Ships shown as registered at Whitehaven in the Mercantile Navy List for 1870

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 4.    Records 1 to 50 of 177. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
ADA8762Sail View entry for ADA in MNL 1870, page 4 MHACLIPMore...
ADVENTURE8610Sail View entry for ADVENTURE in MNL 1870, page 6 MHACLIPMore...
AFFGHAN26249Sail View entry for AFFGHAN in MNL 1870, page 7 MHACLIPMore...
AJAX12788Steam View entry for AJAX in MNL 1870, page 9 MHACLIPMore...
ALBION39299Sail View entry for ALBION in MNL 1870, page 11 MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDER8708Sail View entry for ALEXANDER in MNL 1870, page 13 MHACLIPMore...
ALLIES35000Sail View entry for ALLIES in MNL 1870, page 16 MHACLIPMore...
AMPHION8726Sail View entry for AMPHION in MNL 1870, page 20 MHACLIPMore...
ANN HUMPHREYS53132Sail View entry for ANN HUMPHREYS in MNL 1870, page 23 MHACLIPMore...
ANN INGATE746Sail View entry for ANN INGATE in MNL 1870, page 23 MHACLIPMore...
ANTIGUA21090Sail View entry for ANTIGUA in MNL 1870, page 28 MHACLIPMore...
ARGESTES1763Sail View entry for ARGESTES in MNL 1870, page 30 MHACLIPMore...
ARGUS24094Sail View entry for ARGUS in MNL 1870, page 31 MHACLIPMore...
ARIEL44227Sail View entry for ARIEL in MNL 1870, page 31 MHACLIPMore...
ARIES4310Sail View entry for ARIES in MNL 1870, page 31 MHACLIPMore...
ASENATH53133Sail View entry for ASENATH in MNL 1870, page 33 MHACLIPMore...
ASTREA8718Sail View entry for ASTREA in MNL 1870, page 34 MHACLIPMore...
BENITA44223Sail View entry for BENITA in MNL 1870, page 42 MHACLIPMore...
BETSY BATEMAN58183Sail View entry for BETSY BATEMAN in MNL 1870, page 45 MHACLIPMore...
BOYNE8082Sail View entry for BOYNE in MNL 1870, page 49 MHACLIPMore...
BRANSTY13121Sail View entry for BRANSTY in MNL 1870, page 50 MHACLIPMore...
BRITON9261Sail View entry for BRITON in MNL 1870, page 54 MHACLIPMore...
BROTHERS8625Sail View entry for BROTHERS in MNL 1870, page 55 MHACLIPMore...
CALLAO13585Sail View entry for CALLAO in MNL 1870, page 58 MHACLIPMore...
CAPELLA9250Sail View entry for CAPELLA in MNL 1870, page 60 MHACLIPMore...
CAROS24064Sail View entry for CAROS in MNL 1870, page 62 MHACLIPMore...
CECILIA1268Sail View entry for CECILIA in MNL 1870, page 65 MHACLIPMore...
CERES8682Sail View entry for CERES in MNL 1870, page 66 MHACLIPMore...
CHERUB8619Sail View entry for CHERUB in MNL 1870, page 70 MHACLIPMore...
CHRYSOLITE58190Sail View entry for CHRYSOLITE in MNL 1870, page 72 MHACLIPMore...
COMET9322Sail View entry for COMET in MNL 1870, page 78 MHACLIPMore...
CONVIVIAL9315Sail View entry for CONVIVIAL in MNL 1870, page 82 MHACLIPMore...
CORDELIA16645Sail View entry for CORDELIA in MNL 1870, page 82 MHACLIPMore...
COURIER25792Sail View entry for COURIER in MNL 1870, page 85 MHACLIPMore...
CUMBERLAND9378Sail View entry for CUMBERLAND in MNL 1870, page 86 MHACLIPMore...
CUMBRIAN8698Sail View entry for CUMBRIAN in MNL 1870, page 86 MHACLIPMore...
DAUNTLESS28404Sail View entry for DAUNTLESS in MNL 1870, page 91 MHACLIPMore...
DELIGHT9367Sail View entry for DELIGHT in MNL 1870, page 93 MHACLIPMore...
DIADEM8686Sail View entry for DIADEM in MNL 1870, page 94 MHACLIPMore...
DOLPHIN16197Sail View entry for DOLPHIN in MNL 1870, page 97 MHACLIPMore...
DOURO9282Sail View entry for DOURO in MNL 1870, page 98 MHACLIPMore...
DRYAD7070Sail View entry for DRYAD in MNL 1870, page 99 MHACLIPMore...
EGREMONT42650Sail View entry for EGREMONT in MNL 1870, page 107 MHACLIPMore...
EHEN47782Sail View entry for EHEN in MNL 1870, page 107 MHACLIPMore...
ELEANOR & MARY1554Sail View entry for ELEANOR & MARY in MNL 1870, page 108 MHACLIPMore...
ELEANOR DAVIDSON44225Sail View entry for ELEANOR DAVIDSON in MNL 1870, page 108 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZA24211Sail View entry for ELIZA in MNL 1870, page 111 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH8105Sail View entry for ELIZABETH in MNL 1870, page 114 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH8764Sail View entry for ELIZABETH in MNL 1870, page 114 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH9317Sail View entry for ELIZABETH in MNL 1870, page 114 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 4.    Records 1 to 50 of 177. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Last
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