Ships shown as registered at Bridgwater 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 3.    Records 1 to 50 of 139. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
ABEONA11612Sail View entry for ABEONA in MNL 1870, page 1 MHACLIPMore...
ACTIVE11706Sail View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1870, page 3 MHACLIPMore...
AFFIANCE10844Sail View entry for AFFIANCE in MNL 1870, page 7 MHACLIPMore...
ANN10881Sail View entry for ANN in MNL 1870, page 21 MHACLIPMore...
ANN10909Sail View entry for ANN in MNL 1870, page 21 MHACLIPMore...
ANN18317Sail View entry for ANN in MNL 1870, page 21 MHACLIPMore...
ARGO56366Sail View entry for ARGO in MNL 1870, page 30 MHACLIPMore...
ARK1703Sail View entry for ARK in MNL 1870, page 31 MHACLIPMore...
ARK10811Sail View entry for ARK in MNL 1870, page 31 MHACLIPMore...
BLOSSOM10910Sail View entry for BLOSSOM in MNL 1870, page 47 MHACLIPMore...
BOADICEA19134Sail View entry for BOADICEA in MNL 1870, page 48 MHACLIPMore...
BRISTOL PACKET10858Sail View entry for BRISTOL PACKET in MNL 1870, page 52 MHACLIPMore...
BROTHERS10840Sail View entry for BROTHERS in MNL 1870, page 54 MHACLIPMore...
CAERLEON8732Sail View entry for CAERLEON in MNL 1870, page 57 MHACLIPMore...
CAROLINE10870Sail View entry for CAROLINE in MNL 1870, page 61 MHACLIPMore...
CAROLINE37293Sail View entry for CAROLINE in MNL 1870, page 61 MHACLIPMore...
CARRY WINCH42891Sail View entry for CARRY WINCH in MNL 1870, page 62 MHACLIPMore...
CERES10904Sail View entry for CERES in MNL 1870, page 65 MHACLIPMore...
CHARD10825Sail View entry for CHARD in MNL 1870, page 67 MHACLIPMore...
CHARLES10940Sail View entry for CHARLES in MNL 1870, page 67 MHACLIPMore...
CHARLES PHILLIPS10912Sail View entry for CHARLES PHILLIPS in MNL 1870, page 68 MHACLIPMore...
COMMERCE11626Sail View entry for COMMERCE in MNL 1870, page 79 MHACLIPMore...
COMMISSARY12315Sail View entry for COMMISSARY in MNL 1870, page 79 MHACLIPMore...
CURLEW10685Sail View entry for CURLEW in MNL 1870, page 86 MHACLIPMore...
CYGNET10882Sail View entry for CYGNET in MNL 1870, page 87 MHACLIPMore...
DAVID10851Sail View entry for DAVID in MNL 1870, page 91 MHACLIPMore...
DEFIANCE11542Steam View entry for DEFIANCE in MNL 1870, page 92 MHACLIPMore...
DUKE OF WELLINGTON4046Sail View entry for DUKE OF WELLINGTON in MNL 1870, page 100 MHACLIPMore...
ECONOMIST29557Sail View entry for ECONOMIST in MNL 1870, page 104 MHACLIPMore...
ELISE52531Sail View entry for ELISE in MNL 1870, page 109 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZA10868Sail View entry for ELIZA in MNL 1870, page 109 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZA10891Sail View entry for ELIZA in MNL 1870, page 109 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZA BEYNON14002Sail View entry for ELIZA BEYNON in MNL 1870, page 111 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH10886Sail View entry for ELIZABETH in MNL 1870, page 112 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH ANNE10913Sail View entry for ELIZABETH ANNE in MNL 1870, page 114 MHACLIPMore...
ELLEN10889Sail View entry for ELLEN in MNL 1870, page 116 MHACLIPMore...
EMPEROR11698Sail View entry for EMPEROR in MNL 1870, page 122 MHACLIPMore...
EVE29556Sail View entry for EVE in MNL 1870, page 129 MHACLIPMore...
EXPRESS27780Sail View entry for EXPRESS in MNL 1870, page 131 MHACLIPMore...
FAME10899Sail View entry for FAME in MNL 1870, page 134 MHACLIPMore...
FAME56361Sail View entry for FAME in MNL 1870, page 134 MHACLIPMore...
FANNY10923Sail View entry for FANNY in MNL 1870, page 134 MHACLIPMore...
FANNY JANE10941Sail View entry for FANNY JANE in MNL 1870, page 135 MHACLIPMore...
FORTITUDE10871Sail View entry for FORTITUDE in MNL 1870, page 144 MHACLIPMore...
FRIENDS10829Sail View entry for FRIENDS in MNL 1870, page 148 MHACLIPMore...
FRIENDS10866Sail View entry for FRIENDS in MNL 1870, page 148 MHACLIPMore...
FRIENDS10918Sail View entry for FRIENDS in MNL 1870, page 148 MHACLIPMore...
FRIENDS14043Sail View entry for FRIENDS in MNL 1870, page 148 MHACLIPMore...
FRIENDS21552Sail View entry for FRIENDS in MNL 1870, page 148 MHACLIPMore...
FRIENDSHIP10896Sail View entry for FRIENDSHIP in MNL 1870, page 148 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 3.    Records 1 to 50 of 139. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | Last
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