National Maritime Board

This is about the Maritime Board in the United Kingdom. For the Board in the Philippines, see National Seamen Board.

The National Maritime Board was a bilateral board governing wages and working practices in the British shipping industry.

It was founded in November 1917 against a backdrop of strike action amongst seafarers and was originally intended as a purely wartime measure to facilitate wage negotiations in a period of rapid inflation. It built upon the union-employer relationship that had emerged during the war years and brought together representatives of the Shipping Federation, the National Union of Seamen and the National Union of Ship's Stewards, as well as some smaller unions in the industry, but allowing the British Seafarers' Union only local representation. In 1919 the board was re-established as a permanent body and set about establishing national wage rates for all grades, the first time such rates had been enforced. Aylmer Vallance was appointed as the board's General Secretary.