Ships shown as registered at Swansea 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 3.    Records 1 to 50 of 142. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number MNL Crew lists Link
ADELIA ANN23236 View entry for ADELIA ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AGNES JERMYN203 View entry for AGNES JERMYN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALBION14047 View entry for ALBION in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ALLIHIES7929 View entry for ALLIHIES in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANN14017 View entry for ANN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ANNIE9508 View entry for ANNIE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
APPLETON14193 View entry for APPLETON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ARIEL7927 View entry for ARIEL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
AVON14104 View entry for AVON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BEDFORD14260 View entry for BEDFORD in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BESSY7928 View entry for BESSY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BLACK DIAMOND14118 View entry for BLACK DIAMOND in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
BURNCOOSE25418 View entry for BURNCOOSE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CARMARTHEN PACKET14112 View entry for CARMARTHEN PACKET in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CARTHAGENIAN7029 View entry for CARTHAGENIAN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CASTLE7932 View entry for CASTLE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CATHERINE ROPER460 View entry for CATHERINE ROPER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CHELYDRA14082 View entry for CHELYDRA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CHERUB14107 View entry for CHERUB in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CHIEFTAIN5832 View entry for CHIEFTAIN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CHIEFTAIN7930 View entry for CHIEFTAIN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
CONQUEROR6874 View entry for CONQUEROR in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
COUSINS13256 View entry for COUSINS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DART14171 View entry for DART in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DEE18937 View entry for DEE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DEER SLAYER25910 View entry for DEER SLAYER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DELVIN7933 View entry for DELVIN in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DEVONSHIRE14131 View entry for DEVONSHIRE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DIAMOND14162 View entry for DIAMOND in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DINAS11929 View entry for DINAS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DOVE14133 View entry for DOVE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DRAKE14085 View entry for DRAKE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DUKE OF CORNWALL25750 View entry for DUKE OF CORNWALL in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
DUSTY MILLER1097 View entry for DUSTY MILLER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EBENEZER14155 View entry for EBENEZER in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ECHO13880 View entry for ECHO in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ECLAT1277 View entry for ECLAT in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELEANOR14137 View entry for ELEANOR in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELEPHANT7931 View entry for ELEPHANT in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELIZA17559 View entry for ELIZA in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELIZA BEYNON14002 View entry for ELIZA BEYNON in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH11619 View entry for ELIZABETH in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ELIZABETH14287 View entry for ELIZABETH in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EMILY6412 View entry for EMILY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
EMILY11936 View entry for EMILY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ENERGY14050 View entry for ENERGY in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ENFIELD13416 View entry for ENFIELD in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
ESTHER FRANCIS14197 View entry for ESTHER FRANCIS in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FAME15308 View entry for FAME in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
FOX-HOLE14129 View entry for FOX-HOLE in MNL 1857, page  MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 3.    Records 1 to 50 of 142. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | Last
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