Ships shown as registered at Launceston, Tasmania in the Mercantile Navy List for 1920

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 57. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
ACTIVE610381917, Motor View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1920, page 4 MHACLIPMore...
ADA BURGESS1017901915, Motor View entry for ADA BURGESS in MNL 1920, page 5 MHACLIPMore...
AGNES1017721918, Steam View entry for AGNES in MNL 1920, page 8 MHACLIPMore...
ANGLO-SVEA101794Sail, Ketch View entry for ANGLO-SVEA in MNL 1920, page 680 MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE101783Sail, Cutter View entry for ANNIE in MNL 1920, page 682 MHACLIPMore...
ARIEL61060Sail, Ketch View entry for ARIEL in MNL 1920, page 686 MHACLIPMore...
BASS1017931913, Steam View entry for BASS in MNL 1920, page 49 MHACLIPMore...
BREONE101780Steam View entry for BREONE in MNL 1920, page 73 MHACLIPMore...
BROTHERS61042Sail, Cutter View entry for BROTHERS in MNL 1920, page 706 MHACLIPMore...
COLLEEN BAWN57522Sail, Ketch View entry for COLLEEN BAWN in MNL 1920, page 723 MHACLIPMore...
CORAL101785Sail, Ketch View entry for CORAL in MNL 1920, page 726 MHACLIPMore...
CORINNA792521882, Steam View entry for CORINNA in MNL 1920, page 128 MHACLIPMore...
DART576391909, Motor View entry for DART in MNL 1920, page 144 MHACLIPMore...
DAUNTLESS78060Sail, Ketch View entry for DAUNTLESS in MNL 1920, page 736 MHACLIPMore...
E H PURDEN57168Sail, Ketch View entry for E H PURDEN in MNL 1920, page 748 MHACLIPMore...
EARL OF ELGIN120738Sail, Ketch View entry for EARL OF ELGIN in MNL 1920, page 749 MHACLIPMore...
ECLIPSE780681885, Steam View entry for ECLIPSE in MNL 1920, page 170 MHACLIPMore...
EMPRESS OF INDIA733581884, Steam View entry for EMPRESS OF INDIA in MNL 1920, page 183 MHACLIPMore...
EXPRESS792881889, Steam View entry for EXPRESS in MNL 1920, page 195 MHACLIPMore...
FLORA MCDONALD79298Sail, Ketch View entry for FLORA MCDONALD in MNL 1920, page 777 MHACLIPMore...
FLORENCE79255Sail, Cutter View entry for FLORENCE in MNL 1920, page 777 MHACLIPMore...
FOAM792801918, Motor View entry for FOAM in MNL 1920, page 208 MHACLIPMore...
FURNEAUX78067Sail, Cutter View entry for FURNEAUX in MNL 1920, page 784 MHACLIPMore...
GLYDE61058Sail, Ketch View entry for GLYDE in MNL 1920, page 795 MHACLIPMore...
HARRIET ALICE1017841902, Motor View entry for HARRIET ALICE in MNL 1920, page 254 MHACLIPMore...
HILLMEADS1211781918, Steam View entry for HILLMEADS in MNL 1920, page 266 MHACLIPMore...
LEMAEL79300Sail, Schooner View entry for LEMAEL in MNL 1920, page 854 MHACLIPMore...
LIENTA1017951914, Steam View entry for LIENTA in MNL 1920, page 345 MHACLIPMore...
LINDA792831905, Motor View entry for LINDA in MNL 1920, page 348 MHACLIPMore...
NAUTILUS78053Sail, Cutter View entry for NAUTILUS in MNL 1920, page 904 MHACLIPMore...
NELLIE792901890, Steam View entry for NELLIE in MNL 1920, page 415 MHACLIPMore...
NIREE101792Sail, Ketch View entry for NIREE in MNL 1920, page 909 MHACLIPMore...
NO 4 HOPPER BARGE79543Sail View entry for NO 4 HOPPER BARGE in MNL 1920, page 915 MHACLIPMore...
NORTH STAR73515Sail, Cutter View entry for NORTH STAR in MNL 1920, page 911 MHACLIPMore...
ONWARD79282Sail, Ketch View entry for ONWARD in MNL 1920, page 918 MHACLIPMore...
PATEENA792621884, Steam View entry for PATEENA in MNL 1920, page 451 MHACLIPMore...
PEARL79275Sail, Cutter View entry for PEARL in MNL 1920, page 926 MHACLIPMore...
PLATYPUS79502Sail View entry for PLATYPUS in MNL 1920, page 932 MHACLIPMore...
ROWITTA1017911909, Steam View entry for ROWITTA in MNL 1920, page 510 MHACLIPMore...
SHAMROCK610401915, Motor View entry for SHAMROCK in MNL 1920, page 540 MHACLIPMore...
SPRAY101781Sail, Cutter View entry for SPRAY in MNL 1920, page 979 MHACLIPMore...
SUPPLY101779Sail, Ketch View entry for SUPPLY in MNL 1920, page 984 MHACLIPMore...
TARRINA792861887, Steam View entry for TARRINA in MNL 1920, page 582 MHACLIPMore...
TASMAN61039Sail, Barge View entry for TASMAN in MNL 1920, page 991 MHACLIPMore...
THISTLE1017751898, Steam View entry for THISTLE in MNL 1920, page 589 MHACLIPMore...
TUDOR95978Sail, Ketch View entry for TUDOR in MNL 1920, page 1001 MHACLIPMore...
UNDINE79258Sail, Ketch View entry for UNDINE in MNL 1920, page 1003 MHACLIPMore...
VANSITTART79270Sail, Ketch View entry for VANSITTART in MNL 1920, page 1007 MHACLIPMore...
VESPER61056Sail, Cutter View entry for VESPER in MNL 1920, page 1009 MHACLIPMore...
WARATAH1017711893, Steam View entry for WARATAH in MNL 1920, page 637 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 2.    Records 1 to 50 of 57. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
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