Ships shown as registered at Penzance in the Mercantile Navy List for 1880

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 81. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
ACADIAN42160Sail, Ketch View entry for ACADIAN in MNL 1880, page 146 MHACLIPMore...
AGAMEMNON67012Sail, Lugger View entry for AGAMEMNON in MNL 1880, page 151 MHACLIPMore...
ALEXANDRE67016Sail, Dandy View entry for ALEXANDRE in MNL 1880, page 157 MHACLIPMore...
ALPHA51302Sail, Schooner View entry for ALPHA in MNL 1880, page 162 MHACLIPMore...
ALPHA67007Sail, Lugger View entry for ALPHA in MNL 1880, page 162 MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE27390Sail, Schooner View entry for ANNIE in MNL 1880, page 171 MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE49954Sail, Schooner View entry for ANNIE in MNL 1880, page 171 MHACLIPMore...
ARGUS60764Sail, Cutter View entry for ARGUS in MNL 1880, page 176 MHACLIPMore...
BARON58384Sail, Lugger View entry for BARON in MNL 1880, page 184 MHACLIPMore...
BESSIE BELLE56714Sail, Schooner View entry for BESSIE BELLE in MNL 1880, page 189 MHACLIPMore...
BETA68556Sail, Schooner View entry for BETA in MNL 1880, page 189 MHACLIPMore...
BRITISH LADY11493Sail, Schooner View entry for BRITISH LADY in MNL 1880, page 198 MHACLIPMore...
BROTHERS29584Sail, Lugger View entry for BROTHERS in MNL 1880, page 199 MHACLIPMore...
CHARLES TUCKER14136Sail, Schooner View entry for CHARLES TUCKER in MNL 1880, page 214 MHACLIPMore...
CHYANDOUR15507Sail, Schooner View entry for CHYANDOUR in MNL 1880, page 217 MHACLIPMore...
CORDELIA5516Sail, Schooner View entry for CORDELIA in MNL 1880, page 227 MHACLIPMore...
DIANA58379Sail, Lugger View entry for DIANA in MNL 1880, page 239 MHACLIPMore...
DUKE OF CORNWALL19320Sail, Schooner View entry for DUKE OF CORNWALL in MNL 1880, page 244 MHACLIPMore...
EARL OF DEVON13457Sail, Schooner View entry for EARL OF DEVON in MNL 1880, page 246 MHACLIPMore...
ELIZA JANE13407Sail, Schooner View entry for ELIZA JANE in MNL 1880, page 255 MHACLIPMore...
ENDEAVOUR56708Sail, Lugger View entry for ENDEAVOUR in MNL 1880, page 269 MHACLIPMore...
ENTERPRISE56299Sail, Ketch View entry for ENTERPRISE in MNL 1880, page 270 MHACLIPMore...
EXCEL58385Sail, Lugger View entry for EXCEL in MNL 1880, page 276 MHACLIPMore...
EXCELLENT58387Sail, Lugger View entry for EXCELLENT in MNL 1880, page 276 MHACLIPMore...
FEAR NOT27600Sail, Lugger View entry for FEAR NOT in MNL 1880, page 283 MHACLIPMore...
FLING56715Sail, Lugger View entry for FLING in MNL 1880, page 285 MHACLIPMore...
FLYING SCUD56713Sail, Lugger View entry for FLYING SCUD in MNL 1880, page 289 MHACLIPMore...
GANGES67011Sail, Lugger View entry for GANGES in MNL 1880, page 296 MHACLIPMore...
GARLAND20314Sail, Ketch View entry for GARLAND in MNL 1880, page 297 MHACLIPMore...
GAZELLE18245Sail, Schooner View entry for GAZELLE in MNL 1880, page 298 MHACLIPMore...
GEM49960Sail, Schooner View entry for GEM in MNL 1880, page 298 MHACLIPMore...
GIRL OF THE PERIOD58378Sail, Brigantine View entry for GIRL OF THE PERIOD in MNL 1880, page 303 MHACLIPMore...
GLEANER67002Sail, Lugger View entry for GLEANER in MNL 1880, page 305 MHACLIPMore...
GLOW WORM257211871, Steam View entry for GLOW WORM in MNL 1880, page 56 MHACLIPMore...
HERALD19314Sail, Schooner View entry for HERALD in MNL 1880, page 323 MHACLIPMore...
HERO3502Sail, Schooner View entry for HERO in MNL 1880, page 324 MHACLIPMore...
J H67003Sail, Lugger View entry for J H in MNL 1880, page 340 MHACLIPMore...
JANE THOMSON28278Sail, Brig View entry for JANE THOMSON in MNL 1880, page 346 MHACLIPMore...
JOHN KENDALL49957Sail, Brig View entry for JOHN KENDALL in MNL 1880, page 354 MHACLIPMore...
KATIE43541Sail, Schooner View entry for KATIE in MNL 1880, page 363 MHACLIPMore...
KILLIOW18314Sail, Schooner View entry for KILLIOW in MNL 1880, page 364 MHACLIPMore...
LADY ELIZABETH67004Sail, Cutter View entry for LADY ELIZABETH in MNL 1880, page 369 MHACLIPMore...
LADY OF THE LAKE58382Sail, Lugger View entry for LADY OF THE LAKE in MNL 1880, page 371 MHACLIPMore...
LAFROWDA56707Sail, Schooner View entry for LAFROWDA in MNL 1880, page 371 MHACLIPMore...
LOUISE58369Sail, Smack View entry for LOUISE in MNL 1880, page 389 MHACLIPMore...
MAGIC19336Sail, Brigantine View entry for MAGIC in MNL 1880, page 395 MHACLIPMore...
MARY67005Sail, Lugger View entry for MARY in MNL 1880, page 409 MHACLIPMore...
MARY BOYNS18247Sail, Schooner View entry for MARY BOYNS in MNL 1880, page 414 MHACLIPMore...
MARY JAMES29736Sail, Schooner View entry for MARY JAMES in MNL 1880, page 416 MHACLIPMore...
MATCHLESS67001Sail, Lugger View entry for MATCHLESS in MNL 1880, page 420 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 2.    Records 1 to 50 of 81. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
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