Ships pre-1855 named MERLIN

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 35 of 35.
Port of registry Details Closure Official number Source Crew lists Links Port no/PR no
Barnstaple11/1846, 16 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 53, row 41TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
7/1848,  Re-registered at Barnstaple TNA, BT 162/19-01, folio 5, 18508/155 Lookup PR noPR
1/1850, 16 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 54, row 218/171 Lookup PR noPR
1/1850, 17 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-01, folio 5, 18508/171 Lookup PR noPR
Cowes2/1843, 64 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 51, row 37TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
2/1843,  Registry cancelled 1850 TNA, BT 162/19-02, folio 60, 1850 
11/1850, 64 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 54, row 3030/366 Lookup PR noPR
11/1850, 64 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-02, folio 62, 185030/366 Lookup PR noPR
Greenock25/1838, 364 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 51, row 60TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
25/1838,  Lost 1847 TNA, BT 162/19-09, folio 360, 1850 
15/1850, 268 tons  Registry transferred to Halifax, Nova Scotia 1854 TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 54, row 46 Data post 185548/865 Lookup PR noPR
15/1850, 269 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-09, folio 364, 185048/865 Lookup PR noPR
Halifax, Nova Scotia177/1848, 31 tons   TNA, BT 162/20-3, folio 133, 1850TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Liverpool229/1839, 61 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 52, row 3TNA BT 98 Data post 185562/650 Lookup PR noPR
229/1839, 61 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-03/04, folio 126, 185062/650 Lookup PR noPR
311/1851, 1030 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 54, row 6262/3964 Lookup PR noPR
London93/1834, 324 tons   TNA, BT 111/5-4, image 13TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
22/1854, 59 tons   TNA, BT 111/7-1, image 1164/7615 Lookup PR noPR
22/1854, previously Portsmouth 29/1852  TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 55, row 5364/7615 Lookup PR noPR
22/1854, 59 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 1, row 5864/7615 Lookup PR noPR
Newcastle161/1844,   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 52, row 79TNA BT 98 Data post 185575/1643 Lookup PR noPR
Newport10/1839, 17 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 52, row 59TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Port Glasgow5/1851, 104 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 55, row 8TNA BT 98 Data post 185581/162 Lookup PR noPR
5/1851, Steam, 104 tons   19728 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books 81/162 Lookup PR noPR
Portsmouth29/1852, 64 tons  Registry transferred to London 22/1854 TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 55, row 53TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Rochester3/1853, 17 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 55, row 58TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
3/1853, Sail, 18 tons   9409 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books  
Scilly7/1839, 87 tons  Lost TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 53, row 6TNA BT 98 Data post 185586/36 Lookup PR noPR
7/1839, 87 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-06, folio 231, 185086/36 Lookup PR noPR
3/1856, 105 tons   TNA, BT 111/31-3, image 3, row 8 
St John, NB88/1852, Sail, 79 tons   35150 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books TNA BT 98 Data post 1855 
Sunderland218/1848, 194 tons  Re-registered at Sunderland 182/1854 TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 55, row 15TNA BT 98 Data post 185592/2010 Lookup PR noPR
218/1848, 195 tons   TNA, BT 162/19-07, folio 267, 185092/2010 Lookup PR noPR
182/1854, previously Sunderland 218/1848  TNA, BT 111/31-2, image 55, row 1592/4272 Lookup PR noPR
182/1854, Sail, 194 tons   14066 View details for this ONRSS, Appropriation Books 92/4272 Lookup PR noPR
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