Papers of Thomas Bo Dunster (1893-1983), master mariner:

Ordinary apprentice’s indenture, agreed with the managers of The Sierra Shipping Co. Ltd., Liverpool, 1909.

Numerous letters of recommendation relating to his employment with Thompson, Anderson & Co., Isthmian Steamship Lines, Lamport and Holt Line, Sir William Reardon Smith & Sons Ltd. and the Asiatic Steam Navigation Co. Ltd., 1909-1945.

Certificate recording attendance at lectures and passing of examinations of The St. John Ambulance Association, 1913-1917.

National Registration Act identity card, 1915.

Certificate of appointment as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve, 1918.

Patrol Chart (Secret) for No. 4 Station, Folkestone to Gris Nez (Part of Admiralty Chart N. 1895), 1918.

Naval signal sheet with a message to vessels of the Dover Patrol, regarding the signing of the armistice and suspension of hostilities, 11 November 1918.

Certificate (‘flimsy’) recording his command of a group of net drifters, employed in the Folkestone-Griz Nez minefield as part of the Dover Patrol, 1918-1919, signed by Captain Frederic G. Bird.

Linen-backed certificate of demobilistation, 1919.

Continuous certificate of discharge, 1919-1952, and seaman’s record book and certificates of discharge, 1952-1955.

Certificate of competency as master of a foreign-going steamship, 1932 (certificate number 0018073).

Three certificates recording inoculation against cholera and smallpox, 1947-1959.

Typescript sheets with his account of the loss of the ex BRADBOYNE ex WAR PANTHER (1918) of Bideford, 1920.

Five photographic prints, showing studio portraits of Dunster in unform and net drifters of the Dover Patrol circa 1918.

Two folded maps of France and Algeria.

Typescript sheets with a biography of Thomas Bo Dunster, written by his son Lewis Henry K. Dunster, 1977.

Administrative / biographical background
Dunster was born at Beeston, Norfolk, in 1893. He was the youngest son of Lewis Henry Dunster, who had been a midshipman in the Royal Navy before becoming a sheep farmer in South America. He was an apprentice on the SIERRA MORENA (1903) and SIERRA BLANCA (1904), steamers owned by The Sierra Shipping Co. Ltd., Liverpool, between 1909 and 1913. He was employed with Isthmian Steamship Lines, then the Lamport and Holt Line, before passing examinations for master in 1917 (certificate numbers 008151 and 0018073). With the rank of temporary lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve, he commanded a group of net drifters in the Dover Patrol Minesweeper Section until 1919. Dunster was chief officer of the BRADBOYNE ex WAR PANTHER (1918), when this vessel had to be abandoned in the north Atlantic in 1920, with 19 lives lost. He was employed as master in various merchant fleets, including those of Sir William Reardon Smith & Co. Ltd. and the Asiatic Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. He retired in 1958 and died at Hilton in Derbyshire in 1983.