A Navy Directory, formerly the Navy List or Naval Register is an official list of naval officers, their ranks and seniority, the ships which they command or to which they are appointed, etc., that is published by the government or naval authorities of a country.

Background

The Navy List fulfills an important function in

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

in that warships are required by article 29 of the

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. , 167 c ...

to be commanded by a commissioned officer whose name appears in the appropriate service list. Past copies of the Navy List are also important sources of information for historians and genealogists. The Navy List for the Royal Navy is no longer published in hard-copy. The

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

(United Kingdom) publishes annual lists of active and reserve officers, and biennial lists of retired officers. As of 2015, the Navy List of the Royal Navy has been renamed as the 'Navy Directory'. The equivalent in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

is the Naval Register, which is updated online on a continuous basis. When a ship is removed from the ''

Naval Vessel Register The ''Naval Vessel Register'' (NVR) is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. It contains information on ships and service craft that make up the official inventory of the Navy from t ...

'' in the United States, or from a naval list of any other country, the ship is said to be " stricken".

Resources

Good sources of historical data on the

''Navy Lists'' are: * The Naval Historical Branch, Portsmouth Naval Base. * The Central Library Portsmouth, Guildhall Square. * The National Archives, Kew, that has an almost complete set including unpublished editions produced during the Second World War for internal use by the Admiralty. * The Caird Library of the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unite ...

has in its collection bound monthly lists published by the Admiralty, and the concurrently published Steel's Navy Lists

Citations

General and cited references

* ''The 1766 Navy List'', edited by E. C. Coleman, published by Ancholme Publishing, {{ISBN, 0-9541443-0-9

External links

US Naval Register
(US Navy)
Useful resources and information, includes latest Navy Directory
(Royal Navy) Directories Royal Navy Ship registration United States Navy

Background

Resources

See also

Citations

General and cited references

External links