Ships shown as registered at Geelong 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 1.    Records 1 to 24 of 24.
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number MNL Crew lists Link
ALFRED & JACOB31770 View entry for ALFRED & JACOB in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BOUJAH MAIDEN40941 View entry for BOUJAH MAIDEN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EMMA31622 View entry for EMMA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ESTHER ANN31843 View entry for ESTHER ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
GERTRUDE31921 View entry for GERTRUDE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
GIL BLAS31701 View entry for GIL BLAS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HARGRAVES32210 View entry for HARGRAVES in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HARRIETT31590 View entry for HARRIETT in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
LADY BIRD32212 View entry for LADY BIRD in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
MAID OF THE VALLEY32172 View entry for MAID OF THE VALLEY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
MARGARET40932 View entry for MARGARET in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
METADOR31525 View entry for METADOR in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
MOUNT ALEXANDER31801 View entry for MOUNT ALEXANDER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
RAVEN31858 View entry for RAVEN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
SAPPHIRE32023 View entry for SAPPHIRE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
SARAH ANN31870 View entry for SARAH ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
SEA NYMPH31960 View entry for SEA NYMPH in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
SISTERS40197 View entry for SISTERS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
SOPHIA31860 View entry for SOPHIA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
SWALLOW31518 View entry for SWALLOW in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
VAN TROMP31764 View entry for VAN TROMP in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
VELOCITY31619 View entry for VELOCITY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
WATERWITCH32218 View entry for WATERWITCH in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
WILLIAM HILL31956 View entry for WILLIAM HILL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 1.    Records 1 to 24 of 24.
Navigation up arrow