Ships shown as registered at Plymouth 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 8.    Records 1 to 50 of 396. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
ABEONA11235Sail View entry for ABEONA in MNL 1870, page 2 MHACLIPMore...
ABEONA15719Sail View entry for ABEONA in MNL 1870, page 2 MHACLIPMore...
ACTIVE5704Sail View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1870, page 3 MHACLIPMore...
ACTIVE25207Sail View entry for ACTIVE in MNL 1870, page 3 MHACLIPMore...
ADA53057Sail View entry for ADA in MNL 1870, page 4 MHACLIPMore...
ADA53189Sail View entry for ADA in MNL 1870, page 4 MHACLIPMore...
ADVENTURE5630Sail View entry for ADVENTURE in MNL 1870, page 6 MHACLIPMore...
AERIAL53053Steam View entry for AERIAL in MNL 1870, page 6 MHACLIPMore...
AGENORIA8530Sail View entry for AGENORIA in MNL 1870, page 7 MHACLIPMore...
AGNES5678Sail View entry for AGNES in MNL 1870, page 8 MHACLIPMore...
ALARM25200Sail View entry for ALARM in MNL 1870, page 9 MHACLIPMore...
ALBERT45710Sail View entry for ALBERT in MNL 1870, page 10 MHACLIPMore...
ALBION12282Sail View entry for ALBION in MNL 1870, page 11 MHACLIPMore...
ALFRED5699Sail View entry for ALFRED in MNL 1870, page 14 MHACLIPMore...
ALICE JANE45693Sail View entry for ALICE JANE in MNL 1870, page 15 MHACLIPMore...
ALICE YEO13078Sail View entry for ALICE YEO in MNL 1870, page 15 MHACLIPMore...
ALPHA11103Sail View entry for ALPHA in MNL 1870, page 17 MHACLIPMore...
AMELIA11503Sail View entry for AMELIA in MNL 1870, page 19 MHACLIPMore...
AMERICAN EAGLE62143Sail View entry for AMERICAN EAGLE in MNL 1870, page 19 MHACLIPMore...
AMINE45692Sail View entry for AMINE in MNL 1870, page 19 MHACLIPMore...
AMITY11434Sail View entry for AMITY in MNL 1870, page 19 MHACLIPMore...
AMPHITRITE27275Sail View entry for AMPHITRITE in MNL 1870, page 20 MHACLIPMore...
AMY62136Sail View entry for AMY in MNL 1870, page 20 MHACLIPMore...
ANN12286Sail View entry for ANN in MNL 1870, page 22 MHACLIPMore...
ANN14482Sail View entry for ANN in MNL 1870, page 22 MHACLIPMore...
ANN21507Sail View entry for ANN in MNL 1870, page 22 MHACLIPMore...
ANN WHEATON53055Sail View entry for ANN WHEATON in MNL 1870, page 23 MHACLIPMore...
ANNE5635Sail View entry for ANNE in MNL 1870, page 25 MHACLIPMore...
ANTAGONIST14492Sail View entry for ANTAGONIST in MNL 1870, page 28 MHACLIPMore...
ARIEL24724Sail View entry for ARIEL in MNL 1870, page 31 MHACLIPMore...
ARIEL48961Sail View entry for ARIEL in MNL 1870, page 31 MHACLIPMore...
ARROW21699Sail View entry for ARROW in MNL 1870, page 32 MHACLIPMore...
ASPENDUS22356Sail View entry for ASPENDUS in MNL 1870, page 33 MHACLIPMore...
AUGUSTA33785Sail View entry for AUGUSTA in MNL 1870, page 35 MHACLIPMore...
AZALEA22063Sail View entry for AZALEA in MNL 1870, page 37 MHACLIPMore...
AZOF9042Sail View entry for AZOF in MNL 1870, page 37 MHACLIPMore...
AZORES PACKET5411Sail View entry for AZORES PACKET in MNL 1870, page 37 MHACLIPMore...
AZORIAN320Sail View entry for AZORIAN in MNL 1870, page 37 MHACLIPMore...
BACCHANTE14484Sail View entry for BACCHANTE in MNL 1870, page 37 MHACLIPMore...
BARON12296Sail View entry for BARON in MNL 1870, page 39 MHACLIPMore...
BELLE5706Sail View entry for BELLE in MNL 1870, page 41 MHACLIPMore...
BELLE FRANCAISE33403Sail View entry for BELLE FRANCAISE in MNL 1870, page 41 MHACLIPMore...
BELLE OF DEVON18176Sail View entry for BELLE OF DEVON in MNL 1870, page 42 MHACLIPMore...
BELLE OF THE PLYM28123Sail View entry for BELLE OF THE PLYM in MNL 1870, page 42 MHACLIPMore...
BELMONT21101Sail View entry for BELMONT in MNL 1870, page 42 MHACLIPMore...
BESSEY SIMONS11427Sail View entry for BESSEY SIMONS in MNL 1870, page 43 MHACLIPMore...
BEZALEEL6777Sail View entry for BEZALEEL in MNL 1870, page 45 MHACLIPMore...
BLUE BELL53066Sail View entry for BLUE BELL in MNL 1870, page 47 MHACLIPMore...
BOHEMIAN GIRL19349Sail View entry for BOHEMIAN GIRL in MNL 1870, page 48 MHACLIPMore...
BONETTA56656Sail View entry for BONETTA in MNL 1870, page 48 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 8.    Records 1 to 50 of 396. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Last
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