Ships shown as registered at Hong Kong 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.

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 30.    Records 1 to 50 of 1457.
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Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsSort by year of registryABs Crew lists Link
A P C 2/315943729/1935, Sail, 16 tons View entry for A P C 2/3 in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
A P C 6/715943628/1935, Sail, 9 tons View entry for A P C 6/7 in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
A P C LIGHTER G15943830/1935, Sail, 23 tons View entry for A P C LIGHTER G in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
A R L NO 209319147715/1950, Motor, 19 tons View entry for A R L NO 2093 in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ABONA327551857, Sail View entry for ABONA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ACHATINA15143221/1921, Steam, 3521 tons View entry for ACHATINA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ADELAIDE888453/1888, Steam, 75 tons View entry for ADELAIDE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ADELLA6410822/1873, Sail, 365 tons View entry for ADELLA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ADVANCE640881872, 308 tons View entry for ADVANCE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ADVENTURE327551857, Sail View entry for ADVENTURE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AEOLUS12098314/1905, Steam, 20 tons View entry for AEOLUS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AFRICA13769320/1915, Steam, 2 tons View entry for AFRICA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AFRICUS11605538/1904, Sail, 173 tons View entry for AFRICUS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AFRICUS12701011/1909, Sail, 32 tons View entry for AFRICUS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AGINCOURT4120922/1861, Sail, 985 tons View entry for AGINCOURT in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AGNES888391/1886, Steam, 293 tons View entry for AGNES in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AH CHAU CHI HUNG1540817/1933, Motor, 6 tons View entry for AH CHAU CHI HUNG in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALBATROSS483461865, Sail, 122 tons View entry for ALBATROSS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALBATROSS1209733/1905, Steam, 83 tons View entry for ALBATROSS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALBATROSS12309836/1907, Steam, 40 tons View entry for ALBATROSS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALE MARGUPE412192/1862, Sail, 87 tons View entry for ALE MARGUPE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALERT483321864, Sail, 185 tons View entry for ALERT in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALERTA6412510/1875, Sail, 215 tons View entry for ALERTA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALFRED327341855, Sail, 754 tons View entry for ALFRED in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALGERINE640911872, Steam View entry for ALGERINE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALICIA4120010/1861, Sail, 236 tons View entry for ALICIA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALICIA MOLLER17281226/1948, Motor, 79 tons View entry for ALICIA MOLLER in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALINE WOERMANN1286822/1910, Steam, 1450 tons View entry for ALINE WOERMANN in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALLEGIANCE 2191430133/1949, Steam, 597 tons View entry for ALLEGIANCE 2 in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALMIRANTE LACERDA15359116/1925, Steam, 22 tons View entry for ALMIRANTE LACERDA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AMERICA13769118/1915, Steam, 2 tons View entry for AMERICA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AMOY TRADER412701864, Sail, 109 tons View entry for AMOY TRADER in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANA483341864, Sail, 90 tons View entry for ANA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANA506671867, Sail, 222 tons View entry for ANA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANDES412631864, Sail, 402 tons View entry for ANDES in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANDES517671864, Steam, 403 tons View entry for ANDES in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANDROKLOS734544/1883, Sail, 392 tons View entry for ANDROKLOS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANHUI1535813/1925, Steam, 2080 tons View entry for ANHUI in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANITA412541863, Sail, 349 tons View entry for ANITA in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANKING19147614/1950, Sail, 6127 tons View entry for ANKING in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANN WELSH411813/1859, Sail, 342 tons View entry for ANN WELSH in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNAH1376816/1915, Sail, 103 tons View entry for ANNAH in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNE506711867, Sail, 304 tons View entry for ANNE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE327521853, Sail, 316 tons View entry for ANNIE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE MURIEL640831871, Sail, 215 tons View entry for ANNIE MURIEL in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANSHUN19150646/1950, Motor, 6224 tons View entry for ANSHUN in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANTELOPE412341862, Steam, 263 tons View entry for ANTELOPE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANTO19679941/1955, Steam, 6348 tons View entry for ANTO in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANTOINETTE734521/1883, Sail, 884 tons View entry for ANTOINETTE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANTONIO TERRY483441865, Sail View entry for ANTONIO TERRY in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 30.    Records 1 to 50 of 1457.
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