The ‘merchant navy’ is an umbrella term that refers to commercial ships, so it includes passenger liners, cargo ships, tugs and ferries. In the past there were a number of different ways in which a young man might begin his career as a seaman or officer in the merchant navy, which was also known as the mercantile marine.

For working class families, a boy as young as ten years old might join up as a ship’s boy. The position of ‘boy’ was the lowest rank on board and his working day would have been filled with menial tasks such as cleaning, serving food, and often acting like a servant to the rest of the crew. However, he would also have learned maritime skills on the job and eventually became experienced enough to be appointed as a seaman. A newcomer had to master an extensive technical vocabulary, a wide array of new skills and shipboard rules, and be able to recognise and deal with life-threatening dangers. It took years to become truly proficient.

For those aspiring to be ships’ officers, a middle-class family could apply to a notable ship’s captain or prestigious ship-owner to take a young man under his wing for a few years as a trainee known as a midshipman. Often the family would have to pay for, or part-fund, the training given. If the midshipman role was completed to an employer’s satisfaction, it meant that a young man might be taken on as a junior officer and was likely to start his career with excellent prospects.

Until WW2, most merchant navy personnel were only employed for one voyage at a time so there was limited work stability. Hence any arrangement where there was a written agreement to train and employ a young man was keenly sought since it guaranteed employment for the duration of the training. As a result, apprenticeships at sea ran alongside the options of ship’s boy and midshipman and were often seen as a more secure option because they usually lasted for three to five years, and they were affordable to low-income families.

Apprentice records
Apprenticeships in the UK date back many centuries, and records about them may be available in local archives. However, in the 18th century, the government began to impose a tax on apprenticeships and records of these levies from 1711 to 1810 are kept at The National Archives (TNA) as series IR1. These registers have been digitised and indexed by TheGenealogist in its Occupational Records section and many seafarers are among them. Consulting these registers you can find, for example, that John Sherron of London, mariner, took an apprentice to train in 1712. His name was Richard, the son of the late John Shelley of Woodford, Essex, who had been a brewer. The word ‘mariner’ was often used to describe merchant navy employees in the past and is the predominant word utilised in the IR1 registers.

From 1824 onwards there was an important change: ships over 80 tons were obliged to carry apprentices by law. The existence of these seagoing apprentices was carefully documented in registers which survive as series BT150 at TNA, and copies of them for 1824 to 1910 are also on TheGenealogist. They typically describe the apprentice’s name, age, duration of agreement, and name of employer. For example, Herbert Eli Milnes was 16 when he began a four-year apprenticeship with the shipping line Park Brothers in 1885.

The records can reveal unexpected details. Frederick Charles was shipwrecked on the ship Airey Force in the Pacific in 1875; it shook him up so much that he left the service immediately afterwards. The registers also reveal deaths of apprentices at sea, and young men abandoning their apprenticeships because they were ‘not suited to the sea’, or even deserting their ships and running away.

Some copies of the complete apprenticeship agreements (‘indentures’) that accompanied these registers are still available at TNA in series BT151 (from 1845 onwards) and BT152 (from 1895 for the fishing industry). They often do not add much additional information, but they may sometimes identify an apprentice’s parent, or provide an address.

Not all seagoing training is included in the BT150 records because seafaring often ran in families and the equivalent of an ‘apprenticeship’ might be an informal non-written arrangement between, say, father and son.

Training ships
Various organisations were important in the past for preparing trainee seafarers for a life afloat. Christ’s Hospital Mathematical School in London was probably the earliest facility to offer academic teaching on marine navigation, starting in the 17th century. Many of its graduates joined the Royal Navy or merchant service as officers.

However, in the 18th century a man named Jonas Hanway set up the Marine Society to train impoverished boys with maritime skills. This was a way to take paupers off the streets, but also to supply the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy with ready-trained young men. Eventually the society set up its own training ship called HMS Warspite, and records of its trainees from 1770 onwards are kept at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (series MSY). The training ship model proved very popular and similar models were set up all around the UK in the 19th century. They were not all the same. For example, some operated like reformatory schools for young men who had already had a brush with the law, while others were exclusive ‘public schools afloat’ for training ships’ officers such as HMS Conway on the Mersey. Records for many of these training ships, if they have survived, are kept at local or regional archives in the vicinity and are worth hunting down.

Training ships had the advantage of typically offering school-type learning such as mathematics and writing skills, as well as practical seamanship such as an understanding of ship’s rigging and navigation. They were often harsh environments by the standards of today.

Other records that may help you to understand the life of a merchant navy trainee include crew lists (see TNA’s research guide on this subject), newspapers, and records about shipwrecks such as wrecksite – https://www.wrecksite.eu – if your ancestor was involved in a shipping tragedy.