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Merchant Seamen: Interpreting the Voyages in the Registers of Seamen's Tickets and the Alphabetical Registers of Masters

Domestic Records Information 114

1. Introduction

The entries for individuals in the Registers of Seamen's Tickets, (BT 113 ), and in the Alphabetical Register of Masters, (BT 115 ), often give details of the voyages which he undertook. These entries were made in a shorthand fashion which is only partly understood.

When trying to interpret these entries the researcher should bear in mind that the clerks were trying to record details of the filing of the various schedules (crew lists), required by the Merchant Shipping acts, at the start and end of one or a series of voyages during which the individual had been on the relevant ship. The form of the entry was different for a Home Trade or a Foreign Trade voyage.

2. Home Trade Voyages

These entries do not simply record a single voyage, but a half year (January to June or July to December) during which the seaman was engaged on a particular ship in the home trade. During that period the ship may have been on several voyages, and he may have been engaged for some or all of the period. The crew lists were required to be filed within 42 days of the end of June or December.

An example of an entry for Home Trade voyages is shown below. Such an entry may most easily be identified by the fact that it spans the Out and Home columns for a particular year.

3. Foreign Trade Voyage

These entries record a single voyage during which the seaman was engaged on a particular ship. The crew lists were required to be filed within 24 or 48 hours of the ship leaving or returning to a UK port.

An example of an entry for a Foreign Trade voyages is shown overleaf. Such an entry is actually in two parts. That for leaving the UK is under Out, and that for returning to the UK is under Home. The seaman may leave the UK on one ship and return on another. The ship may depart in one year and return in the next.

Decyphering the entries: Seamen

4. Notes:

  1. It should be remembered that the dates given are actually the date on which the various schedules were filed and are not actually departure and arrival dates. These can only be determined by consulting the crew lists themselves or perhaps, in the case of foreign voyages, by consulting Lloyds List - no copies of the latter are held by The National Archives, good runs of them are available at the Guildhall Library and the National Maritime Museum.
  2. No key to Port Rotation Numbers has been located. Crew lists for this period are arranged, in BT 98 , by year, port of registry of the ship and then ship's name.
 
     
 

(ri2283) Last updated: 11 February 2005 | © Crown Copyright 2002

  
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