Ships shown as registered at Freetown, Sierra Leone 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  ? .

Records for Freetown, Sierra Leone may also be found under Sierra Leone.

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 1.    Records 1 to 32 of 32.
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
AFRICA30300Sail View entry for AFRICA in MNL 1870, page 7 MHACLIPMore...
BEAVER46504Sail View entry for BEAVER in MNL 1870, page 40 MHACLIPMore...
CHARLES WHITLEY8827Sail View entry for CHARLES WHITLEY in MNL 1870, page 69 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH49060Sail View entry for ELIZABETH in MNL 1870, page 112 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH FISHER49062Sail View entry for ELIZABETH FISHER in MNL 1870, page 115 MHACLIPMore...
EMILE49053Sail View entry for EMILE in MNL 1870, page 119 MHACLIPMore...
EMILIE40889Sail View entry for EMILIE in MNL 1870, page 119 MHACLIPMore...
EMILY30312Sail View entry for EMILY in MNL 1870, page 119 MHACLIPMore...
EMILY49055Sail View entry for EMILY in MNL 1870, page 119 MHACLIPMore...
ENCHANTRESS49064Sail View entry for ENCHANTRESS in MNL 1870, page 123 MHACLIPMore...
FAITH46519Sail View entry for FAITH in MNL 1870, page 133 MHACLIPMore...
FRED48654Sail View entry for FRED in MNL 1870, page 147 MHACLIPMore...
HOY46520Sail View entry for HOY in MNL 1870, page 181 MHACLIPMore...
JANE49059Sail View entry for JANE in MNL 1870, page 196 MHACLIPMore...
MADELEINE49051Sail View entry for MADELEINE in MNL 1870, page 239 MHACLIPMore...
MAHOMET49061Sail View entry for MAHOMET in MNL 1870, page 241 MHACLIPMore...
MARIE ANNE49052Sail View entry for MARIE ANNE in MNL 1870, page 248 MHACLIPMore...
MARIE LOUISE49066Sail View entry for MARIE LOUISE in MNL 1870, page 249 MHACLIPMore...
MARY42456Sail View entry for MARY in MNL 1870, page 252 MHACLIPMore...
MAUD42458Sail View entry for MAUD in MNL 1870, page 263 MHACLIPMore...
NANCY30317Sail View entry for NANCY in MNL 1870, page 277 MHACLIPMore...
PIONEER54917Steam View entry for PIONEER in MNL 1870, page 304 MHACLIPMore...
PRESIDENT WARNER49058Sail View entry for PRESIDENT WARNER in MNL 1870, page 307 MHACLIPMore...
QUEEN29063Sail View entry for QUEEN in MNL 1870, page 315 MHACLIPMore...
SAILOR52767Sail View entry for SAILOR in MNL 1870, page 337 MHACLIPMore...
SAINT MAGNUS42457Sail View entry for SAINT MAGNUS in MNL 1870, page 339 MHACLIPMore...
SARAH LARSEN42818Sail View entry for SARAH LARSEN in MNL 1870, page 345 MHACLIPMore...
SELMA46511Sail View entry for SELMA in MNL 1870, page 351 MHACLIPMore...
SOOSOO49065Sail View entry for SOOSOO in MNL 1870, page 358 MHACLIPMore...
TOPSY41282Sail View entry for TOPSY in MNL 1870, page 383 MHACLIPMore...
VIPER49057Sail View entry for VIPER in MNL 1870, page 400 MHACLIPMore...
ZEPHYR46515Sail View entry for ZEPHYR in MNL 1870, page 422 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 1.    Records 1 to 32 of 32.
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