Ships shown as registered at Swansea 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 5.    Records 1 to 50 of 222. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Last
Ship Sort by name Official number Sort by official number DetailsMNL Crew lists Link
ACACIA21875Sail View entry for ACACIA in MNL 1870, page 2 MHACLIPMore...
ACHILLES24681Sail View entry for ACHILLES in MNL 1870, page 3 MHACLIPMore...
ADA LETITIA27609Sail View entry for ADA LETITIA in MNL 1870, page 4 MHACLIPMore...
ADELIA ANN23236Sail View entry for ADELIA ANN in MNL 1870, page 5 MHACLIPMore...
ADMIRAL BLAKE10939Sail View entry for ADMIRAL BLAKE in MNL 1870, page 5 MHACLIPMore...
ADMIRAL FITZROY47858Sail View entry for ADMIRAL FITZROY in MNL 1870, page 5 MHACLIPMore...
ALADDIN59704Sail View entry for ALADDIN in MNL 1870, page 9 MHACLIPMore...
ALBATROSS49659Sail View entry for ALBATROSS in MNL 1870, page 10 MHACLIPMore...
ALFRED22383Sail View entry for ALFRED in MNL 1870, page 14 MHACLIPMore...
ALPHA47854Sail View entry for ALPHA in MNL 1870, page 17 MHACLIPMore...
AMERICA57084Sail View entry for AMERICA in MNL 1870, page 19 MHACLIPMore...
ANN MITCHELL56037Sail View entry for ANN MITCHELL in MNL 1870, page 23 MHACLIPMore...
ANTONIO VINENT28056Sail View entry for ANTONIO VINENT in MNL 1870, page 28 MHACLIPMore...
ATLANTIC60635Sail View entry for ATLANTIC in MNL 1870, page 34 MHACLIPMore...
AUGUSTA24692Steam View entry for AUGUSTA in MNL 1870, page 35 MHACLIPMore...
AVON14104Sail View entry for AVON in MNL 1870, page 37 MHACLIPMore...
BEDFORD14260Sail View entry for BEDFORD in MNL 1870, page 40 MHACLIPMore...
BENJAMIN BOYD7803Sail View entry for BENJAMIN BOYD in MNL 1870, page 43 MHACLIPMore...
BERTHA56036Sail View entry for BERTHA in MNL 1870, page 43 MHACLIPMore...
BESSIE MITCHELL60639Sail View entry for BESSIE MITCHELL in MNL 1870, page 44 MHACLIPMore...
BESSY7928Sail View entry for BESSY in MNL 1870, page 44 MHACLIPMore...
BETA51101Sail View entry for BETA in MNL 1870, page 44 MHACLIPMore...
BRITANNIA28139Sail View entry for BRITANNIA in MNL 1870, page 52 MHACLIPMore...
C H S44935Sail View entry for C H S in MNL 1870, page 57 MHACLIPMore...
CALDERA29595Sail View entry for CALDERA in MNL 1870, page 57 MHACLIPMore...
CAMBRIAN56027Sail View entry for CAMBRIAN in MNL 1870, page 58 MHACLIPMore...
CAPRICORN22161Sail View entry for CAPRICORN in MNL 1870, page 60 MHACLIPMore...
CASTLE7932Sail View entry for CASTLE in MNL 1870, page 62 MHACLIPMore...
CATHERINE19260Sail View entry for CATHERINE in MNL 1870, page 64 MHACLIPMore...
CHARLEY29599Steam View entry for CHARLEY in MNL 1870, page 69 MHACLIPMore...
CHARLOTTE26742Sail View entry for CHARLOTTE in MNL 1870, page 69 MHACLIPMore...
CHIEFTAIN5832Steam View entry for CHIEFTAIN in MNL 1870, page 71 MHACLIPMore...
CLARA51944Sail View entry for CLARA in MNL 1870, page 74 MHACLIPMore...
CONSTANCE19762Sail View entry for CONSTANCE in MNL 1870, page 81 MHACLIPMore...
CORNWALL378Sail View entry for CORNWALL in MNL 1870, page 83 MHACLIPMore...
CWM AVON60625Sail View entry for CWM AVON in MNL 1870, page 87 MHACLIPMore...
DART4440Sail View entry for DART in MNL 1870, page 90 MHACLIPMore...
DAVID JENKINS47855Sail View entry for DAVID JENKINS in MNL 1870, page 91 MHACLIPMore...
DELAWARE28052Sail View entry for DELAWARE in MNL 1870, page 92 MHACLIPMore...
DELPHI54261Sail View entry for DELPHI in MNL 1870, page 93 MHACLIPMore...
DELTA51107Sail View entry for DELTA in MNL 1870, page 93 MHACLIPMore...
DINAS11929Sail View entry for DINAS in MNL 1870, page 95 MHACLIPMore...
DONNA28058Sail View entry for DONNA in MNL 1870, page 97 MHACLIPMore...
DONNA MARIA45392Sail View entry for DONNA MARIA in MNL 1870, page 97 MHACLIPMore...
DORA60628Sail View entry for DORA in MNL 1870, page 97 MHACLIPMore...
DRAGON FLY20450Steam View entry for DRAGON FLY in MNL 1870, page 99 MHACLIPMore...
DRAKE14085Sail View entry for DRAKE in MNL 1870, page 99 MHACLIPMore...
DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND753Sail View entry for DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND in MNL 1870, page 100 MHACLIPMore...
EAGLE2497Steam View entry for EAGLE in MNL 1870, page 102 MHACLIPMore...
EDITH MAY51930Sail View entry for EDITH MAY in MNL 1870, page 105 MHACLIPMore...
Page 1 of 5.    Records 1 to 50 of 222. Select page: Next | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Last
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