Ships pre-1855 named INDUS

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 47 of 47.
Port of registry Details Closure Official number Source Crew lists Links Port no/PR no
Dundee30/1844,   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 54, row 51TNA BT 98 Data post 185538/409 Lookup PR noPR
30/1844, 377 tons  Re-registered at Dundee 33/1850 TNA, BT 162/19-09, folio 344, 185038/409 Lookup PR noPR
33/1850, 377 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 57, row 6138/739 Lookup PR noPR
33/1850, 377 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-09, folio 347, 185038/739 Lookup PR noPR
33/1850, Sail, 377 tons   14065 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books 38/739 Lookup PR noPR
Glasgow27/1844, 822 tons  Registry transferred to Liverpool 120/1853 TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 54, row 64TNA BT 98 Data post 185544/534 Lookup PR noPR
27/1844, 823 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-09, folio 350, 185044/534 Lookup PR noPR
Halifax, Nova Scotia81/1846, 98 tons   TNA, BT 162/20-3, folio 125, 1850TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
34/1848, 48 tons   TNA, BT 162/20-3, folio 130, 1850 
Hull40/1844,   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 55, row 8TNA BT 98 Data post 185552/317 Lookup PR noPR
Liverpool101/1846, 420 tons  Re-registered at Liverpool 54/1852 TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 56, row 18TNA BT 98 Data post 185562/2185 Lookup PR noPR
101/1846, 420 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-04, folio 133, 185062/2185 Lookup PR noPR
54/1852, previously Liverpool 101/1846  TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 56, row 1862/4074 Lookup PR noPR
120/1853, previously Glasgow 27/1844  TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 54, row 6462/4590 Lookup PR noPR
120/1853, 822 tons  Re-registered at Liverpool 347/1854 TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 59, row 4662/4590 Lookup PR noPR
347/1854, previously Liverpool 120/1853  TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 59, row 46 
347/1854, Sail, 823 tons   7484 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books  
London38/1843, 227 tons   TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 35TNA BT 98 Data post 185564/2689 Lookup PR noPR
38/1843, 228 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 55, row 4964/2689 Lookup PR noPR
30/1845, 265 tons   TNA, BT 111/5-3, image 3764/3473 Lookup PR noPR
56/1846, 265 tons   TNA, BT 111/6-3, image 1164/3981 Lookup PR noPR
56/1846, 266 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 55, row 5964/3981 Lookup PR noPR
196/1847, 927 tons   TNA, BT 111/6-3, image 1264/4571 Lookup PR noPR
196/1847, 927 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 55, row 6464/4571 Lookup PR noPR
415/1849, 1167 tons   TNA, BT 111/6-3, image 1564/5709 Lookup PR noPR
415/1849, 1167 tons  Re-registered at London 457/1852 TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 58, row 1964/5709 Lookup PR noPR
457/1852, 1302 tons   TNA, BT 111/6-3, image 18 
457/1852, previously London 415/1849  TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 58, row 19 
457/1852, Steam, 1302 tons   13884 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books  
Newcastle10/1849, 265 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 58, row 31TNA BT 98 Data post 185575/2610 Lookup PR noPR
10/1849, 266 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-05, folio 182, 185075/2610 Lookup PR noPR
Port Glasgow10/1832, 368 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 56, row 54TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
10/1832, 368 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-10, folio 388, 1850 
4/1851, 368 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 58, row 3881/161 Lookup PR noPR
Scarborough8/1839, 332 tons  Re-registered at Scarborough 5/1856 TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 56, row 62TNA BT 98 Data post 185585/120 Lookup PR noPR
8/1839, 322 tons   ?   TNA, BT 111/31-1, image 1, row 6185/120 Lookup PR noPR
8/1839, 332 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-06, folio 227, 185085/120 Lookup PR noPR
8/1839, Sail, 331 tons   5176 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books 85/120 Lookup PR noPR
5/1856, previously Scarborough 8/1839  TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 56, row 62 
5/1856, 307 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 60, row 32 
Sunderland13/1840, 310 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 56, row 77TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
14/1856, 759 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 60, row 26 
Whitby74/1848, 200 tons   TNA, BT 111/30-3, image 58, row 53TNA BT 98 Data post 1855104/616 Lookup PR noPR
74/1848, 200 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-08, folio 290, 1850104/616 Lookup PR noPR
74/1848, Sail, 200 tons   5232 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books 104/616 Lookup PR noPR
Yarmouth, NS29/1849, Sail, 236 tons   6942 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
29/1849, 237 tons   TNA, BT 162/20-4, folio 159, 1850 
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