Ships shown as registered at Sydney, Cape Breton Island in the Appropriation Books

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.

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 Sydney, Cape Breton Island may also be found under North Sydney or Sydney, NS.

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 7.    Records 1 to 50 of 307. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsSort by year of registryABs Crew lists Link
A E MCDONALD778557/1879, Sail, 148 tons View entry for A E MCDONALD in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
A H HARDY1036041/1897, Sail, 45 tons View entry for A H HARDY in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ADA B386611865, Sail, 243 tons View entry for ADA B in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ADELE1073734/1900, Steam, 23 tons View entry for ADELE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ADELLE386651866, Sail, 18 tons View entry for ADELLE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AGENORA386351862, Sail, 81 tons View entry for AGENORA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALBERT P1003783/1892, Sail, 60 tons View entry for ALBERT P in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALBERTINA691591873, Sail View entry for ALBERTINA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALERT757091/1879, Sail, 37 tons View entry for ALERT in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDER386691867, Sail, 238 tons View entry for ALEXANDER in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDER740467/1877, Sail, 78 tons View entry for ALEXANDER in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDER GORDON885154/1886, Sail, 12 tons View entry for ALEXANDER GORDON in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDRA1073805/1902, Steam, 10 tons View entry for ALEXANDRA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALFRED386791868, Sail, 39 tons View entry for ALFRED in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALICE1003826/1893, Sail, 10 tons View entry for ALICE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALICE M HOOPER386501864, Sail, 39 tons View entry for ALICE M HOOPER in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALICE XEBEC740337/1875, Sail, 13 tons View entry for ALICE XEBEC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALMA10735710/1898, Sail, 34 tons View entry for ALMA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALPHA386701867, Sail, 295 tons View entry for ALPHA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANN338681854, Sail, 116 tons View entry for ANN in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNA F1170289/1905, Sail, 14 tons View entry for ANNA F in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNA L TAYLOR1003847/1894, Sail, 317 tons View entry for ANNA L TAYLOR in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNABELL8851112/1884, Sail, 11 tons View entry for ANNABELL in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNE MARIA385921857, Sail, 63 tons View entry for ANNE MARIA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE8097810/1882, Sail, 91 tons View entry for ANNIE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE BELL740325/1875, Sail, 45 tons View entry for ANNIE BELL in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE ETHEL1170244/1905, Sail, 51 tons View entry for ANNIE ETHEL in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE F1003892/1895, Sail, 13 tons View entry for ANNIE F in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE GRIEVE386541864, Sail, 111 tons View entry for ANNIE GRIEVE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE LAURIE386831869, Sail, 93 tons View entry for ANNIE LAURIE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE LINWOOD740314/1875, Sail, 13 tons View entry for ANNIE LINWOOD in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE S CHRISTIE7404911/1877, Sail, 22 tons View entry for ANNIE S CHRISTIE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANTIOS385931857, Sail, 18 tons View entry for ANTIOS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
APRIL FOOL778524/1879, Sail, 92 tons View entry for APRIL FOOL in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ATHALASKA885209/1886, Sail, 6 tons View entry for ATHALASKA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
B DAVIS691644/1874, Sail, 282 tons View entry for B DAVIS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BARBARA F LATIMER757044/1878, Sail, 185 tons View entry for BARBARA F LATIMER in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BEATRICE DONAVAN1260284/1909, Sail, 18 tons View entry for BEATRICE DONAVAN in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BELLE OF ROME885077/1884, Sail, 14 tons View entry for BELLE OF ROME in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BESSIE7405012/1877, Sail, 99 tons View entry for BESSIE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BESSIE1003733/1891, Sail, 20 tons View entry for BESSIE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BETSY JANE1003722/1891, Sail, 11 tons View entry for BETSY JANE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BLOOMER386581865, Sail, 43 tons View entry for BLOOMER in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BLUE WAVE740444/1877, Sail, 62 tons View entry for BLUE WAVE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BLUE WAVE885012/1883, Sail, 37 tons View entry for BLUE WAVE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BONNIE KATE885066/1884, Sail, 14 tons View entry for BONNIE KATE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BREADALBANE46331854, Sail, 224 tons View entry for BREADALBANE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BUTLER386191860, Sail, 94 tons View entry for BUTLER in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BUXOM778513/1879, Sail, 8 tons View entry for BUXOM in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
C L MCDONALD1073524/1898, Sail, 96 tons View entry for C L MCDONALD in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 7.    Records 1 to 50 of 307. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Last
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