Ships shown as registered at Wells in the Mercantile Navy List for 1860

British ships were registered at one of hundreds of ports of registry around Britain and what were then British colonies.

This page is an index of ships by their port of registry using data from the contemporary official sources such as the Mercantile Navy List (MNL) and the Appropriation Books.

For each port, it shows first a count of the entries by year. For a year selected from that list, it shows ship names and official numbers, sorted first by name, then by official number, with other details such as date of registration, and rig. For each record, links are provided to images of the source documents and to other data items such as holdings of crew lists.

For a full explanation of the records of British shipping, please see our information page, here: Records of British ships

How to search for ships by port

As described above, first select the port, then the year from the table of counts of ships.

For some ports, where there were other ports nearby, ships may have been registered at one of those ports. Where this is a possibility, the form provides facilities to switch to one of the other ports, or to see data for all the ports together.

Reading the results

The results show the names of ships registered at the port according to the records for that year. For record sets after 1855, the ship's official number is shown. The results show any other details from the source, and the exact reference for the source so that you can see where our information came from. The  icon links to images of the source.

For the pre-1857 data drawn from BT 111 and BT 162, there is a link on the right hand side Data post 1855 which will search the CLIP data for later years by name and port, looking for possible matches in the period 1855 to 1870. Beware! Because there were no official numbers for this period, these are only tentative suggestions, not exact matches. Some common names could result in many possibilities!

For post-1857 data, which has official numbers, there are also links to show holdings of crew lists for that ship, using the Maritime History Archive index and our own CLIP index.

The 'More...' link will show all the information that we have for that official number.

The records are initially sorted by the ship's name. For the pre-1857 records, the records can be sorted by year and number of registration; for the post-1857 data, they can be sorted by official number. To change the sort, click the small icon next to the column heading.

For data from BT 111 and 1850 (BT 162), there is a 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 2.    Records 1 to 50 of 90. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
ALBION23645Sail, 54 tons View entry for ALBION in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN583Sail, 84 tons View entry for ANN in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN7343Sail, 290 tons View entry for ANN in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN & MARIA25365Sail, 79 tons View entry for ANN & MARIA in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
ARIEL17662Sail, 87 tons View entry for ARIEL in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
BESSEY4842Sail, 37 tons View entry for BESSEY in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
BLACKNEY464Sail, 87 tons View entry for BLACKNEY in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
BLAKENEY & HULL PACKET21215Sail, 35 tons View entry for BLAKENEY & HULL PACKET in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
BLAKENEY TRADER21201Sail, 67 tons View entry for BLAKENEY TRADER in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
CHARLOTTE21229Sail, 13 tons View entry for CHARLOTTE in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
COKE12480Sail, 42 tons View entry for COKE in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
COUNTESS OF ZETLAND1555Sail, 184 tons View entry for COUNTESS OF ZETLAND in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
COURIER17591Sail, 58 tons View entry for COURIER in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
CREST OF THE WAVE6353Sail, 130 tons View entry for CREST OF THE WAVE in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
DEFIANCE3537Sail, 84 tons View entry for DEFIANCE in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELEANOR6527Sail, 71 tons View entry for ELEANOR in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELLEN22427Sail, 102 tons View entry for ELLEN in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
EMILY3500Sail, 73 tons View entry for EMILY in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
ENDEAVOUR4702Sail, 63 tons View entry for ENDEAVOUR in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
ENDEAVOUR4883Sail, 17 tons View entry for ENDEAVOUR in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
EQUITY24753Sail, 116 tons View entry for EQUITY in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
FRIENDS3733Sail, 33 tons View entry for FRIENDS in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
GELDESTONE6519Sail, 34 tons View entry for GELDESTONE in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
GEM11335Sail, 68 tons View entry for GEM in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
GEORGE & HANNAH21239Sail, 13 tons View entry for GEORGE & HANNAH in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
GEORGE & MARY25386Sail, 64 tons View entry for GEORGE & MARY in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
GIPSEY2015Sail, 92 tons View entry for GIPSEY in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
GLEANER21005Sail, 62 tons View entry for GLEANER in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
GREYHOUND21259Sail, 13 tons View entry for GREYHOUND in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
GROUSE2698Sail, 51 tons View entry for GROUSE in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
HANNAH14026Sail, 125 tons View entry for HANNAH in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
HEBE21210Sail, 75 tons View entry for HEBE in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
HOPE21238Sail, 16 tons View entry for HOPE in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
HUNTSMAN21219Sail, 21 tons View entry for HUNTSMAN in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
INDUSTRY11215Sail, 73 tons View entry for INDUSTRY in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
JOHN & ANN11802Sail, 40 tons View entry for JOHN & ANN in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
JOHN & HANNAH'S ENDEAVOUR4705Sail, 31 tons View entry for JOHN & HANNAH'S ENDEAVOUR in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
JULIA24874Sail, 70 tons View entry for JULIA in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
LADY ANNE204Sail, 97 tons View entry for LADY ANNE in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
LAPWING23744Sail, 64 tons View entry for LAPWING in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
LITTLE HELEN77Sail, 72 tons View entry for LITTLE HELEN in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
LONDON PACKET21205Sail, 57 tons View entry for LONDON PACKET in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
LORD BYRON24460Sail, 109 tons View entry for LORD BYRON in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
MARTHA21234Sail, 12 tons View entry for MARTHA in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
MARY21207Sail, 45 tons View entry for MARY in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
MARY ANN21242Sail, 69 tons View entry for MARY ANN in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
MIRANDA24775Sail, 187 tons View entry for MIRANDA in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
NELSON21263Sail, 12 tons View entry for NELSON in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
NILE17592Sail, 120 tons View entry for NILE in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
ORKNEY LASS1610Sail, 319 tons View entry for ORKNEY LASS in MNL 1860, page  MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 2.    Records 1 to 50 of 90. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
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