Ships shown as registered at Fort William, Ontario in the Appropriation Books

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 Fort William, Ontario may also be found under Port Arthur, Ontario.

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 42 of 42.
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsSort by year of registryABs Crew lists Link
ABELE1731881/1948, Motor, 861 tons View entry for ABELE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
AJACE1795843/1950, Motor, 10 tons View entry for AJACE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ALTADOC1165772/1926, Steam, 2873 tons View entry for ALTADOC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ANNA C MINCH1531139/1926, Steam, 2880 tons View entry for ANNA C MINCH in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ARGUS15311511/1926, Steam, 2539 tons View entry for ARGUS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
BRICOLDOC1531116/1926, Steam, 3279 tons View entry for BRICOLDOC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
CANADOC1165761/1926, Steam, 2894 tons View entry for CANADOC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
CHIEF BAY1795825/1948, Sail, 84 tons View entry for CHIEF BAY in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
EDMAR1731833/1947, Motor, 146 tons View entry for EDMAR in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
F R MCQUEEN1977222/1960, Sail, 78 tons View entry for F R MCQUEEN in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
GASPEDOC1795883/1951, Motor, 3638 tons View entry for GASPEDOC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
GULL BAY1795836/1948, Motor, 42 tons View entry for GULL BAY in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
HUMBERDOC17958514/1950, Motor, 2357 tons View entry for HUMBERDOC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
HYDRUS15311612/1926, Steam, 3277 tons View entry for HYDRUS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
IMPERIAL1165711/1907, Sail, 413 tons View entry for IMPERIAL in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
J T HORNE1165721/1914, Steam, 291 tons View entry for J T HORNE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
JAMES P DONALDSON1165751/1922, Steam, 275 tons View entry for JAMES P DONALDSON in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
LACHINEDOC1977211/1956, Motor, 2193 tons View entry for LACHINEDOC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
LAURIE A1795891/1952, Motor, 14 tons View entry for LAURIE A in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
LUCY S1795814/1948, Sail, 84 tons View entry for LUCY S in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
MANTADOC1165805/1926, Steam, 3060 tons View entry for MANTADOC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
MARGUERITE W1531201/1937, Steam, 192 tons View entry for MARGUERITE W in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
MARILYN GRACE1795872/1951, Motor, 12 tons View entry for MARILYN GRACE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
MARTIN MULLEN1731866/1947, Steam, 4432 tons View entry for MARTIN MULLEN in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
MARY SCOTT1165741/1921, Steam, 42 tons View entry for MARY SCOTT in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
MOSES TAYLOR15311713/1926, Steam, 3188 tons View entry for MOSES TAYLOR in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
NESCO II1731844/1947, Motor, 15 tons View entry for NESCO II in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
NESCO NO 31731903/1948, Sail, 62 tons View entry for NESCO NO 3 in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
NORTH SHORE SUPPLY1531181/1927, Motor, 15 tons View entry for NORTH SHORE SUPPLY in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
ONTADOC1531127/1926, Steam, 3082 tons View entry for ONTADOC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
OSCAR LEHTINEN1731811/1940, Steam, 582 tons View entry for OSCAR LEHTINEN in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
PATERSON1795901/1954, Steam, 8618 tons View entry for PATERSON in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
PRINDOC1165783/1926, Steam, 2837 tons View entry for PRINDOC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
REGULUS15311410/1926, Steam, 3055 tons View entry for REGULUS in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
SAGAMORE1731821/1947, Sail, 3299 tons View entry for SAGAMORE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
SASKADOC1165794/1926, Steam, 2876 tons View entry for SASKADOC in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
SATINLEAF1731892/1948, Motor, 861 tons View entry for SATINLEAF in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
STEEL ELECTRICIAN1731877/1947, Motor, 1865 tons View entry for STEEL ELECTRICIAN in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
THOMAS CRAIGIE1531191/1932, Steam, 26 tons View entry for THOMAS CRAIGIE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
TOWHEE1795861/1951, Motor, 9 tons View entry for TOWHEE in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
VALCARTIER1165732/1914, Steam, 2248 tons View entry for VALCARTIER in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
W D CALVERLEY JNR1731855/1947, Steam, 4075 tons View entry for W D CALVERLEY JNR in the Appropriation Books MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 1.    Records 1 to 42 of 42.
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