Ships shown as registered at Dover 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  ? .

Page 1 of 2.    Records 1 to 50 of 51. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
AERA16714Sail View entry for AERA in MNL 1870, page 6 MHACLIPMore...
ANN16766Sail View entry for ANN in MNL 1870, page 21 MHACLIPMore...
ANNABELL13233Sail View entry for ANNABELL in MNL 1870, page 25 MHACLIPMore...
BLUE EYED MAID16764Sail View entry for BLUE EYED MAID in MNL 1870, page 47 MHACLIPMore...
COMET16727Sail View entry for COMET in MNL 1870, page 78 MHACLIPMore...
COSMOPOLITE19950Sail View entry for COSMOPOLITE in MNL 1870, page 84 MHACLIPMore...
CYPRIAN QUEEN28891Sail View entry for CYPRIAN QUEEN in MNL 1870, page 87 MHACLIPMore...
DEERHOUND48957Sail View entry for DEERHOUND in MNL 1870, page 92 MHACLIPMore...
DISPATCH16715Sail View entry for DISPATCH in MNL 1870, page 96 MHACLIPMore...
EDITH ANNIE56648Sail View entry for EDITH ANNIE in MNL 1870, page 105 MHACLIPMore...
EMERALD44921Sail View entry for EMERALD in MNL 1870, page 119 MHACLIPMore...
EMILY23126Sail View entry for EMILY in MNL 1870, page 119 MHACLIPMore...
EMILY JANE58681Sail View entry for EMILY JANE in MNL 1870, page 120 MHACLIPMore...
ENGINEER44922Steam View entry for ENGINEER in MNL 1870, page 124 MHACLIPMore...
FAGG19011Sail View entry for FAGG in MNL 1870, page 132 MHACLIPMore...
FRANCES48960Sail View entry for FRANCES in MNL 1870, page 146 MHACLIPMore...
GARIBALDI48951Sail View entry for GARIBALDI in MNL 1870, page 151 MHACLIPMore...
GEM16752Sail View entry for GEM in MNL 1870, page 152 MHACLIPMore...
INVICTA58685Sail View entry for INVICTA in MNL 1870, page 187 MHACLIPMore...
JAMES16756Sail View entry for JAMES in MNL 1870, page 193 MHACLIPMore...
JULIA16734Sail View entry for JULIA in MNL 1870, page 210 MHACLIPMore...
KINBURN39035Sail View entry for KINBURN in MNL 1870, page 216 MHACLIPMore...
LADY HARVEY58682Sail View entry for LADY HARVEY in MNL 1870, page 219 MHACLIPMore...
LEON RAYMUNDO17552Sail View entry for LEON RAYMUNDO in MNL 1870, page 226 MHACLIPMore...
LEWES LASS24325Sail View entry for LEWES LASS in MNL 1870, page 226 MHACLIPMore...
LUCY5018Sail View entry for LUCY in MNL 1870, page 236 MHACLIPMore...
MARGARET & ANN3606Sail View entry for MARGARET & ANN in MNL 1870, page 246 MHACLIPMore...
MIZPAH4419Sail View entry for MIZPAH in MNL 1870, page 271 MHACLIPMore...
NEW UNION16519Sail View entry for NEW UNION in MNL 1870, page 281 MHACLIPMore...
ONDINE16777Steam View entry for ONDINE in MNL 1870, page 289 MHACLIPMore...
PALMERSTON44923Steam View entry for PALMERSTON in MNL 1870, page 294 MHACLIPMore...
PEGGY20353Sail View entry for PEGGY in MNL 1870, page 298 MHACLIPMore...
PETREL58683Sail View entry for PETREL in MNL 1870, page 301 MHACLIPMore...
PREMIER16758Sail View entry for PREMIER in MNL 1870, page 307 MHACLIPMore...
PRISCILLA55979Sail View entry for PRISCILLA in MNL 1870, page 311 MHACLIPMore...
PRUDENCE48958Sail View entry for PRUDENCE in MNL 1870, page 314 MHACLIPMore...
PSYCHE48954Sail View entry for PSYCHE in MNL 1870, page 314 MHACLIPMore...
QUI VIVE44924Sail View entry for QUI VIVE in MNL 1870, page 317 MHACLIPMore...
RANGER23915Sail View entry for RANGER in MNL 1870, page 319 MHACLIPMore...
ROMULUS1174Sail View entry for ROMULUS in MNL 1870, page 331 MHACLIPMore...
ROVER16726Sail View entry for ROVER in MNL 1870, page 334 MHACLIPMore...
SCOTIA5295Sail View entry for SCOTIA in MNL 1870, page 347 MHACLIPMore...
SEA LARK15802Sail View entry for SEA LARK in MNL 1870, page 349 MHACLIPMore...
SILVAN16723Sail View entry for SILVAN in MNL 1870, page 354 MHACLIPMore...
SPARTAN22113Sail View entry for SPARTAN in MNL 1870, page 360 MHACLIPMore...
STAR2580Sail View entry for STAR in MNL 1870, page 363 MHACLIPMore...
STEDFAST16753Sail View entry for STEDFAST in MNL 1870, page 365 MHACLIPMore...
SURPRISE58684Sail View entry for SURPRISE in MNL 1870, page 369 MHACLIPMore...
TRUE BLUE28938Sail View entry for TRUE BLUE in MNL 1870, page 386 MHACLIPMore...
VICTORIA & ALBERT7652Sail View entry for VICTORIA & ALBERT in MNL 1870, page 398 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 2.    Records 1 to 50 of 51. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
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