Ships pre-1855 named ORWELL

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

How to search for ships pre-1855 by name

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

Reading the results

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.

Data sources

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  ? .

Page 1 of 1.    Records 1 to 40 of 40.
Port of registry Details Closure Official number Source Crew lists Links Port no/PR no
Arbroath6/1856, 84 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 55, row 18TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Ballina1/1853, 215 tons  Registry transferred to London 265/1854 TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 63TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Colchester31/1839, 21 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 52, row 9TNA 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 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books  
Hull40/1835, 408 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 52, row 20TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Ipswich8/1835, 22 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 52, row 21TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
8/1835, 22 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 118, 1850 
8/1835, Sail, 22 tons   11898 View details for this ONRSS, 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 2455/95 Lookup PR noPR
21/1839, 94 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 118, 185055/95 Lookup PR noPR
1/1845, 78 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 53, row 3355/231 Lookup PR noPR
1/1845, 78 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 118, 185055/231 Lookup PR noPR
1/1845, Sail, 78 tons   11831 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books 55/231 Lookup PR noPR
13/1846, 130 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 53, row 3455/269 Lookup PR noPR
28/1849, 143 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 53, row 7255/388 Lookup PR noPR
28/1849, 143 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 120, 185055/388 Lookup PR noPR
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 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books  
London79/1833, 304 tons   TNA, BT 111/5-4, image 38TNA 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 4064/2815 Lookup PR noPR
173/1843, 98 tons  Registry transferred to St Ives 2/1854 TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 53, row 1 Data post 185564/2815 Lookup PR noPR
354/1851, 20 tons   TNA, BT 111/7-1, image 2164/6458 Lookup PR noPR
354/1851, 20 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 1464/6458 Lookup PR noPR
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 Ives2/1854, previously London 173/1843  TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 53, row 1TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
2/1854, 97 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 54, row 79 
2/1854, Sail, 97 tons   26720 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books  
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