This page is an index of ships by name drawn from the primary records of British shipping prior to 1855.
All British ships were registered at one of the hundreds of ports of registry around Britain and the then British Colonies. The documents relating to them, including the crew lists and agreements are now at The National Archives (TNA).
The index shows the ships' names and ports of registry, with links to other data such as the crew list holdings and with clear references to the sources of our data.
For a full explanation of the records of British shipping, please see our information page:
Records of British ships
On the search form, enter at least three letters of the ship's name and select whether you wish to make an Exact match search, or a fuzzy search based on whether the name Starts with this, Includes this or Ends with this. The form will not accept wild-card searches using '*', '%', '?' and suchlike.
For Exact searches only, if you know the ship's port of registry you can choose that from the list. Otherwise, just leave this blank.
Then click
For exact searches, the results show the ships' ports of registry.
For the fuzzy searches, the results show an alphabetic list of possible ship names, from which you can select one to go to an exact search result.
The results show a list of registry details, together with other details such as tonnage. Some data sources show the official number which was allocated from 1855 onwards and which we include as a convenient link to data for the ship post-1855.
Any available details of the register closure are shown.
The source of our information is shown. In some cases, the icons link to images of the Appropriation Books which show data for ships registered pre-1855. You can check our data for yourself.
On the right-hand side of the page, there are further links.
provides details of the crew list holdings at TNA for ships of that name and port (with further links to the FamilySearch films online). Be aware The TNA catalogue shows only the range of names held in each box. There is no guarantee that there will be records for a particular ship.
links to the CLIP advanced search pages which will show any data we have for ships post-1855 of that name and port. Be aware Because that search is by name and port, these are only tentative suggestions - the ship may have ceased to exist, or her port of registry may have changed.
The final column, Port no/PR no, shows port number and port rotation number combinations for that ship, which we have recorded or have interpolated from crew list records for the period 1845 to 1854 in BT 98 at TNA. These numbers were used in the records of seafarers such as BT 113 and BT 124.
For more details of port numbers, see
Port numbers
. For more details of port rotation numbers, see
Port rotation numbers
The entries are colour coded. nn/nnn indicates data drawn from BT 98. nn/nnn indicates data interpolated from BT 98 data. Blank entries indicate where we have no data and are not able to interpolate data reliably, for example registrations pre-1845. Many early (and some post-1853) registrations may never have been allocated a port rotation number.
The link next to the data goes to the main port rotation numbers page for that registration.
Our thanks to James Canney for suggesting adding the port rotation number data.
The sources of the data are:
Please see our general information page
CLIP data
for details on sources, methodology, the abbreviations we have used, and our acknowledgements.
Be aware! CLIP data is transcribed 'as seen' - we have not tried to interpret or correct it (but see note about BT 111 in the Data sources section). Where we have doubts about an item, or have edited it, we mark it with a ? .
Port of registry | Details | Closure | Official number | Source | Crew lists | Links | Port no/PR no |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Arbroath | 26/1845, 148 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 19, row 64 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 115/50 ![]() | ||
Bridgwater | 15/1845, previously Gloucester 15/1844 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 17, row 55 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 15/145 ![]() | ||
15/1845, 51 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 18, row 45 | 15/145 ![]() | |||||
15/1845, 51 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-01, folio 22, 1850 | 15/145 ![]() | |||||
15/1845, Sail, 51 tons | 10851 ![]() | RSS, Appropriation Books | 15/145 ![]() | ||||
Cardigan | 31/1837, 26 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 17, row 19 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 21/125 ![]() | ||
31/1837, 26 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-02, folio 42, 1850 | 21/125 ![]() | |||||
31/1837, Sail, 26 tons | 10276 ![]() | RSS, Appropriation Books | 21/125 ![]() | ||||
Dundee | 6/1840, 118 tons | Re-registered at Dundee 24/1853 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 17, row 44 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 38/200 ![]() | |
6/1840, 118 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-09, folio 342, 1850 | 38/200 ![]() | |||||
34/1848, 148 tons | Registry transferred to Liverpool 207/1854 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 20, row 10 | Data post 1855 | 38/614 ![]() | |||
34/1848, 148 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-09, folio 345, 1850 | 38/614 ![]() | |||||
25/1850, 166 tons | Registry transferred to London 281/1853 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 20, row 11 | Data post 1855 | 38/731 ![]() | |||
25/1850, 167 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-09, folio 346, 1850 | 38/731 ![]() | |||||
24/1853, previously Dundee 6/1840 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 17, row 44 | ||||||
Galway | 5/1847, 139 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 20, row 16 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
5/1847, 139 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-11, folio 427, 1850 | ||||||
Gloucester | 15/1844, 51 tons | Registry transferred to Bridgwater 15/1845 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 17, row 55 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 46/330 ![]() | |
Halifax, Nova Scotia | 100/1847, | Re-registered at Halifax, Nova Scotia 102/1850 | TNA, BT 162/20-3, folio 128, 1850 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | ||
102/1850, 29 tons | TNA, BT 162/20-3, folio 140, 1850 | ||||||
Inverness | 5/1838, 77 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 17, row 67 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 54/67 ![]() | ||
5/1838, 77 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-09, folio 365, 1850 | 54/67 ![]() | |||||
Ipswich | 30/1843, 122 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 17, row 73 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
9/1847, 122 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 18, row 59 | 55/295 ![]() | |||||
Limerick | 2/1847, 164 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 18, row 61 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 67/180 ![]() | ||
2/1847, | Registry transferred to Dundee | TNA, BT 162/19-11, folio 429, 1850 | Data post 1855 | 67/180 ![]() | |||
Liverpool | 637/1853, 70 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 21, row 57 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 62/5107 ![]() | ||
207/1854, previously Dundee 34/1848 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 20, row 10 | 62/5319 ![]() | |||||
207/1854, 148 tons | Registry transferred to Workington 8/1854 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 21, row 64 | Data post 1855 | 62/5319 ![]() | |||
London | 47/1838, 204 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-2, image 12 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
281/1853, 166 tons | TNA, BT 111/6-2, image 9 | ||||||
281/1853, previously Dundee 25/1850 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 20, row 11 | ||||||
281/1853, 166 tons | Registry transferred to Weymouth 9/1854 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 21, row 48 | Data post 1855 | ||||
Lowestoft | 59/1835, Sail, 59 tons | 6686 ![]() | RSS, Appropriation Books | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | ||
Perth | 22/1840, 51 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 19, row 61 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
22/1840, 51 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 385, 1850 | ||||||
3/1848, 57 tons | Re-registered at Perth 6/1853 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 21, row 17 | 114/148 ![]() | ||||
3/1848, 58 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 385, 1850 | 114/148 ![]() | |||||
6/1853, previously Perth 3/1848 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 21, row 17 | ||||||
Poole | 3/1850, 138 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 20, row 58 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 79/219 ![]() | ||
3/1850, 138 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-05, folio 200, 1850 | 79/219 ![]() | |||||
Prince Edward Island | 72/1846, 60 tons | TNA, BT 162/20-4, folio 164, 1850 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
St John, NB | 142/1847, 975 tons | TNA, BT 162/20-2, folio 69, 1850 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 230/1092 ![]() | ||
Stockton | 9/1849, 50 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 20, row 70 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 93/561 ![]() | ||
9/1849, 50 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-07, folio 250, 1850 | 93/561 ![]() | |||||
Weymouth | 9/1854, previously London 281/1853 | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 21, row 48 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
9/1854, 166 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 21, row 68 | ||||||
9/1854, 166 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 21, row 71 | ||||||
Whitby | 3/1839, 50 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 19, row 46 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
Wick | 3/1851, 50 tons | TNA, BT 111/29-5, image 20, row 73 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 105/91 ![]() |