Records of fishing vessels
Records of fishing vessels and their crews have been given less attention than the general run of shipping and crew records. This is despite the large number of boats and men involved and the vital importance of the industry for the fishing ports and indeed for the nation as a whole.
Extensive records have survived, including large numbers of images of fishing boats but, in general, the primary sources for fishing boats and crews are less easy to access than other maritime records. On the positive side, many heritage groups have worked hard to record and preserve the history of their local port. Locating such groups, on-line or via the local museum, library or archives, may well reveal a wealth of information for a particular area.
This page explains how to find records of British fishing vessels and their crews.
Registration of fishing vessels
Up to 1894, British fishing vessels of more than 15 tons net and with a deck were registered in the same way as other vessels. They appear in the shipping registers for the ports of registry and in the copies from them which were transmitted to the Board of Trade, which are now held at The National Archives (TNA) in BT 108, BT 109 and BT 110.
The Sea Fisheries Act of 1868 required that all British vessels used for commercial fishing, regardless of size, should have official papers and be recorded in separate fishing boat registers kept at the local port of registry. Fishing vessels larger than 15 tons continued to be registered in the main shipping registers, as well as in the fishing register.
Fishing vessels were allocated a letter and number, which were to be painted prominently on the hull of the boat. The letter or letters denoted the port of registry, a list of
which is shown below. For a summary of the legislation which governed British shipping, see
Legislation
The fishing number was allocated sequentially from the local register. When a fishing boat was transferred to another port or was scrapped, the fishing number was re-used, so, over time, the
same fishing number may refer to several different vessels from the same port. To be clear, the fishing number was not the same as the
Official numbers
which larger vessels also had and which was not transferred to other ships.
Figure 1 shows a typical fishing register - in this case the entry for the fishing boat True Lover, of Peel. Her fishing letter and number were PL71. As can be seen, she was large enough to be entered into the main shipping register for Peel as 1/1914 and had official number 67865.
The fishing boat registers were in several different formats, but most showed more than one vessel to a folio. Vessels were classified as First, Second or Third Class, depending on their size. As can be seen, the register recorded basic details of the boat, her ownership and changes of owner, and her skipper. Annual checks on her certificate were entered.
Few, if any, of the registers held at local archives have been systematically digitised or indexed, so the only way to access them is in person at the archives. They are included
with the other shipping registers in the CLIP lists of archives' holdings:
Archive holdings
However, various other sources provide data on boats and fishing numbers, as described below.
The ports of registry made annual returns of fishing vessel registrations to the Board of Trade, showing a list of the vessels by register number, with cross-references to the shipping register, and showing the vessel's official number. These returns are now in the series BT 145 at TNA. The returns form a single source of reference for the names and fishing numbers of fishing boats, but unfortunately have not been digitised and are only available at TNA.
Indexes of fishing vessels and their numbers
Indexes of fishing vessels and their numbers are available online for some ports, especially the major ones. The source of the information may not be shown and, if this is the case, the data should be used with care. This is a list of some indexes:
Be aware Many sites relating to fishing vessels disappear suddenly leaving a broken link. We try to keep up, but if you hit a broken link, please accept our apologies and let us know, so that we can put it right. Please let us know also if you come across a good site which has eluded us.
The Fishing Boat Heritage site has many links and access to an important resource for Scottish vessels, the Mariners Almanac, which shows fishing boat numbers from the 1907 edition.
Fishing Boat HeritageThe Admiralty took over many fishing boats during World War I.
Trawlers taken over during World War II are listed on the Harwich and Dovercourt web site, with many pictures.
The Bosun's Watch has data and images for Fleetwood trawlers.
The Deep Sea Trawlers site has data for Grimsby vessels.
The Helston History site has details of Porthleven fishing boats.
The Hopeman History site has a list of fishing boats.
The Lowestoft History site has data and images for Lowestoft vessels.
Data for Milford vessels has been compiled from sources at Milford Library.
Orkney Archives has an index of the fishing registers they hold in CE55/11.
Manson's Shetland Almanac for 1892 lists First-class Shetland Fishing Boats, 1891.
The Trawler Pictures site has images of mostly recent boats, but there is a section of older pictures.
Kippers were an major product of the fishing industry and Mike Smilie's Kipperland site describes a travelling exhibition about them, together with a list of Mike's books on the fishing industry. We like kippers!
Beware! When identifying a ship from an image using her port letter and number, bear in mind that:
Continental ports used the alphabetic system too, so the letter A was used for Aberdeen, but also for Aalborg and Antwerp. You need to know that you are looking at an image of a British ship.
Unlike official numbers, fishing numbers were re-issued, so you need to know the approximate date of the image to be sure of the identification.
Crew lists and agreements for fishing vessels
Prior to 1884, the crews of fishing boats over 15 tons were recorded on agreements and crew lists in the same way as for other vessels and surviving documents are usually found amongst the main runs of documents. In addition, holdings may include agreements for smaller vessels which did not have an official number and so are filed by the boat's name. In general though, only records for larger boats with official numbers have survived.
After 1884, special agreements were introduced for fishing boats under 80 tons, which included monthly returns of the crew. The details on fishing boat documents are generally simpler than other crew documents; places of birth are often vague and previous vessels are not shown. The names for the capacities of the crew include such terms as Skipper, Second Hand, Third Hand, Fourth Hand, and Engineer. The volume of these records for a particular port can be large.
The documents are now dispersed following the same pattern as the other crew documents with samples at TNA and NMM, some large holdings at local archives and the remainder at the Maritime History Archive. See our page for details:
Finding crew lists
At local archives, the documents are sometimes filed amongst the other crew lists. Where the volume is large, they are often filed as a separate collection. The 10% sample held at TNA are
in BT 144, arranged by the ships' official numbers, but the pieces are only catalogued by the range of official numbers included, so there is no guarantee that the documents for a specific boat are present.
From 1894, the existing arrangements for apprentices on ships was extended to fishing boats. Copies of their indentures were sent to the Board of Trade and five yearly specimens of the documents are at TNA in BT 152. NE Lincolnshire Archives have an index of the Grimsby sea fishing apprentices for 1880 to 1937 which used to be available online, but now cannot be found. The story of the fishing apprentices is not a happy one - see David Boswell's book and also Marc Jones' account which is available as an e-book..
Olsen's Fisherman's Nautical Almanack
Olsen's Fisherman's Nautical Almanack was the ubiquitous reference for the fishing industry from its first publication in 1876 until the last edition in 2000. It was published by ETW Dennis Ltd of Scarborough, one of whose other product lines was saucy seaside postcards. Olsen's included tide information, ready-reckoners, navigation directions and, what is now of most interest, various directories of fishing vessels, as shown in the image above. The ships included are mostly larger vessels, which hence had official numbers.
Copies of Olsen's are not easy to access. Many archives and some reference libraries and museums near fishing ports have runs for the end of the 20th century, but editions from the inter-war years are not easy to find and only a few large repositories have editions prior to World War I. The earliest surviving editions date from the 1880s. The most complete runs are held at the Bartlett Library at the Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, Cambridge University Library and the National Library of Scotland.
A list of the libraries and archives that we know have holdings of Olsen's is here:
Library and archive holdingsOlsen's online
Images of many editions of Olsen's are available on this site, with additional notes:
Port letters
These are the port letters for ports around the coasts of Britain and Ireland. They were painted prominently on the ship with her fishing number and can be used to identify the ship from photographs.
Beware! When identifying a ship from an image using her port letter and number, bear in mind that:
Continental ports used the alphabetic system too, so the letter A was used for Aberdeen, but also for Aalborg and Antwerp. You need to know that you are looking at an image of a British ship.
Unlike official numbers, fishing numbers were re-issued, so you need to know the approximate date of the image to be sure of the identification.
Wales
| Letters | Port |
|---|---|
| AB | Aberystwyth |
| BS | Beaumaris |
| CA | Cardigan |
| CF | Cardiff |
| CO | Caernarfon |
| LA | Llanelli |
| M | Milford |
| NT | Newport |
| PT | Port Talbot |
| SA | Swansea |
Scotland
| Letters | Port |
|---|---|
| A | Aberdeen |
| AA | Alloa |
| AD | Ardrossan |
| AH | Arbroath |
| AR | Ayr |
| BA | Ballantrae |
| BCK | Buckie |
| BF | Banff |
| BO | Borrowstounness |
| BRD | Broadford |
| BU | Burntisland |
| CN | Campbeltown |
| CY | Castle Bay |
| DE | Dundee |
| DS | Dumfries |
| FR | Fraserburgh |
| GH | Grangemouth |
| GK | Greenock |
| GN | Granton |
| GW | Glasgow |
| IE | Irvine |
| INS | Inverness |
| KY | Kirkcaldy |
| LH | Leith |
| LK | Lerwick, Shetland |
| ML | Methie |
| OB | Oban |
| PD | Peterhead |
| PEH | Perth |
| PWG | Port Glasgow |
| RO | Rothesay |
| SR | Stranraer |
| SY | Stornoway, Lewis |
| TN | Troon |
| TT | Tarbert |
| UL | Ullapool |
| WK | Wick |
| WN | Wigtown |
Ireland
| Letters | Port |
|---|---|
| B | Belfast |
| BA | Balina |
| C | Cork |
| CE | Coleraine |
| D | Dublin |
| DA | Drogheda |
| DK | Dundalk |
| G | Galway |
| L | Limerick |
| LY | Londonderry |
| N | Newry |
| NS | New Ross |
| S | Skibbereen |
| SO | Sligo |
| T | Tralee |
| W | Waterford |
| WD | Wexford |
| WT | Westport |
| Y | Youghal |
England
| Letters | Port |
|---|---|
| BD | Bideford |
| BE | Barnstaple |
| BH | Blyth |
| BK | Berwick on Tweed |
| BL | Bristol |
| BM | Brixham |
| BN | Boston |
| BR | Bridgwater |
| BW | Barrow |
| CH | Chester |
| CK | Colchester |
| CL | Carlisle |
| CS | Cowes, IOW |
| CT | Castletown, IOM |
| DH | Dartmouth |
| DL | Deal |
| DO | Douglas, IOM |
| DR | Dover |
| E | Exeter |
| F | Faversham |
| FD | Fleetwood |
| FE | Folkestone |
| FH | Falmouth |
| FY | Fowey |
| GE | Goole |
| GR | Gloucester |
| GY | Grimsby |
| H | Hull |
| HE | Hayle |
| HH | Harwich |
| HL | Hartlepool |
| IH | Ipswich |
| LE | Lyme |
| LI | Littlehampton |
| LL | Liverpool |
| LN | Kings Lynn |
| LO | London |
| LR | Lancaster |
| LT | Lowestoft |
| ME | Montrose |
| MH | Middlesbrough |
| MN | Maldon |
| MR | Manchester |
| MT | Maryport |
| NE | Newcastle |
| NN | Newhaven |
| P | Portsmouth |
| PE | Poole |
| PH | Plymouth |
| PL | Peel, IOM |
| PN | Preston |
| PW | Padstow |
| PZ | Penzance |
| R | Ramsgate |
| RN | Runcorn |
| RR | Rochester |
| RX | Rye |
| SC | Scilly Isles |
| SD | Sunderland |
| SE | Salcombe |
| SH | Scarborough |
| SM | Shoreham |
| SN | North Shields |
| SS | Saint Ives |
| SSS | South Shields |
| ST | Stockton |
| SU | Southampton |
| TH | Teignmouth |
| TO | Truro |
| WA | Whitehaven |
| WH | Weymouth |
| WI | Wisbech |
| WO | Workington |
| WS | Wells |
| WY | Whitby |
| YH | Yarmouth |
More detail and other records
For more detail, background and for other periods, this is excellent:
Fishing and Fishermen, A Guide for Family Historians, Martin Wilcox, Pen and Sword Family History, Barnsley, 2009.
(ISBN: 978 1 84415 988 8).