Growing up in Barnstaple in North Devon, in the 1950s I was aware of wooden sailing vessels, by now all with auxiliary motors, coming and going on most tides, although, as my parents told me, in nowhere near the numbers of the 1930s.  It is hard to imagine any of the North Devon ports today with several sailing vessels moored at the quays, and Barnstaple has seen no commercial shipping of any kind for the best part of forty years.  Bringing the ports back to life, at least on paper, has been one of my retirement projects and perhaps local historians might like to turn their attention to sources which would allow them to do just that for their localities.  I shall discuss the strengths and weaknesses of two sources, The Mercantile Navy List, and Lloyds Register, both of which are readily available on-line. The best sources of information on ships are the Port Registers, large ledgers, with the surviving volumes deposited in local record offices, but not accessible other than by visit in person.  As I live about an hour’s drive from the North Devon Record Office, I have found the two on-line sources more practicable.  I also briefly describe the career of one of North Devon’s best loved vessels.

Lloyds Register lists vessels insured with Lloyds.  This includes foreign owned vessels but tends not to include craft with a tonnage less than 50 tons.  The scope of the entries expanded from the earliest register of 1764 and the on-line resource runs until 2000.1 Typically, an entry includes the name of the vessel and the Official Number for British vessels, construction materials of the hull, master’s name, tonnage (usually both gross and net) principal dimensions (length, breadth and depth) where and when built, usually the name of the builder if known, the owner, the port of registration, and the port where the survey was undertaken.  In issues in the mid nineteenth century, severely abbreviated forms are used for the ports and there is no glossary.  A major limitation is that the on-line resource is not searchable other than by scrolling through all the entries, with the 1875 issue, for instance, running to some 1,000 pages, with around 20 vessels per page

The Mercantile Navy List commenced after the 1856 Mercantile Shipping Act, which required registration of all British ships and instituted the system of Official Numbers.  The List was compiled from returns sent by Official Registration Ports and from 1857 to 1864, the List contains merely the vessel’s name, number, and port of registration.  From 1865 to 1871, the tonnage, owner, and for steamers, the horsepower was added and in 1872 the place of building and the rig was also recorded, although no distinction was made between two and three masted schooners.  The best site for accessing the Mercantile Navy List is that of the Crew List project.2 This allows a degree of searchability, with the site geared to find roughly where in the List the vessel of a given name will be found and then allows search back and forward from that date.  Researching the careers of individual vessels is thus a simple process.  The Mercantile Navy List covers Great Britain and its colonies and dominions and so includes the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, and continues to cover Ireland after independence.

Possibly one of North Devon’s best known and loved wooden sailing vessels is the Kathleen and May and a regular feature of my childhood (seen during her sojourn at Bideford in 2010).  Her career may be followed thus. Lloyds Register of 1911 notes that she was built as the Lizzie May, by Ferguson and Baird at Connah’s Quay in 1900, a wooden schooner of 136 gross tons and 98 feet and 4 inches long, 23 feet and 2 inches wide and 10 feet and 1 inch deep. She had been surveyed at Appledore and given A1 status for 12 years.  Following the Lizzie May in the Mercantile Navy List, shows that she went new to William Coppack of Flint and was registered at Chester.  In 1906 ownership was in the hands of John Coppack, of Flint but still Chester registered.  In 1909 she was in the ownership of Martin J Fleming of Youghal, Co Cork and had been re-registered at Cork and named the Kathleen and May.  The Mercantile Navy List notes the change of name with a footnote. The vessel was now called after Martin Fleming’s two daughters, although this information would only be known via the Wikipedia entry, or from local knowledge.  The vessel remained with Martin Fleming until 1932, when the Mercantile Navy List gives Thomas Jewell of Appledore as her owner and she had been re-registered at Bideford.  By this time most of the surviving sailing vessels in North Devon had auxiliary motors and Captain Jewell had the Kathleen and May so fitted on acquisition.  As I write, she is in Gloucester Docks undergoing further restoration.

Notes:

1. Lloyds Register:  www.heclrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/lloyds-register-of-shipping-online

2. Mercantile Navy List via CrewList: www.crewlist.org.uk/data/viewimages

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