Ships shown as registered at Colchester in the Mercantile Navy List for 1890

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 4.    Records 1 to 50 of 199. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
A B C87288Sail, Cutter View entry for A B C in MNL 1890, page 270 MHACLIPMore...
ACTIVE16592Sail, Smack View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1890, page 272 MHACLIPMore...
AID11803Sail, Smack View entry for AID in MNL 1890, page 277 MHACLIPMore...
ALARM9557Sail, Smack View entry for ALARM in MNL 1890, page 277 MHACLIPMore...
ALEX93972Sail, Yawl View entry for ALEX in MNL 1890, page 280 MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDRA52980Sail, Smack View entry for ALEXANDRA in MNL 1890, page 281 MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDRA581761874, Steam View entry for ALEXANDRA in MNL 1890, page 8 MHACLIPMore...
ALICE79404Sail, Cutter View entry for ALICE in MNL 1890, page 282 MHACLIPMore...
ALMA12186Sail, Smack View entry for ALMA in MNL 1890, page 284 MHACLIPMore...
ANGLICAN58177Sail, Schooner View entry for ANGLICAN in MNL 1890, page 288 MHACLIPMore...
ANN & ELIZA9685Sail, Smack View entry for ANN & ELIZA in MNL 1890, page 290 MHACLIPMore...
ANTELOPE18181Sail, Dandy View entry for ANTELOPE in MNL 1890, page 295 MHACLIPMore...
AQUILINE58152Sail, Smack View entry for AQUILINE in MNL 1890, page 295 MHACLIPMore...
ARNOLD HIRST54649Sail, Spritsail View entry for ARNOLD HIRST in MNL 1890, page 298 MHACLIPMore...
ARROW9554Sail, Smack View entry for ARROW in MNL 1890, page 298 MHACLIPMore...
BERTHA93975Sail, Cutter View entry for BERTHA in MNL 1890, page 308 MHACLIPMore...
BETHEL16588Sail, Smack View entry for BETHEL in MNL 1890, page 310 MHACLIPMore...
BILLOW47814Sail, Smack View entry for BILLOW in MNL 1890, page 310 MHACLIPMore...
BLANCHE58155Sail, Yawl View entry for BLANCHE in MNL 1890, page 311 MHACLIPMore...
BREEZE58161Sail, Smack View entry for BREEZE in MNL 1890, page 315 MHACLIPMore...
BRUNETTE48983Sail, Smack View entry for BRUNETTE in MNL 1890, page 319 MHACLIPMore...
CAMBRIA68609Sail, Spritsail View entry for CAMBRIA in MNL 1890, page 322 MHACLIPMore...
CHARLES16526Sail, Smack View entry for CHARLES in MNL 1890, page 330 MHACLIPMore...
CHARLES & MARY9652Sail, Cutter View entry for CHARLES & MARY in MNL 1890, page 331 MHACLIPMore...
CHLORIS79413Sail, Yawl View entry for CHLORIS in MNL 1890, page 333 MHACLIPMore...
CHRISTABEL58168Sail, Smack View entry for CHRISTABEL in MNL 1890, page 333 MHACLIPMore...
COLNE VALLEY28134Sail, Barge View entry for COLNE VALLEY in MNL 1890, page 338 MHACLIPMore...
COMUS87276Sail, Schooner View entry for COMUS in MNL 1890, page 339 MHACLIPMore...
CONCORD16536Sail, Smack View entry for CONCORD in MNL 1890, page 339 MHACLIPMore...
COUNTESS63044Sail, Ketch View entry for COUNTESS in MNL 1890, page 343 MHACLIPMore...
CURLEW68606Sail, Yawl View entry for CURLEW in MNL 1890, page 345 MHACLIPMore...
CYMOTHAE93963Sail, Cutter View entry for CYMOTHAE in MNL 1890, page 346 MHACLIPMore...
DAISY93969Sail, Ketch View entry for DAISY in MNL 1890, page 347 MHACLIPMore...
DAUNTLESS45303Sail, Smack View entry for DAUNTLESS in MNL 1890, page 349 MHACLIPMore...
DAUNTLESS58175Sail, Yawl View entry for DAUNTLESS in MNL 1890, page 349 MHACLIPMore...
DAVID & ELIZA10368Sail, Smack View entry for DAVID & ELIZA in MNL 1890, page 350 MHACLIPMore...
DIAMOND20283Sail, Cutter View entry for DIAMOND in MNL 1890, page 352 MHACLIPMore...
DOROTHY79420Sail, Yawl View entry for DOROTHY in MNL 1890, page 355 MHACLIPMore...
DREAM52997Sail, Smack View entry for DREAM in MNL 1890, page 356 MHACLIPMore...
DRYAD87285Sail, Yawl View entry for DRYAD in MNL 1890, page 357 MHACLIPMore...
DWARF87293Sail, Cutter View entry for DWARF in MNL 1890, page 358 MHACLIPMore...
E A R L16728Sail, Spritsail View entry for E A R L in MNL 1890, page 358 MHACLIPMore...
EARNEST16548Sail, Smack View entry for EARNEST in MNL 1890, page 360 MHACLIPMore...
ECHO58162Sail, Smack View entry for ECHO in MNL 1890, page 361 MHACLIPMore...
ECHO58165Sail, Barge View entry for ECHO in MNL 1890, page 361 MHACLIPMore...
EDWINA52993Sail, Yawl View entry for EDWINA in MNL 1890, page 364 MHACLIPMore...
ELFREDA87300Sail, Yawl View entry for ELFREDA in MNL 1890, page 365 MHACLIPMore...
ELISE93966Sail, Cutter View entry for ELISE in MNL 1890, page 365 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH9563Sail, Smack View entry for ELIZABETH in MNL 1890, page 368 MHACLIPMore...
ELLA44210Sail, Smack View entry for ELLA in MNL 1890, page 370 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 4.    Records 1 to 50 of 199. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Last
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