Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Transcripts and Transactions, Series I

BT 107

1786-1854

This series contains the register of shipping kept by the General Registry and Record Office of Seamen which, until 1855, consists of transcripts of the original registries, with manuscript notes of any subsequent changes of ownership, known as 'transactions', on the reverse.

The records contain the following information:

• port registry number;
• name and home port;
• date and place of registration;
• names of masters;
• names, occupations and addresses of owners;
• place and date of construction or capture as prize;
• name and employment of surveying officer;
• nationality of building (British, Plantation or Foreign);
• number of decks and masts;
• depth of hold and tons burden;
• type of vessel;
• whether it had a gallery or figure head.

Early transcripts sent to London were destroyed in a fire at the Customs House in 1814. The series proper begins in that year but the Registration Books of the Port of London 1786-1814 have been included at the beginning of the series.

A selected record within this series (BT 107/496) is available to download as digital microfilm.

The registers are in series which begin at different dates. The earliest series, ships registered in London, begins as early as 1786 while another series, England and Wales, begins in 1826 combining two earlier series: Northern Ports and Western Ports. Ports do not consistently appear under the same geographical series. Nor do they always appear under what would seem the logically appropriate series: Channel Islands and Man appear under Plantation as late as 1819.

Public Record(s)

English

• Admiralty, 1832-1964
• General Register and Record Office of Seamen, 1835-1872

601 volume(s)

Open unless otherwise stated

Topics

Shipping

Labour

Merchant seaman