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 | 6/1856, 84 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 55, row 18 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
Ballina | 1/1853, 215 tons | Registry transferred to London 265/1854 | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 63 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | ||
Colchester | 31/1839, 21 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 52, row 9 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
31/1839, 21 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-02, folio 57, 1850 | ||||||
33/1852, 20 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 31 | ||||||
33/1852, Sail, 20 tons | 16538 ![]() | RSS, Appropriation Books | |||||
Hull | 40/1835, 408 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 52, row 20 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
Ipswich | 8/1835, 22 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 52, row 21 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
8/1835, 22 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 118, 1850 | ||||||
8/1835, Sail, 22 tons | 11898 ![]() | RSS, Appropriation Books | |||||
22/1835, 132 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 52, row 22 | ||||||
16/1837, 58 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 52, row 23 | ||||||
21/1839, 94 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 52, row 24 | 55/95 ![]() | |||||
21/1839, 94 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 118, 1850 | 55/95 ![]() | |||||
1/1845, 78 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 53, row 33 | 55/231 ![]() | |||||
1/1845, 78 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 118, 1850 | 55/231 ![]() | |||||
1/1845, Sail, 78 tons | 11831 ![]() | RSS, Appropriation Books | 55/231 ![]() | ||||
13/1846, 130 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 53, row 34 | 55/269 ![]() | |||||
28/1849, 143 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 53, row 72 | 55/388 ![]() | |||||
28/1849, 143 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 120, 1850 | 55/388 ![]() | |||||
10/1852, 94 tons | Re-registered at Ipswich 14/1853 | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 34 | |||||
10/1852, 94 tons | Re-registered at Ipswich 25/1854 | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 34 | |||||
14/1853, previously Ipswich 10/1852 | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 34 | ||||||
25/1854, previously Ipswich 10/1852 | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 34 | ||||||
25/1854, Steam, 94 tons | 11872 ![]() | RSS, Appropriation Books | |||||
London | 79/1833, 304 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-4, image 38 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
43/1834, 1436 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-4, image 38 | ||||||
384/1835, 1436 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-4, image 38 | ||||||
173/1843, 98 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-4, image 40 | 64/2815 ![]() | |||||
173/1843, 98 tons | Registry transferred to St Ives 2/1854 | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 53, row 1 | Data post 1855 | 64/2815 ![]() | |||
354/1851, 20 tons | TNA, BT 111/7-1, image 21 | 64/6458 ![]() | |||||
354/1851, 20 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 14 | 64/6458 ![]() | |||||
265/1854, 215 tons | TNA, BT 111/7-1, image 22 | ||||||
265/1854, previously Ballina 1/1853 | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 63 | ||||||
265/1854, 215 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 73 | ||||||
506/1854, 1220 tons | TNA, BT 111/7-1, image 22 | ||||||
506/1854, 1220 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 78 | ||||||
St Ives | 2/1854, previously London 173/1843 | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 53, row 1 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
2/1854, 97 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 79 | ||||||
2/1854, Sail, 97 tons | 26720 ![]() | RSS, Appropriation Books |