condns/Pay_and_Engagement_Struct_Change_1860.htm

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/do***entsonline/royal-navy-service.asp

Regards
Hugh


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## Errol Chandler (Dec 18, 2011)

Thank you!
There are so many of you that have helped in just a few short hours.....you have cleared up a lot of unanswered questions....so let me say a *BIG joint thank you to everyone.*
The research is ongoing but now quite a few gaps have been plugged. Brilliant.
I will keep on picking your brains and will of course give you a full report once I have collated everything.
*Gentlemen, I salute you!*


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## Errol Chandler (Dec 18, 2011)

*researching*



Errol Chandler said:


> Thank you!
> There are so many of you that have helped in just a few short hours.....you have cleared up a lot of unanswered questions....so let me say a *BIG joint thank you to everyone.*
> The research is ongoing but now quite a few gaps have been plugged. Brilliant.
> I will keep on picking your brains and will of course give you a full report once I have collated everything.
> *Gentlemen, I salute you!*


The following has been a great help, some of you might find it a useful source of information:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/...son/merchantseamanafter1917.htm?WT.1p=rg-3193


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## Roger Griffiths (Feb 10, 2006)

You wrote.

I know for a fact that he was at sea until at least 1930, mainly (or only) with Union Castle. 
So why no entry on the CR10 after October 1921 ? 

One reason is. Simply because the CR10 card and photograph were discontinued in December 1921 to be replaced by a reintroduced CR1 card together wth card CR2.
I know that at least one online pay to view site gives details of CR10 cards but not CR1 or CR2.
Card CR1 contains basic personal details
Card CR2 give details, usually in the form of the ships official number, of the vessels sailed on for foreign voyages.
Men who sailed in the home trade seem to have been not included in this way. That is to say, that is another reason he may not have a CR1 & CR2 but from what you say he sailed with Union Castle so would probably rule this out.
Another reason was, lots of cards have been lost or destoyed together with the fact that the records at Kew are far from complete when copies were made.
It's a long shot but I would ask Southampton City Archive if they have anymore from the original cards.http://www.southampton.gov.uk/s-leisure/artsheritage/history/maritimehistory/centralindex.aspx

On the CR10 is a Dis A No. 61123
I am told that this cannot be right as a number that low would have been issued in about 1900....when he was about 6 years old.

One can never be too sure but it has been known that a digit would be ommitted by mistake. However if it is correct 1900 would be a little early, who's to know for certain, but I would guess 1909/1910
Maybe when he Ran from the RN?

But from 1912 to 1918 there is no record at all.

If he was discharged from the RN and joined the Mercantile Marine. Effectivly no central MM records were kept between 1857 and 1918.

Yes, I have posted similar appeals on other websites....I wondered how many would be interlinked and/or share a similar membership. 

The sites are not interlinked but it is a small community by internet standards and although most people have a favourite site/s we do tend to look in other similar forums from time to time.


Roger


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## ray1buck1 (Sep 4, 2005)

Gentlemen
I have been asked by Errol to post an email that he sent which will help keep everyone intrested informed 

Copy below
Ray

Hello Ray,
Thank you for your email and interest.

Yes, I have queried the facts in much the same way as you have.
I have copies of the 1901 and 1911 census do***ents.
I also have his birth certificate which states his father was a gas engineer in Mold, Wales, as do the census forms of 1901 and 1911 which both show that he was still a gas engineer, but by then in London.

I have now established that the Singer Sewing machine connection had nothing to do with sewing machines as such....but actually involved him working as an engineer for Singer when they were building cotton mills in Russia....I presume that the mills would have been powered by gas, so a gas engineer was required in order to build the places.

I have established that Leslie accompanied his father and did attend school in Kiev, where he became fluent in Russian.
The Russian period lasted for about 5 years between the two census takings....I believe from the later half of 1904 to late in 1909 or early 1910.

The child that died was called Drucilla (not Priscilla). She died in Westminster, London on 9th October 1905, aged 8 years and 5 months.
I understand that her illness meant that the mother did not accompany her husband to Russia but remained in the UK with the younger children.

Leslie joined the Boys Service of the RN on 18 May 1910 (I have his service
record) so they must have returned from Russia a few months before.

He went awol from Victory 1, Portsmouth (a shore establishment for training and mustering) on 23rd November 1910, just two weeks before his 17th birthday, and was missing until 'recovered' by the RN on 23 February 1912.
The service record notes that after being 'recovered from desertion' he 
was 'not cleared for further service' and presumably was punished and discharged.
The service record does not make this clear as there are three lines of writing which are very much a scrawl and unreadable.

The 1911 census was taken on the nights of 31 March and 1 April 1911 He was missing for 15 months....which included the 1911 census during which he was mistakenly entered on the census as being with his family... but then crossed off and recorded as 'At Sea'.
Presumably he had run away to sea and not touched a UK port again until being 'recovered'.

I was 13 when he died in 1957, so I did not really get to question him.
However my older brothers (we are 5 sons of Leslie, I being the youngest) recall him telling them snippets about Russia and they also recall him doing his party piece...the Russian Cossack dance...you know the one where they squat on the toes, fold arms across the chest and kick their feet forward! 
Apparently he was pretty good at it!
My mother, deceased in 1971, definitely knew that he spoke Russian I do remember his very Russian habit of drinking tea from a tall glass, and never from a cup.

He also told my brothers a little about regular trips on the Trans-Siberian railway in Russia as a Greyhound.
I have established that Greyhound was the nickname given to the Diplomatic couriers that carried do***ents between diplomatic posts, their official name was Kings Messengers (now,of course, Queen Messengers).
I have put a request in to the Foreign Office to try and access records but am having to jump through hoops in the process!

It is all slowly emerging and I can only regret that I did not have the foresight to question him myself!

I will keep you informed of further progress and I would appreciate any assistance or thoughts you may have.
Regards
Errol Chandler
Somerset.


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