Ships shown as registered at Townsville in the Mercantile Navy List for 1920

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 99. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
ALANA128338Sail, Ketch View entry for ALANA in MNL 1920, page 672 MHACLIPMore...
ALASKA119570Sail, Ketch View entry for ALASKA in MNL 1920, page 672 MHACLIPMore...
ALBATROSS I1283281914, Motor View entry for ALBATROSS I in MNL 1920, page 11 MHACLIPMore...
ALCIA128335Sail, Ketch View entry for ALCIA in MNL 1920, page 673 MHACLIPMore...
ALERT1019561909, Steam View entry for ALERT in MNL 1920, page 14 MHACLIPMore...
ALEXA128326Sail, Ketch View entry for ALEXA in MNL 1920, page 674 MHACLIPMore...
ANGLIA121576Sail, Ketch View entry for ANGLIA in MNL 1920, page 680 MHACLIPMore...
ARAWA119568Sail, Ketch View entry for ARAWA in MNL 1920, page 685 MHACLIPMore...
ARCADIA119569Sail, Ketch View entry for ARCADIA in MNL 1920, page 685 MHACLIPMore...
ARIEL89893Sail, Lugger View entry for ARIEL in MNL 1920, page 686 MHACLIPMore...
ARLINE121551Sail, Ketch View entry for ARLINE in MNL 1920, page 686 MHACLIPMore...
AROHA119561Sail, Ketch View entry for AROHA in MNL 1920, page 687 MHACLIPMore...
ASAHI121556Sail, Ketch View entry for ASAHI in MNL 1920, page 688 MHACLIPMore...
ASSAN CEYLON101090Sail, Ketch View entry for ASSAN CEYLON in MNL 1920, page 688 MHACLIPMore...
ATHALIE128331Sail, Ketch View entry for ATHALIE in MNL 1920, page 688 MHACLIPMore...
BALTIA121575Sail, Ketch View entry for BALTIA in MNL 1920, page 693 MHACLIPMore...
BASIL102420Sail, Ketch View entry for BASIL in MNL 1920, page 694 MHACLIPMore...
BOLTON118597Sail, Ketch View entry for BOLTON in MNL 1920, page 702 MHACLIPMore...
BRENDA1215811910, Steam View entry for BRENDA in MNL 1920, page 72 MHACLIPMore...
BRIAN128337Sail, Ketch View entry for BRIAN in MNL 1920, page 704 MHACLIPMore...
CANDIA121580Sail, Ketch View entry for CANDIA in MNL 1920, page 711 MHACLIPMore...
CECIL RHODES901341909, Steam View entry for CECIL RHODES in MNL 1920, page 98 MHACLIPMore...
CLANSMAN118598Sail, Ketch View entry for CLANSMAN in MNL 1920, page 720 MHACLIPMore...
CLARY121560Sail, Ketch View entry for CLARY in MNL 1920, page 721 MHACLIPMore...
CLEVELAND BAY1283211911, Steam View entry for CLEVELAND BAY in MNL 1920, page 118 MHACLIPMore...
CLYDE87531Sail, Schooner View entry for CLYDE in MNL 1920, page 722 MHACLIPMore...
COLIN128330Sail, Ketch View entry for COLIN in MNL 1920, page 723 MHACLIPMore...
CORAL SEA128336Sail, Ketch View entry for CORAL SEA in MNL 1920, page 726 MHACLIPMore...
CUCKOO101068Sail, Ketch View entry for CUCKOO in MNL 1920, page 730 MHACLIPMore...
DAHLIA119558Sail, Ketch View entry for DAHLIA in MNL 1920, page 734 MHACLIPMore...
DIANA94263Sail, Schooner View entry for DIANA in MNL 1920, page 740 MHACLIPMore...
DONALD119580Sail, Ketch View entry for DONALD in MNL 1920, page 742 MHACLIPMore...
DOROTHY118591Sail, Ketch View entry for DOROTHY in MNL 1920, page 743 MHACLIPMore...
DULCIA128327Sail, Ketch View entry for DULCIA in MNL 1920, page 746 MHACLIPMore...
EDIE121569Sail, Ketch View entry for EDIE in MNL 1920, page 750 MHACLIPMore...
EDITH110673Sail, Ketch View entry for EDITH in MNL 1920, page 751 MHACLIPMore...
EMERALD102410Sail, Ketch View entry for EMERALD in MNL 1920, page 760 MHACLIPMore...
ERIC110665Sail, Ketch View entry for ERIC in MNL 1920, page 764 MHACLIPMore...
FLORENCE102401Sail, Ketch View entry for FLORENCE in MNL 1920, page 777 MHACLIPMore...
FRANCIS PRITT110671Sail, Ketch View entry for FRANCIS PRITT in MNL 1920, page 781 MHACLIPMore...
FREYA101002Sail, Lugger View entry for FREYA in MNL 1920, page 783 MHACLIPMore...
GLAD110677Sail, Ketch View entry for GLAD in MNL 1920, page 793 MHACLIPMore...
GLORIA121565Sail, Ketch View entry for GLORIA in MNL 1920, page 795 MHACLIPMore...
GWENDOLINE119552Sail, Ketch View entry for GWENDOLINE in MNL 1920, page 800 MHACLIPMore...
HAKU121562Sail, Ketch View entry for HAKU in MNL 1920, page 803 MHACLIPMore...
HAURAKI119577Sail, Ketch View entry for HAURAKI in MNL 1920, page 806 MHACLIPMore...
HINEMOA119566Sail, Ketch View entry for HINEMOA in MNL 1920, page 812 MHACLIPMore...
HUIA119567Sail, Ketch View entry for HUIA in MNL 1920, page 815 MHACLIPMore...
IDA102418Sail, Ketch View entry for IDA in MNL 1920, page 817 MHACLIPMore...
IGNACIO89900Sail, Ketch View entry for IGNACIO in MNL 1920, page 817 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 2.    Records 1 to 50 of 99. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
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