18^th Century Register Books

This column contains the Name of the vessel.

For approximately the first twenty years the Register Book recorded ex-names. The ex-name quoted was the immediate former name, in this case Southampton. There also could have been previous names not quoted. 'Do.' stands for 'Ditto', used to mark vessels with the same names.

The first column also indicates the type of rig of the vessel. Some early Register Books do not seem to differentiate between some similar rigs, for example brig and snow. Thus a ship seemingly becoming a snow may always have been so. This may also apply to early barques given as ship rig. The abbreviations are:

This column contains the name of the ship's captain.

This column contains the ship's tonnage, together with an indication of the number of decks.

This column indicates the location where the vessel was built. If the place was unknown, the information was substituted with the ship's flag. The column also states if the vessel had undergone any modifications or repairs, with the following abbreviations:

The notation 8 4 refers to the presence of eight four-pound guns or carronades on board.

This column contains the last two digits of the year of build. It also includes the year of repairs or modifications the vessel had undergone.

The notations old and ve. (very) old indicate that the year of build is unknown.

This column contains the name of the person owning the majority of the 64 shares of the ship (For more information see Infosheet no. 25).

The notations Capt., Capt. & Co, Cap. prt Owr (part owner), and similar mean that the Master of the ship is also her owner.

In the first few decades following the establishment of Lloyd's Register as a society, the classification notations varied considerably. This is because the Society was still adapting and trying to find the best way to describe the conditions of the surveyed vessels.

The following table helps to navigate the initial notations (the extract page on the left illustrates the 1768 version):

Where available, the column also indicates the last two digits of the year of survey.

*The lowest class (3) is represented by the gliph below:

For more information on classification notations see Infosheet no. 42.

The voyage details described in the last column of the early Register Books predominantly refer to foreign going vessels or or regular coasters (e.g. ‘Whitby/Scarborough collier’). The collier fleet, in the North and Irish Seas, was always large so it is reasonable to assume many were never in the Register before 1834, when all surviving British registered ships of 50 tons and over were listed. Mid 1780s–1834 the Register had a separate listing of Australian-bound ships with those carrying convicts marked.

Notations such as Liv.Afr.&c. (Liverpool to Africa etc, on the left) and C.Cst.C (Cape Coast Castle, in modern Ghana) refer to ships likely involved in the transatlantic slave trade.

It is not uncommon to find handwritten additions, edits, and removals in the early Register Books. These usually refer to voyage updates (on the left), classification changes (below), name changes, or loss of the vessel.