Dartmouth Harbour, 1847. Illustrated London News, 21 August 1847, Vol. XI, No.277 p.1
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Have a go!
Look out for the questions on the Academy pages, suitable for beginners, intermediate and more advanced. To save you hunting for the answers, we will circulate them in the FREE Family Tree enewsletter. Simply sign up by 22 March www.family-tree.co.uk/account/register/
An introduction to the Merchant Navy
Britain’s Mercantile Marine Service has a long and complex history. Unlike the Royal Navy and the British Army, the Merchant Navy (as it has been officially known since the 1920s) has never been a single organisation.
Yet in the 19th century, much of the administration relating to the ships and the men who served on them became the responsibility of central government through the Board of Trade and the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen, and the records created by these organisations and by various private companies allow us to uncover the fascinating stories of our merchant navy ancestors.
At the beginning of the 19th century, most merchant seamen were employed by private individuals, many of whom would have owned just one vessel. It wasn’t until the advent of steam in the middle of the century that large shipping companies came to the fore and began to become major employers. During this period, the workforce consisted almost entirely of men.
Page from
Lloyd’s Register, 1803. Note the entry for the
Hope with the Captain’s name Dougal. To understand the information recorded in the various columns, refer to the Key and the list of abbreviations at the front of the volume. There’s also a useful guide produced by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation at:
https://hec. lrfoundation.org.uk /archive-librar y/interpreting-the-register-books
Decoding an entry in Lloyd's Register
In this case, the entry tells us that the Hope was a Brig (Bg) with a hull that had been sheathed in 1802 (s 02). The Captain or Master was R. Dougal and the tonnage (i.e. cargo-carrying capacity) was 147. The Hope had a single deck with beams (SDB); the abbreviations ND & UW 02 tell us that the deck was new in 1802 and that new ‘upper works’ had also been built then. She had been built in Hull 15 years ago and the owner (or at least the majority shareholder) was called Huntington. The number 12 in the next column indicates the ‘Feet of the Draught of Water when loaded’. The Hope’s latest voyage was between Hull and Lisbon (Hl Lisbon). Her overall classification was E1 – i.e. a Second Class vessel with First Class ‘materials’ – the survey having been carried out in April 1802 (denoted by the figure ‘4’).