Seamen and shipping

The state has recorded the numbers of ships and trained sailors since the Middle Ages.

It would be these ships and men who would form a navy or support services when the country went to war.

It was not a formalised system; in times of need, the Privy Council would instruct the lord lieutenants to undertake a survey of sailors in their counties.

We hold records which give examples of this process - see BL/Y/2/67-74, 77. However, very few of the lists drawn up during these surveys survive.

Navigation Acts were passed from the 1660s onwards with the intention of making British merchants use British-built ships and mainly British crews.

This was to ensure a pool of trained men and the capacity to build. 

Other acts gradually built up a system of registration, culminating in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1786.

This created the post of registrar general of shipping, answerable to the Board of Customs.

The act required all British ships of more than 15 tons (including fishing vessels) to register with customs in their home port.

A copy of this registration, the transcript, was then to be sent to a central body.

For Norfolk this was the Customs House in London - a fire in 1814 destroyed the transcripts from earlier years.

A further act, the Merchant Marine Act of 1850, required all masters of vessels to keep official logs. These recorded:

• Illness on board
• Birth or death on board
• Misconduct
• Desertion
• Punishment
• Description of conduct

The Mercantile Marine Act 1850 transferred all functions relating to merchant seamen from the Admiralty to the Board of Trade.

This included the General Register and Record Office of Seamen, which registered merchant seamen by means of a ticket system.

The same act established local shipping offices, later called mercantile marine offices, where all crews of foreign-going vessels were to be engaged and discharged under formal articles of agreement.

This measure was intended to combat exploitation and brought in the issue of certificates of competency to masters and mates.

The Merchant Shipping Act 1854 gave "general superintendence of all matters relating to merchant ships" to the Board of Trade and required all British ships to be registered.

It also gave the General Register Office the duties of keeping "a register of all persons who serve in ships subject to the provisions of this act" and preserving the ships' official logs.

In 1857 the registration of seamen was abandoned as being too expensive and no longer necessary.

From 1857 until 1913 the crew lists, to which no index of names was kept, became the only central record of serving merchant seamen.

The registrar general of shipping and seamen was formally established by the Merchant Shipping Act 1872.

The registrar general took over responsibility for returns relating to the registration of ships from the Board of Customs' chief registrar of shipping.

Customs officers in each port of registry continued to register ships, issue certificates of registration and record subsequent transactions, sending duplicate entries to the registrar general.

In 1910, the advisory committee on merchant shipping proposed to the Board of Trade that a central index register of merchant seamen should again be created.

This was started in October 1913 and maintained until 1941. Registration was made compulsory by the Registration of Merchant Seamen Order of September 1918, under the Defence of the Realm Act.

In 1941, all those who had served at sea during the previous five years were required to register with the registrar general and a new central register of seamen was started.

This was maintained until 1972, after which registration effectively ceased.

After 1941, the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen became part of the Marine Crews Division of the Ministry of Transport.

It moved back to the Board of Trade in 1965 and was absorbed into the Department of Trade and Industry in 1970.

It moved to the Department of Trade in 1975 and then in 1984 returned to the Department of Transport.

The customs houses in Norfolk closed during a process of centralisation in the 1980s and records were transferred to a central East Anglian office at Ipswich. This office itself closed in 1994.

In 1992, the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen was renamed the Registry of Shipping and Seamen and became part of the Marine Safety Agency.

The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions took charge of both of these bodies in 1997.

There are very few records relating to the registration of merchant seamen at the Norfolk Record Office (NRO).

The nature and location of these records are complicated. Records may be in The National Archives (TNA) (opens new window), The National Maritime Museum (opens new window) at Greenwich or the Maritime History Archive (opens new window) at Memorial University, Newfoundland.   

The only records relating to the official registration of seamen held at the NRO are:

• Register of apprentices, Yarmouth, 1884-1907 (P/SH/W/7). This gives details of the terms of indenture, contact details of next of kin and previous employment. There are only 14 entries.
• Register of crew engaged, Yarmouth, 1881-1913 (P/SH/W/4). This gives:
  • Details of ship
  • Intended voyage
  • Date of engagement
  • List of crew engaged giving name, date and place of birth, capacity engaged in and details of last ship.

The shipping register includes full details of the vessel and its ownership.

It is the official record of each ship's history and title and gives:

• The name of the vessel
• The type
• The official number
• Details of when and where it was built
• Dimensions

Any changes in these details are also recorded. Details of the owner or part-owner of the vessel are given and any subsequent sale of shares.

In theory, the shipping register should contain the full history of ownership of a vessel and any changes in its structure or propulsion.

However, this was not always the case - see the section on ships' registration files.

Each vessel is allocated a double page in the register. Once this has been filled, further entries are made either in folios at the rear of the volume, or in continuation books known as transaction books.

An annotation on the original entry should make it clear if this has happened.

Port of Cley and Wells

• Registers of Merchant Ships and Merchant Ship Transaction Books, 1832-81 (five volumes - P/SH/L/7-12)

Port of King's Lynn

• Registers of Merchant Ships and Merchant Ships' Transaction Books, 1836-1989 (11 volumes - P/SH/L/1-6, 14-16 and 199-200)

Port of Great Yarmouth

• Registers of Merchant Ships and Merchant Ships' Transaction Books, 1834-1994 (60 volumes - P/SH/Y/1-60)

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.

These files contain the paperwork necessary to maintain the official register. 

They include reports of surveyors, certificates of ownership and correspondence with owners.

Sometimes these files contain information that does not find its way on to the official register.

If a person had bought a vessel, they had to pay for the register to be amended.

However, if the changes in ownership that had come before had not been registered, the new owner would have to prove a chain of evidence for these changes and pay for each new entry in the register.

In many cases (especially those relating to small, leisure craft), the new owner was unable or unwilling to do this and the official register was not changed.

If this was the case, the correspondence in the registration file may be the only evidence of these transactions.

The ships' registration files are arranged by port number, but the catalogue description also includes known names and the official number.

This means that these can be used as keywords when searching our online catalogue (opens new window).

Port of King's Lynn

• Ships' registration files, 1924-94 (174 files - P/SH/L/25-198)

Port of Great Yarmouth

• Ships' registration files, 1875-1994 (904 files - P/SH/Y/66-971)

A separate run of records for fishing vessels and crew was created under the Merchant Shipping (Fishing Boats) Act 1883.

The Act required the skipper to enter into a crew agreement with every member of the crew and extended the competency examination system for masters and mates. 

The crew records are not held at the NRO.

The Merchant Shipping Act 1894 reinforced previous legislation and required all British sea fishing boats, irrespective of size, to be registered.

Boats were to be lettered and numbered (LN, GY, etc) and to have official papers. 

Certificate details and the vessel's letter and number were entered into registers by the customs officers at each port.

Returns were sent annually to the registrar general (and are now held at TNA (opens new window)).

The registers include the registration number, name of vessel, date of registration, official number, tonnage, etc.

There is also a description of the kind of fishing in which the vessel was normally employed.

Port of King's Lynn

• Registers of fishing boats and fishing boat transaction books, 1942-88, (six volumes - P/SH/L/17-22)
• Applications for registration of fishing boats, 1940-56 (one bundle - P/SH/W/3)

Port of Great Yarmouth

• Registers of fishing boats and fishing boat transaction books, 1940-56, 1985-89 (five volumes - P/SH/Y/61-65)

Records of the Registry of Seamen and Shipping and its predecessors held at the NRO:

Port of Cley and Wells

• Registers of merchant ships and merchant ship transaction books, 1832-81, (five volumes - P/SH/L/7-12)
• Annual returns of registered vessels, 1867-1930 (one volume - P/SH/L/13)

Port of King's Lynn

• Registers of merchant ships and merchant ships' transaction books 1836-1989 (11 volumes - P/SH/L/1-6, 14-16 and 199-200)
• Ships' registration files 1924-94 (174 files - P/SH/L/25-198)
• Registers of fishing boats and fishing boat transaction books 1942-88 (six volumes - P/SH/L/17-22)
• Applications for registration of fishing boats 1940-56 (one bundle - P/SH/W/3)
• Other shipping registers 1861-1926 (one volume - P/SH/L/12)

Port of Great Yarmouth

• Registers of merchant ships and merchant ships' transaction books, 1834-1994 (60 volumes - P/SH/Y/1-60)
• Ships' registration files, 1875-1994 (904 files - P/SH/L/66-971)
• Registers of fishing boats and fishing boat transaction books, 1940-56, 1985-89 (five volumes - P/SH/Y/61-65)
• Register of apprentices, 1884-1907 (one volume - P/SH/W/7)
• Register of crews engaged, 1881-1913 (one volume - P/SH/W/4)

• K Smith, C T Watts and M J Watts, Records of Merchant Shipping & Seamen, PRO Readers' Guide No. 20, (Public Record Office, Kew, 1998)

• C T Watts and M J Watts, My Ancestor Was a Merchant Seaman, (Society of Genealogists, 3rd edn, London, 2004)