Reviewing Daniel P. Coleman's Service Record

I've been looking over the service record I found for my great grandfather Daniel Patrick Coleman in the Royal Naval Registers of Seamen's Services. It's been a bit slow going as there are a lot of pieces that are difficult to read and I still need to research what some of the abbreviations mean. I have been able to decipher the names of most of the ships he served on and when he served on them. I've also found a little bit of information on the ships (mostly from Wikipedia, so I know I need to do more in depth research, but there is useful information for starting points.)

According to the records, Daniel joined the Royal Navy in September 1875. He spent about a week on the HMS Revenge, which was a training ship. From October 1, 1875 to October 23, 1875 he was on another ship, but I can't make out the name on the record. He was then assigned to the HMS Ganges for three consecutive terms of service between October 24, 1875 and August 1, 1877. The Ganges was also a training ship.

On August 2, 1877 Daniel, now 17 years old, joined the crew of the HMS Shannon. According to Wikipedia, the Shannon was the first armored cruiser in the Royal Navy, but was a somewhat unsuccessful ship. In April 1878, the Shannon was sent to the China Station, but recalled in July 1878. According to Daniel's service record, he left the Shannon on August 31, 1878. He was then sent to the HMS Victor Emmanuel from September 1, 1878 through April 9, 1879. The Victor Emmanuel was a receiving and hospital ship stationed in Hong Kong at that time, which leads to some questions. If the Shannon was recalled to England in July 1878 and Daniel doesn't leave that assignment until August 31, 1878, how does he wind up on the Victor Emmanuel in Hong Kong on September 1, 1878? If the Victor Emmanuel is a receiving and hospital ship, why is Daniel there? Is he ill or is he waiting for his new assignment (receiving ships were a place for new recruits who were awaiting their assignments)? There is the family story that Daniel nearly died from malaria while in the Royal Navy, so spending seven months on a hospital ship would match up with that story. Of course, the story is that he contracted malaria while fighting in the first Boer War, but as of yet I can't prove he was in that war and he has a medal from the Third Burmese War, so it's possible that the stories got mixed and confused.

My best guess right now for the discrepancy between the Shannon departing the China Station in July 1878 and Daniel's service record is the Shannon was recalled in July, but didn't depart until the end of August. Either that or Daniel was left behind, but not removed from the list of names on board until August/September. This is definitely one period in the record where further research is needed.

After Daniel left the Victor Emmanuel, he was assigned to the HMS Iron Duke for about a month before joining the crew of the HMS Egeria from May 8, 1879 through October 11, 1881. There were a couple of disruptions in Daniel's time on the Egeria. He was sent back to the Victor Emmanuel for about a week in December 1879, so I'm guessing he needed medical services on the hospital ship. He also spent two stints "in the cells" first for 10 days in January 1881 and then for 14 days in April/May 1881. There is nothing in the record that indicates why Daniel was sent to the hospital ship nor "the cells" so I'll have to see if I can learn more about those incidents. Daniel's character is described as "good" for the most part on the Egeria, though there are a couple of notations of "fair" both appearing around the time he was sent to "the cells."

From October 12, 1881 through December 1881, Daniel was stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Station (listed as the N Barracks on his service record.) Daniel spent a couple of weeks of January 1882 on the HMS Duncan before transferring to the HMS Repulse on January 24. The Repulse was the guard ship at the naval base in Hull. Daniel served on the Repulse until August 31, 1883 before returning to the Duncan for a few months.

On January 10, 1884, Daniel joined the crew of the HMS Serapis which was a troop ship between England in India. According to the notes on Wikipedia, the travel time between the two countries took about 70 days. Allowing for time spent in port Daniel probably made two round trips.

On November 12, 1884, Daniel joined the crew of the HMS Ranger. The Ranger is the ship he served on during the Third Burmese War and was awarded the Burmah Medal. Daniel spent nearly three years on the Ranger until October 31, 1887. This is the second longest single assignment in Daniel's record and since the Ranger was involved in a war, that probably makes sense. This is another period of Daniel's service record that I need to spend more time researching.

Daniel left the Ranger and joined the HMS Cambridge on November 1, 1887. Again this was a short service time before he moved on to the HMS Excellent on Februrary 4, 1888. The HMS Excellent was a gunnery school training ship. Daniel spent most of 1888 on the Excellent before moving on to the HMS Amphion on December 10, 1888.

The Amphion is where the record gets curious. Daniel is listed as a member of the Amphion's crew from December 10, 1888 until February 4, 1890. It is from here that Daniel was "sent to Portsmouth to be dealt with summarily." There is no indication what or why Daniel was sent away, but there is a year gap between his last date on the Amphion and his next assignment on the HMS Duke of Wellington on February 10, 1891. That is followed by another gap in his record between March 4, 1891 and April 14, 1891. From Daniel's service time on the Egeria, I can guess that the gaps in service time are due to time spent in confinement for some kind of misbehavior. Whatever happened at the end of Daniel's time on the Amphion had him imprisoned for a little over a year. The notation for his character on the Duke of Wellington is listed as "fair", which after a year in prison is probably understandable, but there is no explanation why there is another six week gap after he leaves the Duke of Wellington.

On April 15, 1891, Daniel is serving on the HMS Victory I, which was the Naval School of Telegraphy, so whatever caused the gap in service time did not prevent Daniel from moving on to an assignment that would give him more skills to be used during his military service time.

Daniel then moved on to the HMS Sans Pariel on August 1, 1891, which was part of the Mediterranean fleet. This was Daniel's longest assignment, lasting until April 17, 1895. During his time on the Sans Pariel, Daniel had another two brief stints "in the cells" -- one for 7 days in August 1894 and another for 5 days in October 1894. Despite these two incidents, his character is listed as "good" or "very good."

Daniel returned to the HMS Victory I on April 18, 1895, and that is the last fully legible entry on his record. There are two more listings after the Victory one, but the ships names are completely blacked out in the image and it would probably require seeing the original record to figure out what they were. Those two listings cover the dates September 1, 1895 to September 11, 1896 and September 12, 1896 to January 4, 1898. The last entry includes that he was discharged at his own request which was granted on December 17, 1897.

The next record I have in Daniel's chronology is his departure from Southampton, England on January 29, 1898 bound for New York on the ship Paris. I need to figure out what happened between Daniel's arrival in New York to when he first appears in San Francisco in the 1900 census, but that's a task for another day. There is also much more to figure out about Daniel's time in the Royal Navy. I want to know more about the ships he served on and where they were sent. I know from what I've found so far that Daniel spent time in Hong Kong, India, and Burma (now Myanmar) as well as being stationed in England. I definitely want to learn more about what got him sent to Portsmouth and I need to learn more about the Burmese Wars.

Daniel P. Coleman's Military Service

One of the family stories handed down was that my great-grandfather Daniel Patrick Coleman left home at 15 to join the British Navy because he didn't get along with his stepmother. When Daniel first appears in the 1900 US Census, he is working as a sailor in San Francisco. I know he ultimately became a ships captain for a merchant shipping company. Putting those pieces of information together, I thought I'd look to see if I could find any record of Daniel’s service in the British Navy.

There are some British military records on Ancestry.com, but none of them provided enough information to determine if any of the Daniel Colemans that turned up in the searches was my great-grandfather. So I set off to look for British records. The National Archives of the United Kingdom has some military records available online so I decided to search there. Many of the records are for officers which I doubted Daniel was seeing as he enlisted at 15 and was Irish. There was a set of records for regular seaman's service, so I searched there.

Six different records came up for a Daniel Coleman and as I looked them over I found one born in Kinsale, Cork on March 28, 1860. Most of the records I have for my great-grandfather have him born on March 17, 1860, so I figured that was close enough to take a look. The UK National Archives deliberately distort the online images, so when I looked at the online image it was next to useless to identify whether or not I had found the right person. My only option then was to order a downloadable copy of the image. Fortunately, it only cost £3.30 -- about $5.00 US and was a fairly small document.

When I was able to download the record, I found it was loaded with useful information. A lot of the text is difficult to read, but the first entry is for service on a ship called the Revenge in September, 1875. That would match up with his joining the navy at 15. There are also several notations at the top with his height. The dates for each are a bit difficult to decipher, but they go from 5-feet even to 5-feet, 4-inches to 5-feet, 6-inches (maybe 8-inches?) Again, that would make sense if he joined as a still growing teenager. It's hard to judge how tall Daniel is in the pictures I have of him circa 1920, but he and Lizzie don't appear to be that much different in height so I'm guessing he wasn't particularly tall.

The record I downloaded was only one page long, but it lists all the ships Daniel served on from 1875 until 1898. The end date is a little puzzling as in the 1900 census, Daniel said he arrived in the US in 1892 and was a naturalized citizen. The dates are close enough in time that I’m not too concerned about the discrepancy.

There are columns for "Rating, &c.", "G.C. Badges worn", "Period of Service", "Character", "If Discharged, Whither and for what cause", and "Remarks." There are a lot of abbreviations and scribbles that make the notations in each column difficult to read. I’m guessing the "Rating, &c." column is his rank as one of the few scribbles I can figure out reads "Lg Seamn." The only other one that I can read clearly are the letters "A.B." -- possibly "assistant bosun"?

The "Character" column has the most interesting information. From the first entry onward there are many notations of "Good" or "Very Good." It's not until I got towards the bottom of the page that the entries changed to "Fair." Starting in about 1891 while serving on the ship Excellent things start to change. There's a note in the "Discharged" column that I can't figure out, but in the "Remarks" column next to it there is a notation "Sent to Portsmouth to be dealt with summarily." Unfortunately, the rest of the notations in the "Remarks" column are written very small and are really hard to read. Daniel went back to service on several different ships between 1892-1898, but there are several more notations of "Fair" in the "Character" column along with two notations of "Cells 7 ds", "Cells 5 ds", which I would imagine was some kind of disciplinary action. The last readable item is in the "Remarks" column and indicates Daniel was "granted a free discharge" from the British Navy on December 17, 1897.

I wonder what those last few years in the Navy were like. Daniel would have been in his early thirties with 15 years of service. I know my grandmother was brought up with a strong dislike for the British, so I wonder if some of the tensions between Ireland and England were affecting what was happening on board ship.

There are a lot of different ships listed, so I'll have to see if I can find some history of those ships during the years Daniel was in the Navy. Where were they sent? What was going on in those regions? One of my Coleman cousins passed along a story that Daniel was in one of the Boer Wars and nearly died of malaria. There's nothing on the record that indicates either of those bits of information. Based on a quick look at Wikipedia, if that is accurate, it's likely Daniel fought in the first war in 1880-81 rather than in the second which took place in 1899-1902.

Once I had some basic information from the UK National Archives, I was able to go back to the records at Ancestry and see if I could match up any further records. One record turned up for Daniel in the "UK, Naval Medal and Award Rolls." It appears he won a service medal called the "Burmah Medal" while on the ship Ranger during the Third Burmese War in 1885-1887. I was able to confirm the record based on the service number attached to the record which also appeared on the record I had found in the UK National Archives.  Maybe the story about nearly dying from malaria was related to the Burmese War rather than the Boer War? It doesn't look like Daniel ever received the medal as there was a notation that it was "returned to mint Feb 22." Looking at his service record, it looks like he left the Ranger in October, 1887 and joined the crew of the Cambridge for several months before heading to the Excellent in February, 1888.

It’s interesting that after Daniel's service in the British Navy that eventually both his son Daniel J. Coleman and grandson Edward K. Murray would both serve in the US Navy. Uncle Dan served during World War II and Uncle Eddie was a chaplain in the Navy for 30 years.

There are a lot of great nuggets I've uncovered in this one piece of paper, I just wish I could make out the writing a bit more. I imagine it might be slightly easier to read the original, but since that's in England, I don’t think I'll be taking a look at it any time soon! Still, I'll try to work out what I can and see what information I can find based on what I do know.