Would there be a list of the Captains of the Ariadne covering the period from about 1900 to 1945? Are there lists of Dartmouth Naval College graduates? As usual, I'm looking for Mitchells.
The captain at the time the Ariadne was sunk in 1917 was Captain H H Smyth (according to the TNA index ADM 116/1582).
Otherwise you need to consult the Navy List (published for each year) which will list all officers and their location (many years are available on-line, including on Ancestry), and there is also a book called The Naval Who's Who 1917, which gives service details of officers alive at the time. Copies of that book are available at TNA and the Society of Genealogists Library (amongst many others).
Naval Officer's service records for those who joined up to 1917 are held at TNA in series ADM 196.
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I think this is Albert Mitchell. Cousins of his said he captained the Ariadne, and attended the Dartmouth Naval College. I'm pretty sure I have the first Albert Mitchell closest on the family tree to them - he wasn't on the Ariadne, and he was not an officer. I'm unsure of his children, and wondered if a son of his could have been the basis of the family story. The first Albert Mitchell entered the navy in 1897, pensioned 1921 per his record.
OOPS - cousin just back to me. When reviewing his notes, he found that -
the ship was not the Ariadne -
it was the AMARYLLIS.
He also noticed something in the naval record that was beyond my knowledge:
the last entry in the naval record is "HMS Pomone" followed by the comment : "Shore Demob"
"HMS Pomone points to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth...From their website I quote, " The College was commanded by a Royal Navy Captain on the Active List. He had command of the ship Pomone upon whose books all the College's naval staff were borne. ""
Does this make sense to anyone? Any suggested leads from it?
Could a moderator change the ship's name in the thread title please?
You may already know this but HMS Amaryllis was a sloop launched on 9/12/1915 and completed in 1916, which was sold for scrap in 1923.
HMS Pomone was launched in 1897 and completed in 1899 but had so much trouble with her boilers, she was removed from the effective list in 1904 and pending a decision on her fate, became a stationary training ship for the RNC Dartmouth in 1910 and was eventually scraped in 1922.
From what you have said it would seem that the staff at the RNC, as opposed to the cadets, were on Pomone's books and this would fit neatly with your man not being an officer and your man's service record.
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