Ships shown as registered at Bristol 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  ? .

Page 1 of 9.    Records 1 to 50 of 403. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number MNL Crew lists Link
ABBEY3870 View entry for ABBEY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ABUNDANCE3843 View entry for ABUNDANCE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ACHILLES18399 View entry for ACHILLES in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ACTIVE1855 View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ACTIVE25569 View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ADA10926 View entry for ADA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AFFGHAN6932 View entry for AFFGHAN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AFFO26786 View entry for AFFO in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AFRICAN QUEEN26804 View entry for AFRICAN QUEEN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AIR14361 View entry for AIR in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AJAX4062 View entry for AJAX in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALARM3875 View entry for ALARM in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBATROSS26761 View entry for ALBATROSS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBERT25430 View entry for ALBERT in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBERT SAINT PAUL6937 View entry for ALBERT SAINT PAUL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBION4008 View entry for ALBION in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBION15320 View entry for ALBION in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALERT4031 View entry for ALERT in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDER EDMOND27087 View entry for ALEXANDER EDMOND in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALPHA33222 View entry for ALPHA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AMELIA4072 View entry for AMELIA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AMITY23908 View entry for AMITY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AMY3929 View entry for AMY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN3814 View entry for ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN3965 View entry for ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN11726 View entry for ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN16133 View entry for ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN19207 View entry for ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN BUCKLE15226 View entry for ANN BUCKLE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN HOOD26805 View entry for ANN HOOD in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANNA MARIA10877 View entry for ANNA MARIA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE FISHER26803 View entry for ANNIE FISHER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ARAB14354 View entry for ARAB in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ARENDINA11613 View entry for ARENDINA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ARIEL8520 View entry for ARIEL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ARTHUR10301 View entry for ARTHUR in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ASHLEY1954 View entry for ASHLEY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ATHLETE26808 View entry for ATHLETE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ATLAS14368 View entry for ATLAS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ATLAS26738 View entry for ATLAS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AUGUSTA15229 View entry for AUGUSTA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AUGUSTA24959 View entry for AUGUSTA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AUSPICIOUS4026 View entry for AUSPICIOUS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AUSTRALIAN3954 View entry for AUSTRALIAN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AVON1754 View entry for AVON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AVON3944 View entry for AVON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AVON15222 View entry for AVON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BARBARA3970 View entry for BARBARA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BATANZA10312 View entry for BATANZA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BENGAL26318 View entry for BENGAL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 9.    Records 1 to 50 of 403. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Last
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