Naval doctors-censors

[Sozont Singh]

Hello everyone!

I have a number of questions. I would be very happy if someone can answer them.
I met information that, along with officers and chaplains, ship's doctors could carry out censorship in the Royal Navy.

1. Have anyone examples of World War I or earlier covers that were censored by the ship's doctors?
2. Is it known when the ship's doctors first began to engage in censorship? During the First World War or somewhere before?
3. Can everyone tell me about the terminology. In Russian, for example, we simply say "the ship's doctor". In English-language materials, as I understand it, a stable expression is a naval surgeon. In this context, are ship's doctor and ship's surgeon synonymous? Or were surgeons sent to the Royal Navy in the truest sense of the word?
4.Maybe someone has a good photograph showing how someone, such as a naval officer, a chaplain or a doctor, is performing censorship (for example, sitting at a table with a bunch of letters). I would like to use it along with cover examples, as an illustration during a lecture (I want to tell students at the university about censorship, censorship stamps, philately, etc.).


I will be glad for any information.
Sozont.

[Nick Colley]

Hi, Sozont, welcome back,

I'm not sure I can provide much (if any?) useful information, but with luck whatever I offer might provoke other members to participate:

On board a healthy ship, the medical officer would have relatively little to do, perhaps, so he would be an obvious candidate for censoring outgoing mail.

As you may be aware, Dr.Gould has recorded several WW1 naval censor marks which include the word Surgeon. I've just been through his books, and he illustrates six of them. I don't think I have any of the marks in my own collection – they seem to be quite rare => expensive.

I've just looked at a Navy List from WW2 and many, but not all of the RN medical officers have affiliations to professional surgical bodies – eg MRCS. Surgical skills would be MOST useful on board ship in attempting to repair casualties with battle wounds. In common parlance, I suspect 'ship's doctor' and 'ship's surgeon' would be interchangeable.

Anyway, it's not much but hopefully of some interest, if not use?

Rgds
N

[Sozont Singh]

Hello Nick!
Thanks for the answer!
Yes, at least some points have cleared up.
Yes, I also saw examples of censor-doctors in the Dr.Gould's book, but it would be interesting to look at whole cover. I have a fragment of an envelope in my collection (it seems to me that it is generally barbaric to cut out a piece and throw the rest away, I like to collect whole postal items). According to the Dr.Gould, this is a doctor from the HMS Minotaur. I bought it quite cheaply and therefore I thought, suddenly someone in the collection has something similar.