The Duncan Term Logbook

18 May 2011

The humorous, illustrated scrapbook includes photographs and hand-drawn illustrations from the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.

The contents of the scrapbook are a record of main events relating to the Duncan Term which passed through the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, May 1928 to December 1931. Upon entry, cadets would equally be divided into terms – hence the Duncan Term.

The College, located on Mount Boone overlooking Dartmouth in Devon was opened in 1905 for the training of naval officers. Cadets commenced training at the age of 13 at the Royal Naval College at Osborne, Isle of Wight before graduating to spend a further four years at the Dartmouth College. In 1953 the college was re-named HMS Dartmouth. 

The scrapbook contains details, letters and photographs of various reunions from 1962 to 1969, plus a gentlemen’s necktie with a letter, dated 1 January 1968 from Gieves Ltd of Bond Street London (Naval outfitters). The letter, addressed to W. B. G.Leith, is as follows.

In reply to your very kind letter dated the 29th December only two Duncan Ties now remain in stock. They are made in silk and the price is 24/6. each plus postage. When these have been sold it is improbable that any more will be made.

As you will recently appreciate there has been a gradual but inevitable decline in demand for this very distinctive design in the last decade and when our present stock is exhausted the pattern will only remain in my memory – after 41 years – of an era which you and I will never see again

After the closure of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich in 1998, the Britannia Royal Naval College is now the only college of its type in the UK.

The Duke of Edinburgh, Duke of York, Prince of Wales and the late Lord Louis Mountbatten all attended the Dartmouth College.

The scrapbook was bequeathed to the Museum in 1982 by Captain I. G. H. Garnett DSC, RN, with the consent of the surviving members of the Duncan Term.

Colin, Archive and Library