The Merchant Navy
Despite the term Merchant Navy being in common use, there is no formal organisation known as the Merchant Navy and it is not a single entity (unlike the Royal Navy or Royal Air Force). The term Merchant Navy is a collective term for anything that floats, is not in the Royal Navy and does not have guns on it. The men who serve on these ships are known as seafarers of the British Merchant Mercantile and are employed by independent companies. In effect, the Merchant Navy comprises all the seagoing UK-registered ships and their crews listed in the Maritime Register of the United Kingdom.
Up until February 1928, these ships and crews were known as the Mercantile Marine. After February 1928, King George V formally renamed the Mercantile Marine by appointing HRH The Prince of Wales as the first ‘Master of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets’.
Travelling in convoys, protected by Royal Navy, the merchant vessels transported essential supplies during the First and Second World Wars to sustain the United Kingdom and other allied countries.
Merchant seamen who served in the First World War were generally entitled to the Mercantile Marine War Medal and the British War Medal. In the Second World War, merchant seamen were generally entitled to the 1939-45 War Medal and a 1939-45 Star medal together with associated medals for different theatres of operation e.g. the Atlantic.
Wiltshire and The Merchant Navy
Relatively few Wiltshire men (compared to those serving in the Royal Navy itself) served on merchant ships with either the Mercantile Marine, Mercantile Marine Reserve or Merchant Navy during the First and Second World Wars.
We would welcome contact from members who may have information about Wiltshire seafarers who served in the Merchant Navy.
Information related to Wiltshire and the Merchant Navy
The following documents have been transcribed and contributed by our members:
We currently do not have any transcribed documents related to Wiltshire and the Merchant Navy. Please let us know if you would like to submit any historical information or interesting personal articles about the Merchant Navy and Wiltshire.
Merchant Navy Memorials
In the First and Second World Wars, the merchant naval service suffered heavy losses of ships and personnel from German U-boat attacks. As of June 2025, the WOPC had identified a total of 32 Wiltshire men who were killed whilst serving in the Merchant Navy across the First and Second World Wars. We have identified all the ships in which they served and located where they are commemorated or buried. These casualties are included in the We Will Remember Them listing described on the Remembrance page.
The official UK Memorial to the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleet is at Tower Hill in London, opposite the Tower of London. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) provides information about the location and background of the memorial and the details of each of the 26,000 seafarers who were lost in the First World War and the Second World War.
Tower Hill Memorial | Cemetery Details | CWGC
In the CWGC records, the “regiment” names shown against the names of the fallen are “Mercantile Marine” for the seafarers of the First World War and “Merchant Navy” for those of the Second World War.
At Tower Hill there is also a memorial to the men of the Merchant Navy who lost their lives in the Falklands War in 1982.
If a member of the Merchant Navy with a Wiltshire connection died in service, then any images of their individual grave or memorial (UK or Overseas), submitted by our members, may be found via the Military Gallery link on the relevant Parish page in this website.
Merchant Navy Gallery
The following gallery holds general photographs of the Merchant Navy memorial at Tower Hill, kindly supplied by our members, together with images of any other Wiltshire-related Merchant Navy historical photographs and other artefacts.
Mercantile Marine & Merchant Navy Gallery
Merchant Navy – Useful Links
| Merchant Navy Service Records | The Imperial War Museum (IWM) guide on where to find Merchant Navy Service Records |
| Merchant Navy Family History | The Imperial War Museum (IWM) guide on Tracing your Merchant Navy Family History |
| Research guide C13: The Merchant Navy: Tracing merchant seamen | Royal Museums Greenwich (rmg.co.uk) | The Royal Museum Greenwich’s guide to records and other resources related to Merchant Seaman. |
| Ships named on the Tower Hill Memorial with supporting information | The memorials at Tower Hill list casualties from 1,400 and 2,100 ships from the First and Second World Wars respectively. This Wikipedia page, lists those ships that have an associated description of the ship, incident and losses suffered. Note that this is not a complete list of ships lost, only those that have associated descriptive articles on Wikipedia. |
Wiltshire & Merchant Navy – Related Books
We are not aware of any books specifically related to Wiltshire and the Merchant Navy. Please let us know if you would like to bring one to our attention.
