Offer:Look-up Liverpool (Mersey) Pilots 1734/1990

[davecigar]

Hi Robert,

No record of Crawford Wm Scott in the Liverpool Pilotage Service.

If he was a cadet on HMS Conway, he would have attended between the ages of 14/16, say 1935/37.

Sorry can't be of more assistance

Regards
Dave

[Robert A.C. Scott]

Hi, David,

Many thanks for checking for me. It is possible that I have been misinformed. I will check again.

Yous aye,

Robert

[imd6662]

Just found this very useful thread, mere weeks after managing a quick hour at the Liverpool Maritime Museum Archive on a recent visit to the UK.

I was able to locate the character book entry for an ancestor, Liverpool pilot John Hughes (a), revealing what looks like a not uncommon checquered history! I'm also tempted to think that John Hughes (VI) may have been his father.

A couple of basic questions occur to me, and my apologies in advance if I've missed answers to these:

1. Where does one find a good general history/reference for the pilot service?
2. Is therre an on-line accessible source which gives the names and numbers of the pilot boats?

And, more specifically,

3. What would be the standard age for superannuation as a pilot? 70? Seems quite ol.

[Sounder]

1. Where does one find a good general history/reference for the pilot service?

"Beyond the Bar, A Light History of the Liverpool Pilot Service" by Barrie Youde.  GBP 12.95
ISBN 0 904825 34 5. Published by Laver publishing PO Box 7 Liverpool L19 9EN
http://www.laverpublishing.com (a very old fashioned site but all the info is in there)

List all pilots known to have served in the Service up to 2003. It also lists all the cutters and has a full description of the apprenticeship training of those men. It also has quite a few photographs of people and vessels and a few good (and bad) old tales.

Hope that helps.

[BY]

As to superannuation,  by the terms of Bye-Laws made under the Pilotage Act of 1913 (repealed in 1988), retirement was compulsory for pilots at the age of 65.

Bye-Law 74 provided that "A Pilot shall retire from the Pilotage Service on attaining the age of 65 years, and upon a Pilot attaining such age he shall forthwith deliver up his licence to the Superintendent."

Before 1913, it appears that there was no fixed retirement age.

Since 1988, a licence has been re-named an "authorisation" and there is, once again, no fixed age upon which a pilot is obliged to surrender his authorisation.

Hope this helps,

Best,

BY

[glenburn]

Hi Dave

Wondered if you might have easy access to details of the personnel attached to No 5 pilot boat in September 1861?

I have a first cousin 3 times removed Henry EVANS (b1836 Liscard), whose occupation was given in the 1861 Census as Liverpool Pilot, as was also that of his older brother William EVANS (b1834 Liscard).

His obituary in the Liverpool Mercury of 10 September 1861 reads :-

'EVANS - Sept 4, aged 24, Mr Henry EVANS jun, Wellington Road, Egremont, and of No 5 Pilot Boat'.

Since he doesn't feature in the list of Liverpool Pilots in Barrie YOUDES' book 'Beyond the Bar' was he perhaps merely an apprentice at the time of his death?

Best regards

[BY]

Hi, GB,

Your suggestion seems highly probable.

As previously discussed, my own List of Licensed Pilots is taken mainly from John Tebay's  meticulous (and earlier) List, with some additional research.

In compiling records a line has to be drawn somewhere. At the time of my own research I had access to apprenticeship records from about 1880: but decided to confine the List to those who had had the good fortune to make the grade to qualification/ grant of licence.

To reach the age of 24 and still to be an apprentice (as you suggest might have been the fate of your ancestor Henry Evans) was commonplace, as my own father and Dave's father would confirm only too readily.

A visit to the Maritime Museum today unearthed  the sad confirmation that the vast majority of Pilot-Boat log-books have been destroyed.  A very small selection has been preserved.

Best

BY

[LordMalcolm]

Hi Dave,

Many thanks for your kind look-ups offer.  I would be very grateful if you could find any information on John Lord, born c1873, Liverpool.  He is listed as a Pilot on both the 1901 and 1911 censuses.  In the 1911 census he is listed together with eight other pilots in the Exchange sub-district of Liverpool so I assume he was working at the time of the census.

Kind Regards

[glenburn]

John LORD is listed in Barrie Youde's book 'Beyond the Bar' as licensed in 1899, died 1915.

Son Cyril John LORD (b1906 Liscard) looks to have also been a Liverpool Pilot - licensed in 1933, retired 1966, died 1981?
So a near-contemporary of both Barrie and Dave Cigar?