At the time of the Naval General Service Medal's inauguration in 1847, individuals would need to apply for the medal. A bulk application was made for the Greenwich in-Pensioners, and over a thousand names were submitted. (The army's equivalent Military General Service Medal came into being at the same time, and ex-Marine Richard Thomas was awarded a Military medal with Egypt clasp for having participated in this campaign as a Trooper in the Dragoons).
(In addition to this award, names were submitted for the Army of India Medal with "Ava" clasp, for those men present during the First Burmese War. These rolls are available within the collection "UK, Naval Medal and Award Rolls, 1793-1972" on the Ancestry website).
Upon entry to Greenwich, in-Pensioner details were recorded in two ledgers, the Rough Entry Book (which is indexed via Kevin Asplin's website), and in the General Register of Pensioners. If a prospective in-Pensioner was already in receipt of an out-pension, their out-pension reference number will appear in the rough entry book. The pertinent records at Kew are ADM 73/58 - 61 for the Rough Entry Books, and ADM 73/45 - 48 for the General Register of Pensioners.
Given that there were a lot of names on the submission, the entry number from the General Register of Pensioners was recorded in a lot of instances, and these numbers were recorded on the medal roll. If you know your ancestor's number, this will save time when consulting the General Register of Pensioners. I would strongly recommend simultaneously consulting the Rough Entry Book (or obtaining the full details from Kevin Asplin), as both can contain slightly different information. (It was the Rough Entry Book rather than the General Register of Pensioners that gave specific information on my ancestor's ailment, as well as mentioning ships that were not in the General Register of Pensioners).
Below are some General Register of Pensioner numbers, and related years of entry.
1824 from 1290 to 1442
1825 from 1443 to 1591
1826 from 1592 to 1769
1827 from 1770 to 1999
1828 from 2000 to 2251
1829 from 2252 to 2514
1830 from 2515 to 2865
1831 from 2866 to 3271
1832 from 3272 to 3659
1833 from 3660 to 4090
1834 from 4091 to 4548
1835 from 4549 to 5001
1836 from 5002 to 5376
1837 from 5377 to 5841
1838 from 5842 to 6239
1839 from 6240 to 6572
1840 from 6573 to 6928
1841 from 6929 to 7321
1842 from 7322 to 7725
1843 from 7726 to 8151
1844 from 8152 to 8545
1845 from 8546 to 8958
1846 from 8944 to 9343
1847 from 9344 to 9893
1848 from 9894 to 10158
Numbers up to 7135 are for entries to 03 June 1841. If your ancestor's number is lower than this, he should be appearing in the 1841 Census.
From January 1849 onwards, the numbering changed. Prior to the change, some in-Pensioners were allocated two numbers. It is therefore advisable to cross-check against the Rough List as to when your ancestor did enter Greenwich.
1849 from 2700 to 3096
1850 from 3097 to 3439
1851 from 3440 to 3736
A list of Greenwich Pensioners for whom applications were made has survived. This notebook is at Kew, reference ADM73/93
I have manually reconciled this notebook against Medal Roll data in the public domain, and against the medal roll published in 1982 by Captain Douglas-Morris
A second version of the file has been uploaded, which contains extra information for some in-Pensioners with regard to their date of admission.
The third version of the file contains some "old entry numbers" for pre-1848 entrants.
A fifth version contains some extra research, and some of the comments have been changed to a standardised format.
In order to save space, I have converted this to a text file, with columns separated by commas.
When using the Text Import Wizard in Excel, the following steps should be taken:
Step 1 - ensure "Delimited" is selected
Step 2 - Unselect the "Tab" delimiter, and select "Comma" in its place
Step 3 - Click on the "Finish" button
The James Smith mystery
A medal, with clasp for 11 Aug Boat S. 1808 on HMS Edgar was awarded to Private James Smith.
There were two men of that name; however
James Smith (1) was from Woolwich, and enlisted at the age of 17. He joined the Chatham Division at Rochester on 26 March 1801, and was allocated to 10 Company. He was on HMS Edgar from 5th August 1805 to 08 February 1810, subsequently joining HMS Nassau on 28 March 1810.
James Smith (2) was from Liverpool. He joined the Chatham Division on 18 July 1803, and was allocated to 91 Company. He served on board HMS Monarch, HMS Edgar (23 May 1807 -1810), and HMS Tremendous (08 Dec 1810 to 29 Sept 1815). Whilst on this latter ship, he had the rank of Corporal, which distinguished him from yet another Private James Smith (more below). Corporal Smith finished his service on shore with 120 Company, and was 'Dischd 17 Oct 1815 as per Admiralty Order'.
Neither of these two men appear to have entered Greenwich Hospital.
However, James Smith (3) did gain admission to Greenwich Hospital in 1843. He came from Norwich, and served 7 years in the Marines. His last ship was HMS Tremendous. His old entry number was 7891; the new reference number is 1210, which is very similar to the GH number 1110 which is stated on the Douglas-Morris medal roll. He died at Greenwich on 19 Nov 1861.