All surviving muster rolls and crew agreements for British-registered merchant ships up to and including 1860 are held by The National Archives.

Merchant ships 1800s. Passages 48 53 55 Margaret snow 1835 204 Margaret sch 1866 207 Margaret Porter 94. Homesickness a common theme in songs about sailors was also a fact of life at sea. Slave ships also passed in and out of the port.

These records come from The National Archives record series BT112 BT113 BT114 BT115 BT116 BT119 and BT120. REF 639280994 DIC If you ancestors were whalers this may prove very useful as it details whaling voyages to Australia listing ships with a short profile of the vessel and in some cases information about the crew. For example in Bristol Walter Derby left his servant Nicholas half shares in two different ships and split a.

The contents of the records vary but they usually include name age place of birth register ticket ship names and dates of voyages. It had a wide balloon-like hull rounding at the stern and bow and a very narrow high stern. Consult the Miramar Ship Index website a historical database listing some categories of merchant and naval ships.

The Blackwall frigates - Indiamen which had the single-decked appearance of that type of warship - were a series of vessels developed after the East India Companys monopoly of trade with China ended in 1833. The Register provides information about all sea-going merchant ships including their condition. The trade was thrown open to private companies many of whom had previously chartered their ships to the company.

This collection includes Merchant Navy Seamen records held at The National Archives. The crew on those ships would typically contain a captain a 1st mate 2nd mate boatswain shipscarpenter coock 9-10 able and ordinary seamen and the boy rookiie. But toiling on a merchant ship was hard and dangerous and many seamen were malnourished and disillusioned.

A classic three-masted square-rigged merchant ship of the 17th and 18th century invented by the Dutch to be economical in operation carrying the largest cargo and smallest crew possible. Picture taken in 1894. Bartholomew Roberts raises his sword to his two ships after capturing a fleet of eleven English French and Portuguese slave ships off the coast of Africa.