Royal Marine Medal Roll 1914-1920

Information about Royal Marine Medal Roll 1914-1920

The Jack Clegg Memorial Database of WWI Campaign Medals to the Royal Marines 1914-1920

This database is a transcription of The National Archives document classes ADM/171/167 to ADM/171/171 (inclusive), ADM/171/92 & ADM/171/139, which contains the complete World War I Campaign Medal Rolls for the Royal Marines. Service details are added to the transcript for a large number of men, particularly those killed in action or died of wounds during WWI, and in many cases post-war deaths and WWII deaths are noted.

The database contains the names of over 75,000 Royal Marine Officers, NCOs and other ranks, and provides a complete listing of all Royal Marines who served in WWI.

The medals covered by the rolls are: the 1914 Star, the Clasp to the 1914 Star, the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

Each man's entry is linked to display the original medal roll page image. For recipients of the 1914 Star, two or more images are provided, from the original handwritten 1914 Star Roll (ADM/171/139) and the later typewritten rolls.

The following branches of the Royal Marines are listed in the rolls:

• RMLI - Royal Marine Light Infantry (Chatham (CH), Portsmouth (PO) or Plymouth (PLY) prefix to service number)
• RMA - Royal Marine Artillery (RMA prefix to service number)
• RMB - Royal Marine Band Service/Royal Naval School of Music (RMB prefix to service number)
• RMLC - Royal Marine Labour Corps (Old) (Deal prefix to numbers 8000/S to 15952/S)
• RMLC - Royal Marine Labour Corps (Home Service Labour Company) (CH prefix to numbers 14100/S to 14342/S)
• RME - Royal Marine Engineers (RME prefix to service numbers 301/S to 8271/S)

The men specially enlisted for the Royal Naval Division support units:

• Royal Marines (RND Divisional Engineers - Deal prefix to numbers 1/S to 1500/S & 5001/S to 5895/S)
• Royal Marines (RND Divisional Train - Deal prefix to numbers 1501/S to 2762/S)
• Royal Marines (RND Medical Unit - Deal prefix to numbers 3000/S to 4400/S)
• Royal Marines (RND Ordnance Company - Deal prefix to numbers 4501/S to 4564/S)

In addition to the above, there are several anomalies on the roll:

• RMLC - Royal Marine Labour Corps (New) (Deal prefix to service numbers 1/N to 1424/N). This unit was raised in March 1919 and the few men listed on the roll all had former service with the RMLC (Old). The service which qualified them for WWI medals was with the RMLC (Old).

• There are two men with no service number, who enlisted pre-1880 and were never allocated a service number. These two men re-enlisted in 1914 for UK Home Service and are listed under their old RMLI or RMA company number (Private Henry MEDLEY, 25th Company RMLI & Gunner Thomas H. PITT, 5th Company RMA).

During transcription of these rolls, The National Archives (TNA) released the Royal Marine Service Registers (ADM/159) for online access which, with the free search facility for names and numbers, provided a very useful source for error checking. Please note, however, that ADM/159 Service Registers do not exist for about 15,250 WWI enlisted Royal Marines.