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 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Beaumaris | 11/1853, previously Dublin 24/1851 | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 3 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
11/1853, 306 tons | Registry transferred to Liverpool 76/1856 | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 45 | Data post 1855 | ||||
Bridgwater | 9/1847, 103 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 50 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 15/177 ![]() | ||
9/1847, 104 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-01, folio 22, 1850 | 15/177 ![]() | |||||
Cork | 21/1840, 130 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 11, row 18 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
21/1840, | Re-registered at Cork 17/1850 | TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 412, 1850 | |||||
55/1846, 34 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 52 | 29/523 ![]() | |||||
55/1846, 34 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 414, 1850 | 29/523 ![]() | |||||
17/1850, 129 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 79 | 29/909 ![]() | |||||
17/1850, 129 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 417, 1850 | 29/909 ![]() | |||||
Dublin | 51/1845, 306 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 53 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 35/515 ![]() | ||
51/1845, 306 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 423, 1850 | 35/515 ![]() | |||||
24/1851, 306 tons | Registry transferred to Beaumaris 11/1853 | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 3 | Data post 1855 | 35/824 ![]() | |||
Grimsby | 10/1850, 47 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 7 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | 49/88 ![]() | ||
10/1850, 48 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 100, 1850 | 49/88 ![]() | |||||
Halifax, Nova Scotia | 1/1850, 108 tons | TNA, BT 162/20-3, folio 137, 1850 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
Hartlepool | 5/1855, previously Scarborough 13/1848 | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 20 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
5/1855, previously Scarborough 6/1852 | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 33 | ||||||
5/1855, 263 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 59 | ||||||
Hull | 16/1837, 276 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 1 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
4/1841, 79 tons | Re-registered at Hull 59/1844 | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 11, row 41 | |||||
59/1844, previously Hull 4/1841 | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 11, row 41 | 52/336 ![]() | |||||
59/1844, 79 tons | Registry transferred to Ramsgate 18/1853 | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 11, row 42 | Data post 1855 | 52/336 ![]() | |||
59/1844, 79 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-03, folio 111, 1850 | 52/336 ![]() | |||||
Kirkcaldy | 6/1838, 25 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 6 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
6/1838, 25 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-09, folio 372, 1850 | ||||||
6/1838, Sail, 25 tons | 18018 ![]() | RSS, Appropriation Books | |||||
Liverpool | 9/1827, 268 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 10 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
163/1838, 388 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 13 | ||||||
51/1842, 431 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 16 | ||||||
160/1845, 431 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 60 | 62/1928 ![]() | |||||
160/1845, 431 tons | TNA, BT 162/19-04, folio 131, 1850 | 62/1928 ![]() | |||||
45/1848, 388 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 11 | 62/2713 ![]() | |||||
76/1856, previously Beaumaris 11/1853 | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 45 | ||||||
76/1856, 305 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 14, row 3 | ||||||
London | 253/1834, 112 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 39 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 | |||
122/1835, 69 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 39 | ||||||
362/1835, 278 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 39 | ||||||
362/1835, 279 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 19 | ||||||
416/1836, 294 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 39 | ||||||
104/1838, 69 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 39 | ||||||
112/1844, 34 tons | TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 40 | ||||||
112/1844, 34 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 23 | ||||||
81/1846, 34 tons | TNA, BT 111/6-3, image 25 | 64/4006 ![]() | |||||
81/1846, 34 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 63 | 64/4006 ![]() | |||||
240/1852, 105 tons | TNA, BT 111/6-3, image 25 | ||||||
240/1852, 105 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 31 | ||||||
23/1853, 843 tons | TNA, BT 111/6-3, image 25 | ||||||
23/1853, 843 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 13, row 32 | ||||||
Newcastle | 46/1835, 388 tons | TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 12, row 32 | TNA BT 98 | Data post 1855 |