Ships pre-1855 named GALATEA

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 32 of 32.
Port of registry Details Closure Official number Source Crew lists Links Port no/PR no
Baltimore21 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 37, row 3TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Dartmouth14/1850, 163 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 38, row 47TNA BT 98 Data post 185531/764 Lookup PR noPR
14/1850, 164 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-02, folio 68, 185031/764 Lookup PR noPR
Gloucester4/1846, 305 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 37, row 68TNA BT 98 Data post 185546/371 Lookup PR noPR
Guernsey12/1852, 110 tons  Registry transferred to Shoreham 5/1854 TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 39, row 54TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Liverpool73/1850, 346 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 38, row 68TNA BT 98 Data post 185562/3363 Lookup PR noPR
73/1850, 346 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-04, folio 144, 185062/3363 Lookup PR noPR
253/1852, previously Lynn 10/1852  TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 39, row 29 
253/1852, 160 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 39, row 50 
London4/1833, 223 tons   TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 2TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
72/1834, 305 tons   TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 2 
362/1834, 305 tons   TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 3 
473/1838, 223 tons   TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 5 
473/1838, 223 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 37, row 44 
240/1847, 92 tons   TNA, BT 111/6-2, image 3464/4616 Lookup PR noPR
240/1847, 92 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 37, row 5464/4616 Lookup PR noPR
Lynn10/1852, 160 tons  Registry transferred to Liverpool 253/1852 TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 39, row 29TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Newcastle11/1837, 111 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 38, row 5TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Portsmouth40/1848,  Re-registered at Portsmouth 1850 TNA, BT 162/19-06, folio 205, 1850TNA BT 98 Data post 185580/440 Lookup PR noPR
3/1850, 305 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 39, row 1080/485 Lookup PR noPR
3/1850, 305 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-06, folio 206, 185080/485 Lookup PR noPR
Shields110/1848, 111 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 39, row 44TNA BT 98 Data post 1855124/110 Lookup PR noPR
110/1848, 110 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-06, folio 234, 1850124/110 Lookup PR noPR
Shoreham5/1854, previously Guernsey 12/1852  TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 39, row 54TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
5/1854, 110 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 39, row 66 
Skibbereen1/1833, 21 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-11, folio 436, 1850TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Southampton190 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 38, row 16TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Sunderland10/1846, 93 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 38, row 24TNA BT 98 Data post 185592/1305 Lookup PR noPR
10/1846, 93 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-07, folio 259, 185092/1305 Lookup PR noPR
Whitby7/1837, 303 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 38, row 30TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Yarmouth60/1839, 172 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-2, image 38, row 35TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
60/1839, 172 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-08, folio 309, 1850 
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