WW1 Sailor -Please can anyone tell which Navy?

[Jebber]

I know little about the RN, but I would say he was wearing tropical whites. His service record should show what ship he was on and when, you should get a rough idea of the date then.

[jess5athome]

That's a strange cap 

Frank.

[whiteout7]

The propellor badge on his arm is the trade badge for a 'stoker' or marine engineering rating. I think the hat is a straw sennit hat. British Royal Navy dress for a warm climate.
Apparently they no longer wore the sennit hat after 1921.

Donkeyman (was in charge of a donkey-engine, a small steam-engine, usually for subsidiary operations on board ship, as feeding the boilers of the propelling engines)

[HMac]

He was not serving in the RN after 1907.

A donkeyman is a Merchant Navy rating and if it was him who died in 1918 on CANADIER then he must have joined the MN at some time afterwards. CANADIER was built in 1906 official number 121325, originally launched as AUCHENDALE (1906) renamed CANADIER (1916).

If you check the 1918 crew agreement for CANADIER his name should be mentioned as part of her crew but also, usually, and importantly if he had a previous ship it should also be mentioned. The 1918 crew agreement is held at the Maritime History Archive, Canada -  https://www.mun.ca/mha/holdings/viewcombinedcrews.php?Official_No=121325

Regards
Hugh

[ShaunJ]

The RN record (viewable on both Ancestry and FindMyPast) shows that he was invalided out in 1907

[Regorian]

He was definitely Royal Navy in the photograph, so date 1907 or before.

[Tess61]

Thanks for confirming it.
Tess

[Regorian]

Straw hats were a feature of hot weather kit going back to the 1850's at least. I've seen images of sailors, on land, in the Crimea in white uniforms with straw hats, different design, larger brims.

Sad about your man, discharged unfit and evidently a victim of the 'Spanish' influenza of 1918/19. Didn't take long to reach Canada did it. Killed more people in Europe than the Great War you know. 

[ShaunJ]

Ancestry has a Canadian death registration entry for him in the register of the St John Bureau of Health (St-Jean (Bureau de Santé)) - in the Acadia dataset. Registered as John Gough.