Navy List
Encyclopedia
A Navy List or Naval Register is an official list of naval
Navy
A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...

 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.

The Navy List fulfils an important function in international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...

 in that warships are required by article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea , also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea treaty, is the international agreement that resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea , which took place from 1973 through 1982...

 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 Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 (United Kingdom) publishes annual lists of active and reserve officers, and biennial lists of retired officers. The equivalent in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 is the Naval Vessel Register
Naval Vessel Register
The Naval Vessel Register 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 the time a vessel is authorized through its life cycle and...

, which is updated online on a continuous basis.

Resources

Good sources of historical data on UK's 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 current editor of the Navy List is Judith Burke

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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