Ships shown as registered at Belfast 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 9.    Records 1 to 50 of 430. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
A HASTINGS35052Sail View entry for A HASTINGS in MNL 1870, page 1 MHACLIPMore...
ABEONA35079Sail View entry for ABEONA in MNL 1870, page 1 MHACLIPMore...
ACTIVE8051Sail View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1870, page 3 MHACLIPMore...
ACTIVE22822Sail View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1870, page 3 MHACLIPMore...
ADAM3285Sail View entry for ADAM in MNL 1870, page 4 MHACLIPMore...
ADELAIDE19748Sail View entry for ADELAIDE in MNL 1870, page 4 MHACLIPMore...
AGNES22756Sail View entry for AGNES in MNL 1870, page 7 MHACLIPMore...
AGRICOLA35089Sail View entry for AGRICOLA in MNL 1870, page 8 MHACLIPMore...
ALBION3196Sail View entry for ALBION in MNL 1870, page 11 MHACLIPMore...
ALBION12038Sail View entry for ALBION in MNL 1870, page 11 MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDER MAXWELL8029Sail View entry for ALEXANDER MAXWELL in MNL 1870, page 13 MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDER STEWART22384Sail View entry for ALEXANDER STEWART in MNL 1870, page 13 MHACLIPMore...
ALFRED16455Sail View entry for ALFRED in MNL 1870, page 13 MHACLIPMore...
ANN8033Sail View entry for ANN in MNL 1870, page 21 MHACLIPMore...
ANN28040Sail View entry for ANN in MNL 1870, page 21 MHACLIPMore...
ANN & BELL3189Sail View entry for ANN & BELL in MNL 1870, page 23 MHACLIPMore...
ANN AUGUSTA38027Sail View entry for ANN AUGUSTA in MNL 1870, page 23 MHACLIPMore...
ANN GRAY34844Sail View entry for ANN GRAY in MNL 1870, page 23 MHACLIPMore...
ANNA51940Sail View entry for ANNA in MNL 1870, page 24 MHACLIPMore...
ANNA60317Sail View entry for ANNA in MNL 1870, page 24 MHACLIPMore...
ANZICO41535Sail View entry for ANZICO in MNL 1870, page 29 MHACLIPMore...
ARBUTUS18205Steam View entry for ARBUTUS in MNL 1870, page 29 MHACLIPMore...
ARCHIBALD50899Sail View entry for ARCHIBALD in MNL 1870, page 30 MHACLIPMore...
ARCTIC36347Sail View entry for ARCTIC in MNL 1870, page 30 MHACLIPMore...
ARETHUSA12642Sail View entry for ARETHUSA in MNL 1870, page 30 MHACLIPMore...
ATHOL20717Sail View entry for ATHOL in MNL 1870, page 34 MHACLIPMore...
BALMARINO1538Sail View entry for BALMARINO in MNL 1870, page 38 MHACLIPMore...
BEANN UAMHA28836Sail View entry for BEANN UAMHA in MNL 1870, page 39 MHACLIPMore...
BELFAST8188Sail View entry for BELFAST in MNL 1870, page 41 MHACLIPMore...
BELFAST36803Sail View entry for BELFAST in MNL 1870, page 41 MHACLIPMore...
BELT21944Sail View entry for BELT in MNL 1870, page 42 MHACLIPMore...
BERWICK PACKET12176Sail View entry for BERWICK PACKET in MNL 1870, page 43 MHACLIPMore...
BETSEY1829Sail View entry for BETSEY in MNL 1870, page 44 MHACLIPMore...
BILLOW34123Sail View entry for BILLOW in MNL 1870, page 45 MHACLIPMore...
BLAIR8030Sail View entry for BLAIR in MNL 1870, page 46 MHACLIPMore...
BLOOM7728Sail View entry for BLOOM in MNL 1870, page 47 MHACLIPMore...
BONNY LASS24271Sail View entry for BONNY LASS in MNL 1870, page 49 MHACLIPMore...
BRIDGEWATER34135Sail View entry for BRIDGEWATER in MNL 1870, page 51 MHACLIPMore...
BRILL37332Sail View entry for BRILL in MNL 1870, page 51 MHACLIPMore...
BRILLIANT21419Sail View entry for BRILLIANT in MNL 1870, page 51 MHACLIPMore...
BROTHERS1184Sail View entry for BROTHERS in MNL 1870, page 54 MHACLIPMore...
BRUNETTE19506Sail View entry for BRUNETTE in MNL 1870, page 55 MHACLIPMore...
BRUNSWICK12034Sail View entry for BRUNSWICK in MNL 1870, page 55 MHACLIPMore...
BULWARK8777Sail View entry for BULWARK in MNL 1870, page 56 MHACLIPMore...
CALEDONIA22752Sail View entry for CALEDONIA in MNL 1870, page 57 MHACLIPMore...
CAMBRIA12063Sail View entry for CAMBRIA in MNL 1870, page 58 MHACLIPMore...
CAMEL15207Sail View entry for CAMEL in MNL 1870, page 58 MHACLIPMore...
CAMEL49730Steam View entry for CAMEL in MNL 1870, page 58 MHACLIPMore...
CAMERONIAN13311Sail View entry for CAMERONIAN in MNL 1870, page 59 MHACLIPMore...
CARN TUAL27657Sail View entry for CARN TUAL in MNL 1870, page 60 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 9.    Records 1 to 50 of 430. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Last
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