Ships shown as registered at Ayr in the Mercantile Navy List for 1857

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 1.    Records 1 to 38 of 38.
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number MNL Crew lists Link
AGNES15156 View entry for AGNES in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AGNES KELLY1716 View entry for AGNES KELLY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDER15906 View entry for ALEXANDER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ARRAN MAID1248 View entry for ARRAN MAID in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AYRSHIRE LASS15117 View entry for AYRSHIRE LASS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BRUCE15131 View entry for BRUCE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DUNASKIN16408 View entry for DUNASKIN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EARL GREY12161 View entry for EARL GREY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EARL OF CARRICK22812 View entry for EARL OF CARRICK in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH15142 View entry for ELIZABETH in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH & MARY17512 View entry for ELIZABETH & MARY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH MCCLURE1705 View entry for ELIZABETH MCCLURE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ENTERPRIZE15127 View entry for ENTERPRIZE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EUPHEMIA FULLARTON15139 View entry for EUPHEMIA FULLARTON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FAIRLIE & JANE15133 View entry for FAIRLIE & JANE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FAIRY1337 View entry for FAIRY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FLORA15166 View entry for FLORA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
GRACE WRIGHT15110 View entry for GRACE WRIGHT in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HELEN15102 View entry for HELEN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
JAMES PATON12098 View entry for JAMES PATON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
JANET15137 View entry for JANET in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
JEAN MCCREA1302 View entry for JEAN MCCREA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
JOHN & MARY15134 View entry for JOHN & MARY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
JOHN PAUL15171 View entry for JOHN PAUL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
JOSEPH CUNARD15130 View entry for JOSEPH CUNARD in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
KITTIWAKE15168 View entry for KITTIWAKE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
LYDIA MCHENRY15145 View entry for LYDIA MCHENRY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
MAGOG33054 View entry for MAGOG in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
MARGARET15141 View entry for MARGARET in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
MARY GRAHAM1305 View entry for MARY GRAHAM in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
MINERVA34858 View entry for MINERVA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
NANCY RODGER12067 View entry for NANCY RODGER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
PRINCESS VICTORIA22894 View entry for PRINCESS VICTORIA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
SAINT LAURENCE15907 View entry for SAINT LAURENCE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
SISTER ANN15101 View entry for SISTER ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
TAMMIE NORIE15165 View entry for TAMMIE NORIE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
UNICORN15161 View entry for UNICORN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
WILLIAM15111 View entry for WILLIAM in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 1.    Records 1 to 38 of 38.
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