Ships shown as registered at Shields in the Mercantile Navy List for 1857

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  ? .

Records for Shields may also be found under Newcastle or Newcastle-upon-Tyne or North Shields or South Shields.

Click a port name to see the records for that port

To show records for all the ports together, please click here

Page 1 of 21.    Records 1 to 50 of 1016.
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Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number MNL Crew lists Link
ABBEY LANDS3027 View entry for ABBEY LANDS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ABEONA12346 View entry for ABEONA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ABEONA27078 View entry for ABEONA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ABRAHAM12280 View entry for ABRAHAM in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ACASTUS2065 View entry for ACASTUS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ACCORD2045 View entry for ACCORD in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ACORN2116 View entry for ACORN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ACTIVE15258 View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ACTIVE25409 View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ADAM LODGE33108 View entry for ADAM LODGE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ADELINE3737 View entry for ADELINE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ADELPHI3720 View entry for ADELPHI in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ADELPHI27184 View entry for ADELPHI in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ADMIRAL13673 View entry for ADMIRAL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ADVANCE2127 View entry for ADVANCE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ADVANCE2207 View entry for ADVANCE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ADVENA5443 View entry for ADVENA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AGILITY2176 View entry for AGILITY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALACRITY5444 View entry for ALACRITY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBATROSS16998 View entry for ALBATROSS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBERT34801 View entry for ALBERT in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBION3492 View entry for ALBION in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBION7645 View entry for ALBION in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALDERMAN2236 View entry for ALDERMAN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALERT7647 View entry for ALERT in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDER22602 View entry for ALEXANDER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDRINA2185 View entry for ALEXANDRINA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALFRED16163 View entry for ALFRED in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALICE & ANN13782 View entry for ALICE & ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALICE HAVILAND3760 View entry for ALICE HAVILAND in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALICE THOMPSON2303 View entry for ALICE THOMPSON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALICE WALKER5301 View entry for ALICE WALKER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALLIANCE2285 View entry for ALLIANCE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALLIANCE7431 View entry for ALLIANCE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALLIANCE16150 View entry for ALLIANCE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALLIED POWERS12932 View entry for ALLIED POWERS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALN2029 View entry for ALN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AMBASSADOR22886 View entry for AMBASSADOR in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AMELIA25305 View entry for AMELIA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AMPHITRITE2066 View entry for AMPHITRITE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AMPHITRITE2201 View entry for AMPHITRITE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AMPHITRITE10190 View entry for AMPHITRITE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AMULET2431 View entry for AMULET in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANDREW WOODHOUSE17056 View entry for ANDREW WOODHOUSE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANGELINE24463 View entry for ANGELINE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANGLICANIA2144 View entry for ANGLICANIA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANGLO-SAXON11582 View entry for ANGLO-SAXON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN2197 View entry for ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN2209 View entry for ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN2428 View entry for ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 21.    Records 1 to 50 of 1016.
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