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Victorian <i>British Officer's Commission</i> to Major Jacob Silver, <i>Royal Marine Light Infantry</i>
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Victorian <i>British Officer's Commission</i> to Major Jacob Silver, <i>Royal Marine Light Infantry</i>
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The Royal Marine Commandos are the Royal Navys Amphibious Infantry. On the 28th October 1664 an Order-in-Council was issued calling for 1200 soldiers to be recruited for service in the Fleet, to be known as the Duke of York and Albanys Maritime Regiment of Foot.
As the Duke of York was The Lord High Admiral, it became known as the Admirals Regiment. The Regiment was paid by the Admiralty, it and its successors being the only long service troops in the 17th and 18th century navy. They were therefore not only soldiers but also seamen, who were part of the complement of all warships. In 1704, during the war with France and Spain, the British attacked the Rock of Gibraltar: 1,900 British and 400 Dutch marines prevented Spanish reinforcements reaching the fortress. Later, British ships bombarded the city while marines and seamen stormed the defenses. These later withstood nine months of siege. Today the Royal Marines display only the battle honor Gibraltar, and their close relationship with the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps continues. Throughout the 18th and 19th century the Corps played a major part in fighting to win Britain the largest empire ever created. Marines were aboard the first ships to arrive in Australia in 1788. The policy of Imperial Policing took the Marines to the bombardment of Algiers in 1816, to the Ashanti Wars, and to the destruction of the Turkish Fleet at Navarino in 1827. In 1805 some 2700 Royal Marines took part in the great victory at Trafalgar. Closer to home, they maintained civil order in Northern Ireland and in Newcastle during the coal dispute of 1831. In 1855 the whole British Marine corps was combined as the Royal Marine Light Infantry (or the Red Marines as they were sometimes known other names included Bootnecks and the Jollies). In 1859 of Royal Marine Artillery (Blue Marines) was formed as a separate Division, and in 1923 it merged with the RMLI to become the single corps of Royal Marines, which since 1945 has provided the British Amphibious Raiding & Commando forces. This interesting document is the official appointment by Queen Victoria of one Jacob Silver to be Major in our Royal Marine Light Infantry from the 28th August 1880, signed on the 20th May 1881 by Lord John Hay and Rear-Admiral Anthony Hiley Hoskins as her duly authorized Commissioners for executing the Office of the Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (or Lords of the Admiralty as they were otherwise called); the Lord High Admirals seal (with his office described in Latin) is impressed in the top right corner of the document. Lord John Hay was born in 1793 and rose to the rank of Admiral in the Royal Navy he became a C.B. (Companion of the Order of the Bath) and was appointed Junior Naval Lord of the Admiralty in 1870, Second Naval Lord in 1880 and First Naval Lord in 1886; his promotion in 1880 came a few weeks before he signed Silvers commission, at the same time as Rear- (later Vice-) Admiral Anthony Hiley Hoskins, C.B. was appointed as Junior Naval Lord. Apart from its obvious importance to Major Silver, this historical document is especially interesting because it appoints him to field rank, i.e. not as a subaltern (lieutenant) as would be usual. The purchase of commissions having been abolished some time before, the only explanation would be that Major Silver had transferred from an Army Regiment where he had already attained the rank of Major or at least a captaincy. By long-standing tradition, when serving on one of her Majestys ships of the line the officer in charge of its Marines was accorded the privileges of a rank one step higher than he held; in this case that would have been a Commander (the naval equivalent of a lieutenant-colonel) and would have been the highest ranking RMLI officer. The Marines duties included acting as sharpshooters both at sea and when landed as an attacking force. 
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