Pay and Pensions

Pay and Pensions

1890's to the 1910's

Written by Godfrey Dykes

© RN Communications Branch Museum/Library

As always a very important subject, and if the pay is good the men are content [by and large] and good provision for pensions leads to good pensions being paid. Navy officers of these days were not all as lucky as we were. Many of the warrant officers of my day were lucky in three quite different ways, each package of luck jointly culminating with the receipt of a goodly income in retirement. Firstly we retired early at age 45 and we were awarded a modest pension, but after the restoration made when 55 and the subsequent index linking, the resulting parcel of money is a worthwhile asset. Secondly, many of us did well in civilian life and were awarded a generous company pension also index linked. And thirdly of course, we receive a state pension well buttered with Serps additions reflecting our twenty years of civilian employment in non opted-out companies, and it too, indexed linked.

Non of this was possible at any time in the period before 1949, the time when the warrant rank was withdrawn by the Admiralty, and anyway, their retirement ages denied them the opportunity to establish themselves in civilian life. Officers were less affected because of private means, but they had even less to look forward to, than did the warrant rank. Officers without private means often fared badly with finances.

In this section we will look at samples of pay and pensions, and a few of the regulations which were extant at the turn of the century.

From an order in council dated the 7th March 1899 comes this Half Pay of the Royal Navy. Warrant Officers were 'standing officers' and therefore, they were continuously employed, rather like we were. For this return of service, they were awarded a pension, and obviously there was never a requirement for them to receive half-pay. However, for officers who had been commissioned to the wardroom from the warrant rank, there was a need, for they could now be laid-off on half pay. This plate refers to ex warrant officers in several places. It is clear that a lieutenant who had been a warrant officer [either a commissioned or chief warrant or a plain warrant officer but nevertheless, a warrant officer] took his half pay when ordered as £127.15.0d p.a., and this was the very least he could expect. If he had been a lieutenant for less than 6 years, then this minimum was his half pay. However, if he had been a lieutenant for over 6 years, then his half pay would have risen pro rata according to [A] the number of years he had spent as a warrant officer counting in full and [B] the time spent as a petty officer counting for half. NOTE: In those days the substantive rate of petty officer had three grades: chief, 1st class and 2nd class. So, for example:

Lieutenant Hornblower is put on half pay after having served 6 years in that rank, before which he was a Chief Warrant Officer [CWO]. Before that he was a Warrant Officer [WO] and his time with an Admiralty Warrant, covering both grades was 10 years. His time on the lower deck was 20 years of which he was a Petty Officer for 10 of those years. His calculated time as a Lieutenant is [a] 10 years as a warrant rank + [b] [10÷2=5] years as a Petty Officer = 15 years in all. Applying this total figure to the Lieutenants half pay scale, we choose "after 12 years service" = £155 - 2 - 6d half pay.

Next, since WO's do not qualify for half pay we had better check on their pensions for they certainly qualify for those.

In this next plate, and under the sub heading of Extract from the Regulations, it states that a Warrant Officer can serve until he is 55 years of age, but that he can apply to retire from the age of 50. Naturally, he can be retired earlier on ground of ill health or being unfit to serve at sea.

In these old documents pounds sterling is often written as a letter 'l' small case [my keyboard would allow the correct character] but you can see it on the document in the adjoining plate. Lots to read on the plate and it is of interest to read that the amounts stated can either be increased for a 'special' Warrant Officer, or, for those officers of Wardroom status who receive pensions, namely those promoted from the Warrant rank, imposed on them for misconduct.

I have already mentioned that all warrant officers are named in the Navy List. When they come to the end of their 'active duty' and they are discharged to pension, their names are removed. Some are offered honorary Lieutenancies in which case they are returned to the list. Retirements

This next form is issued to the fleet when removals are made to names listed in the Navy Lists which are printed quarterly. Note the cancellation of promotion for the Acting Warrant Officer, a Warrant Writer and Gunner both on Active List. Removals.

From 1900 comes the regulations for Pension to widows of officers, and it is comforting to know that in those uncaring days, they cared about widows. They certainly addressed every possible cause of death to the officer concerned. Pensions to Widows of Officers

Good Service Pensions [GSP] Good Service Pensions. This is typical throughout the senior Captains and the Flag ranks. I said earlier on that Warrant Officers were the only group who received pensions, each to his own, notwithstanding. The only other group who had some kind of remuneration in retirement were Flag and other senior officers. Each group of officers, flag and non flag, had just so many pension pots available, about seven, for a selected few usually for those who had performed well. They were known as Good Service Pensions, and once a pension had been awarded at a fixed annual amount, usually around the £300 per year mark, it remained with the owner until death. This meant that many a senior officer retired without a pension and died without one because others, with one of the pots, had out lived him. Upon death, or, when an officer was promoted from Captain to Flag rank and therefore from one pension pot into another, the pension was given to the next senior member on the list 'of the good!] for the remainder of his life. In this example, a Captain has been promoted to Admiral and so the next senior Captain gets his pension. The new Admiral has to hope that by the time he retires again, this time as an Admiral, those ahead of him won't over stay their welcome!

Yet another type of pension scheme. Greenwich Pension Scheme

To show you year on year or even decade on decade, the pay and pension fluctuations would be onerous for me and boring for you. Pensions are relatively easy because they are for Warrant Officers only, although much later on, others in the navy receive a pension, and by the time of the second world war all such officers pensions were in such a state, that the WO's system was merged with wardroom status officers system, ostensibly to achieve a stronger lobby for better pensions all round. Pay is much different in that the rules and governance change too often and the multiplicity of regulations makes it a poor subject for an internet web page. To give a balanced picture of how the Warrant Officers position vis-a-vis all others was or was not maintained on pay, I did many comparisons from the late 19th century right up to an including the late 1930's, and I can tell you that at no time [though a WO of that same period might disagree] did the Warrant Officer lose his position in percentage terms whether from above his group [the wardroom] or from below his group [the ships company]. Indeed when considering all aspects of direct pay and indirect pay [allowances etc] he was sometimes treated better than the rest of the navy.

In both my following example I have chosen 1899. The first plates concern pensions and add to those above already mentioned. Pensions. The second tells the story of the warrant officers pay in 1899 showing all his allowances, which many and various. WOs Pay and Allowances