Transcript of crew list: SURPRISE, 55387, 21/7/1879 to 27/9/1879, Eng 1

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Crew lists and agreements for British registered ships show details of the ship, the owners and the master with a list of the crew.

This is a transcript of the details shown on a crew list which CLIP has transcribed from the records held at local archives.

More details of crew lists are here: Crew lists

Reading the transcript

This page is linked from other pages, such as our indexes of seafarers.

If there are more documents for the ship for that year, links to them will be displayed at the top of the page so that you can search for other records for the seafarer or the ship.

The Ship details section of the transcript shows the details taken from the front page of the document, or the header for half-yearly returns.

It also shows the name of the archive holding the document and the archive reference.

The Crew names section shows a transcript of the entries for the crew, in the order in which they appear in the original document. If the link to this page comes from the index of seafarers, that person's record will be highlighted. Crew members occasionally signed off and then signed on again, so it is a good idea to scan all through the list.

The original crew list will show more detail than our transcript so it is well worth obtaining a copy of the document. For example, it will show the person's wages and when they signed on and off. There may also be details of the voyages, records of any disciplinary matters and accidents to the ship.

Data sources

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

The documents cover the period 1863 to 1913.

We do not have transcripts for any other crew lists for 1879 for this ship. 

Ship details

Vessel  SURPRISE Dates  21/7/1879  to 27/9/1879
Official number  55387 List type  Eng 1
Ownership  WM GOOCH SPICER Registered  COWES, 1/1878
  SPYE PARK
  CHIPPENHAM Tonnage  160 net
Master  WM FORBES Archives Portsmouth History Centre
    Archives reference

Crew names

Forename Surname Age/DOB Birthplace Capacity Previous vessel
WM FORBES 1849 PORTSMOUTH MASTER SAME
WILLIAM PEARCE 1839 LYMINGTON MATE GLOWWORM, 1878
GEORGE WHITFIELD 1835 SOTON 2ND MATE LADY EVELYN, 1879
HENRY CURTIS 1841 SOTON [...] ROMAN, 1879
THOMAS SYTELL 1824 HEREFORD AB COXSWAIN SAME, 1878
ISAAC MCCARTHY 1855 SOTON AB HELEN, 1879
JAMES SMITH 1849 SOTON AB [...]ATONIA, 1879
ALFRED WHITFIELD 1850 FORLEY AB , 1879
T W RIXTON 1845 BRIDPORT AB CLARANCE, 1879
JONAS BARBER 1852 ESSEX AB UNION, 1879
GEORGE HARRIS 1832 DORSET AB WALRU[...], 1878
THOMAS WARD 1858 SUFFOLK AB EMMA, 1879
ALFRED TRIM 1860 SOTON AB WANDERER, 1879
CHAS STOWER 1834 WEYMOUTH AB CLAYMORE, 1879
JOHN CULBERT 1859 SOTON 2ND STEWARD PASHWAR, 1879
FREDERICK ROOD 1849 SOTON 2ND COOK SOUTHAMPTON, 1879