Ships shown as registered at Poole 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 2.    Records 1 to 50 of 97. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number MNL Crew lists Link
ABBY19614 View entry for ABBY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ABIGAIL9886 View entry for ABIGAIL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ADVENTURE5582 View entry for ADVENTURE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALARM640 View entry for ALARM in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBION13282 View entry for ALBION in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALMA12585 View entry for ALMA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANGLER13279 View entry for ANGLER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN13251 View entry for ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANNABELL13233 View entry for ANNABELL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANTELOPE3928 View entry for ANTELOPE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BELINDA5015 View entry for BELINDA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BRIGHTON6310 View entry for BRIGHTON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CAROLINE32807 View entry for CAROLINE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CATHERINE822 View entry for CATHERINE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CHARLOTTE MARIA26224 View entry for CHARLOTTE MARIA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CORREGGIO23805 View entry for CORREGGIO in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CRYSTAL13807 View entry for CRYSTAL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DAVID13208 View entry for DAVID in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DELIA19693 View entry for DELIA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DESMOND13224 View entry for DESMOND in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DINAH MULOCH13292 View entry for DINAH MULOCH in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DOROTHY13285 View entry for DOROTHY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DOVE13218 View entry for DOVE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DUKE OF GLOUCESTER13210 View entry for DUKE OF GLOUCESTER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EGYPTIAN1499 View entry for EGYPTIAN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EXETER16703 View entry for EXETER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EXPERIMENT13222 View entry for EXPERIMENT in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EXPRESS13242 View entry for EXPRESS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EXTRAVAGANZA12582 View entry for EXTRAVAGANZA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FAITH13227 View entry for FAITH in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FINDON13284 View entry for FINDON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FLORA13269 View entry for FLORA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FLY832 View entry for FLY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FOAM21560 View entry for FOAM in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FOLLY7917 View entry for FOLLY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FREEDOM13273 View entry for FREEDOM in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
GARTERAIG32959 View entry for GARTERAIG in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
GLIDE22457 View entry for GLIDE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
GOSSAMER13286 View entry for GOSSAMER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HARMONY13228 View entry for HARMONY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HEARTS OF OAK13241 View entry for HEARTS OF OAK in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HECTOR3565 View entry for HECTOR in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HENRY & ELIZABETH13291 View entry for HENRY & ELIZABETH in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HENRY & JANE19622 View entry for HENRY & JANE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HENRY DUNCAN32885 View entry for HENRY DUNCAN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HEROES OF ALMA13278 View entry for HEROES OF ALMA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
HEROINE1650 View entry for HEROINE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
I O13231 View entry for I O in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ISABELLA13886 View entry for ISABELLA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ISABELLA33959 View entry for ISABELLA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 2.    Records 1 to 50 of 97. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | Last
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