This sub-collection covers John Harold McGivering's career in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), and later Royal Naval Reserve (RNR), from his being accepted in the service, to his retirement. It contains orders, reports, service documents, photographs, letters, and ephemera from his service years. There is also some material relating to his father, in addition to that numbered MGV/1-3. For more information, see the item level records.

Administrative / biographical background
John Harold McGivering was the only son of John McGivering and his wife Margaret Elizabeth McGivering née Fenner. He was born at Leigh-on-Sea in Essex in 1923, educated at Magdalen College School in Oxford, and joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) in 1941. He was trained as an ordinary seaman at HMS Raleigh at Torpoint and went to sea on the destroyer HMS WHADDON, employed on convoy protection in the North Sea. He later trained as an officer at HMS King Alfred at Hove and the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. During 1943 he went overseas to be a cypher officer at Freetown, Sierra Leone, and was promoted to the rank of temporary sub-lieutenant. From 1945 onwards he had various executive duties at locations including Milford Haven; Kilindini, near Mombasa, East Africa; and Trincomalee, Ceylon. After being released from active service in 1947, McGivering pursued a career as an estate agent. He received two further promotions, being made lieutenant in 1962, then lieutenant-commander in 1970. He later took up a position in the civil service, retiring in 1986. His interests included being honorary librarian of the Kipling Society. He died at Hove, East Sussex, in 2019.