You can, however, search for crew lists and agreements using the names of the seamen from 1881, 18 by ship’s number for all other years (see section 8.4 for more information). To find a crew list and agreement from 1855 onwards, you will need to know the ship’s official number. To find a ship’s official number go to the Crew List Index Project (CLIP) website, which has information about merchant ships from 1855 to 1913, or the Miramar Ship Index website (subscription required) which lists some categories of merchant and naval ships.
With the introduction in 1855 of a central registry, all ships were given an official number as soon as practicable. They first appear in the records around 1852 many have been destroyed, with only those recording a birth or death surviving. Log books were deposited after each foreign voyage, or half-yearly for home trade ships. The Mercantile Marine Act of 1850 required ships’ masters to also keep a log book to record events on board a ship, which included seamen’s conduct. The list was kept on board and then sent to the Register Office of Merchant Seamen, the central administration office of the Merchant Navy, on the ship’s return to Britain. This was simply a record of the total number of crew (known as a muster roll), but it evolved into what are known as crew lists and agreements. You should not expect to find any detailed accounts of day-to-day life or the activities of crew or passengers.īetween 1858 and the First World War, the Merchant Navy did not keep registers of its seamen, so crew lists and agreements are the only records you are likely to find of an individual merchant seaman during this time.įrom the mid-18th century, masters or owners of most British-registered merchant ships were required to keep a record of their crew before the ship left port. reason for leaving the ship, whether discharged, drowned, or otherwise.date and place of joining and leaving the ship.Typically, if you can locate a seaman in a crew list you will find out his:
These records, which collectively date from 1747 to the 1990s, can provide brief details of ships, the voyages they took and their crew. Use this guide for advice on how to find British merchant shipping records known as crew lists and agreements, originally known as muster books, and log books.
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