Seamen and shipping

To find a vessel in the register of shipping, you need to know at which port it was registered.

The name of the port of registration should be shown on the stern under the vessel's name, under the requirements of the shipping acts. Therefore, it may be apparent in old photographs.

It should also appear on the ship's papers and will be listed in shipping directories, such as Lloyds Register of Ships (opens new window) (published annually from 1775) or the Merchant Navy List (published annually since 1851).

The ports of registration in Norfolk were Cley, Wells, King's Lynn and Great Yarmouth; records of these registers are held here at the NRO.

Registers of ports of registration outside Norfolk are likely to be in the appropriate county record office.

Port numbers

Vessels are entered into the register chronologically in order of the date of registration at that port and given a number that is often referred to in official documentation.

For example, 'Yarmouth No 13/1923' (or '13 of 1923') means that this was the 13th vessel registered at Great Yarmouth in 1923.

It will appear in the register between 12 of 1923 and 14 of 1923 and before any vessel registered in 1924.

This also holds for a vessel that is being transferred from another port.

Even if the vessel was built in 1909 and was registered at Hull in that year, it will appear as 'Yarmouth 13 of 1923' if it is transferred to Yarmouth and is the 13th vessel to be entered onto the Yarmouth register in 1923.

However, there may also be a cross reference to a previous number, eg 'Hull 86/1909'.

Official numbers (ON)

Port numbers should not be confused with the official number.

The official number is given to the vessel on its initial registration and is carved into the main beam of the vessel.

It remains unchanged for the rest of the vessel's career, even if the port of registry or ship's name changes. 

This is important because from 1854 onwards it is the key identifier used in official sources. All other records, such as crew lists, are arranged by official number.

The official number is recorded in the register or may be found in published shipping lists. For vessels registered after the 1880s the official number has six digits.

Ships' names

These are not generally a good way of tracking a vessel.

A ship's name can change several times during its career and there might have been several vessels on the register sharing the same name.

Some individual volumes of the registers have an index of ships contained in them.

For the Port of Great Yarmouth, there is an index to the shipping register by ship's name covering the period from the 1880s to 1994 (see P/SH/Y/60). 

It gives the vessel's official number and the original reference of the register it appears in.

Owners' or masters' names

The registers record the names of ship-owners and managing masters, but there is no index to them.

There is no way of searching the register by the names of owners or masters of vessels other than going through the registers themselves.