Crew lists and agreements for British registered ships show the owner's name on the first page or the heading of the document, often with their address. However, though the ownership of a vessel was divided into 64 shares, only the managing owner is shown. In the case of ships owned by a company, it is often the company name that appears.

This is an index of owners' names shown on the crew lists which CLIP has transcribed from the records held at local archives (so please be aware that this is only a limited list).

Our page on the registration of shipping has more information about how the ownership of a vessel was administered: Registration of shipping

How to search for an owner's name

Use the search form to enter the owner's surname. Do not use wild-cards, such as '?', '%'.

If you wish, you can add a forename.

Then click Search

Reading the results

The results are shown in alphabetic order of surname and forename. They show the vessel name and official number (ON) and her port, with the dates of the voyage or half-year as recorded on the crew list. The archive holding the document is shown with their reference for the document, if available.

Using the results

On the right of the results table are two links.

The Ship button opens a new window or tab, with details of the ship concerned. There are further links on that page, which will show any other owners' names which we have transcribed for that ship.

The second link Transcript shows a transcript of the crew list. Bear in mind that we have only transcribed the main details from the document. The original will always contain more information, for example it will probably show the voyages made during the period covered by the document.

Data sources

This data is taken from the crew lists and agreements which are held at:

• Anglesey Archives - port of Beaumaris, 100% complete.
• Devon Archives and Local Studies - Devon ports and vessels with a Devonshire connection, 100% complete, including data from photocopies which they hold.
• Glamorgan Archives - port of Cardiff covering the years 1863, 1871, 1881, 1901 and 1911. This project is ongoing at the archives.
• Lancashire Archives - Lancashire ports, 30% complete, data transferred from transcripts made by Lancashire Family History and Heraldry Society volunteers.
• National Library of Wales - port of Aberystwyth, 100% complete, data transferred from transcripts made by NLW volunteers.
• Portsmouth History Centre - ports of Portsmouth and Cowes, 100% complete.
• Southampton Archives - documents for Union-Castle vessels, 100% complete.

The documents cover the period 1863 to 1913.

Other sources

Unfortunately, there is no quick way to make a list of the owners of a particular ship.

However, as described above, the Ship  link on the results page provides more details of the ship. In turn, that page has a further link which will show all the owners of the ship who are listed in our transcripts. There is also a link on that page which will show where the crew lists are held, which could be used to trace further information.