Ships pre-1855 named SPEEDWELL

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 3.    Records 1 to 50 of 131. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | Last
Port of registry Details Closure Official number Source Crew lists Links Port no/PR no
Aberdeen57/1826, 19 tons  Lost TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 14TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
57/1826,  Registry not required 1850 TNA, BT 162/19-08, folio 320, 1850 
Aberystwyth6/1836, 51 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 2TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
6/1836, 51 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-01, folio 1, 1850 
3/1841, 24 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 3 
Beaumaris107/1836, 26 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 5TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
5/1851, 52 tons  Registry transferred to Liverpool 286/1854 TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 20, row 24 Data post 18559/587 Lookup PR noPR
Belfast8/1842, 37 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 12TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
8/1842,  Re-registered at Belfast 43/1850 TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 400, 1850 
43/1850, 36 tons  Re-registered at Belfast 35/1853 TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 20, row 2710/965 Lookup PR noPR
43/1850, 36 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 407, 185010/965 Lookup PR noPR
35/1853, previously Belfast 43/1850  TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 20, row 2710/1165 Lookup PR noPR
Bideford29/1836, 44 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 16TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
17/1848, 43 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 20, row 2912/302 Lookup PR noPR
17/1848, 44 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-01, folio 15, 185012/302 Lookup PR noPR
17/1856, 43 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 22, row 24 
Caernarfon31/1853, previously Pwllheli 10/1846  TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 21, row 27TNA BT 98 Data post 1855117/1191 Lookup PR noPR
31/1853, 25 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 21, row 55117/1191 Lookup PR noPR
31/1853, Sail, 25 tons   4215 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books 117/1191 Lookup PR noPR
Cardigan56/1825, 34 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 20TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
142/1825, 12 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 21 
25/1836, 27 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 23 
25/1836, 27 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-02, folio 41, 1850 
25/1836, Sail, 26 tons   10273 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books  
Dartmouth43/1843, Sail, 74 tons   4486 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books TNA BT 98 Data post 185531/462 Lookup PR noPR
45/1843, 74 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 3131/464 Lookup PR noPR
45/1843, 74 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-02, folio 66, 185031/464 Lookup PR noPR
Douglas2/1846, 16 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-11, folio 459, 1850TNA BT 98 Data post 1855147/101 Lookup PR noPR
15/1847, 20 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 21, row 37147/129 Lookup PR noPR
Dover3/1843, 14 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 33TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
3/1843, 14 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-02, folio 71, 1850 
Dublin5/1833, 32 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 34TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
5/1833,  Broken up TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 420, 1850 
9/1839, 18 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 35 
10/1849, 18 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 20, row 3735/717 Lookup PR noPR
10/1849, 18 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 424, 185035/717 Lookup PR noPR
4/1851, 16 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 20, row 4035/804 Lookup PR noPR
64/1852, 18 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 21, row 1235/929 Lookup PR noPR
64/1852, Sail, 18 tons   9908 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books 35/929 Lookup PR noPR
Faversham49/1825, 11 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 48TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Fowey8/1840, 85 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 51TNA BT 98 Data post 185542/88 Lookup PR noPR
8/1840, 85 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-02, folio 84, 185042/88 Lookup PR noPR
Glasgow76/1854, 362 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 21, row 75TNA BT 98 Data post 185544/1676 Lookup PR noPR
Gloucester5/1841, 28 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 52TNA BT 98 Data post 185546/248 Lookup PR noPR
5/1841, 28 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 88, 185046/248 Lookup PR noPR
Goole41/1844,   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 18, row 54TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
20/1849, 70 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 20, row 4347/705 Lookup PR noPR
20/1849, 71 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 99, 185047/705 Lookup PR noPR
43/1849, 41 tons   TNA, BT 111/32-3, image 20, row 4447/728 Lookup PR noPR
43/1849, 41 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 99, 185047/728 Lookup PR noPR
Navigation up arrow