Explanation of officer data 
Explanation of officer data 


Royal Navy 

Browse officers in command: A - B; C - E; F - G; H - K; L - O; P - R; S - T; U - Z; ??

Note:

Personal data (first block)
This includes dates of birth, marriage and death, titles, honours or awards received, and books written.

Rank data (second block)
This gives dates of promotion (generally to rank of Lieutenant or above).

Service data (third block)
This gives dates of service (generally only as Lieutenant or above), afloat or ashore. Data is based on (in decreasing order of assumed reliability): If appointed to a vessel already on a foreign station, an officer sometimes only reached that vessel many months after receiving his commission; this explains apparent overlap between commanders of a vessel. It is generally unknown when the actual transfer of command took place.

Information on the end date of a commission is less common that that on the start date. If an end date is not given, it should not be assumed that a particular commission lasted until the start of the next one; many officers spent more time on half-pay (unemployed) than employed. The standard duration of commissions to ships was three years, but there were many exceptions. In those few cases where I know this, I give the date he actually joined the ship. A 'date from' between (...) indicates a service that started at some unknown date earlier that the date shown.

A note on ranks: A commissioned officer in the 19th century Royal Navy could progress through the following ranks: 


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