1857: 20 Victoria c.1: Amending time of Service in the Marines

20 Victoria c.1:  An Act to amend the Act for limiting the Time of Service in the Royal Marine Forces.

[9th March 1857.]

WHEREAS by an Act passed in the Session holden in the Tenth and Eleventh Years of the Reign of Her Majesty, Chapter Sixty-three, for limiting the Time of Service in the Royal Marine Forces, it was enacted, that no Person should be enlisted to serve in the Royal Marine Forces as a Marine for a longer Term than Twelve Years, to be reckoned from the Day on which the Recruit should have been attested, if he should have stated himself to be then of the Age of Eighteen Years, or if not then from the Day on which he would complete the Age of Eighteen Years, to be reckoned according to the Age stated in his Attestation; and it was thereby also enacted, that any Marine at any Time during the last Six Months of the Term of limited Service for which he should have first engaged, or after the Completion of such Term, might, if approved by his Commanding Officer or other competent Authority as a fit Person to continue in Her Majesty’s Service as a Marine, be re-engaged to serve for the further Term of Twelve Years in the Royal Marine Forces; and that any Marine who should be ordered on Foreign Service, and who was within Three Years of the Expiration of his First Engagement, should be at liberty, with the Approbation of his Commanding Officer, to re-engage, before he embarked for such Foreign Service, for such Period as should complete a total Service of Twenty-four Years: And whereas it is expedient that the Commissioners for executing the Office of Lord High Admiral should be enabled to permit Enlistment for such less Terms as they may at any Time or Times deem expedient, and to authorize Marines to re-engage for any Terms within the Limit of Service prescribed by the said Act: Be it therefore enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, as follows:

I. Any Person may be enlisted to serve in the Royal Marine Forces as a Marine for any Term not exceeding Twelve Years, to be reckoned as provided by the herein-before recited Act, as may be authorized by any Order or Orders of the said Commissioners in such Behalf; and any Marine may, subject to such Approbation as in the said Act mentioned, re-engage for such Term as may by any Order or Orders of the said Commissioners be authorized, provided the Term for which he is so engaged, with the Term of his Service under his First Enlistment, do not exceed the Period of Twenty-one Years; and the Forms of Questions on Enlistment in Schedule A. to the herein-before recited Act, and the Form of Declaration in Schedule B. to such Act, and the Questions on Enlistment and Declaration to be made by a Marine renewing his Service in the Schedule to the Marine Mutiny Act in force for the Time being, may, when the Occasion requires, be filled up with such Term or Number of Years as may for the Time being be authorized by such Order or Orders, instead of the Term or Number of Years mentioned in the Directions contained in such Schedules.

II. The herein-before recited Act and this Act shall be read and construed together as One Act.

Source: Collection of Public General Statutes, 1857.