Hull's Registers of Shipping transferred from HM Customs and Excise, Queen's Gardens, Hull under section 4 (1) Public Records Act, 1958.

These items are only available to view on microfilm. Please see individual items for microfilm roll numbers and please book a microfilm reader prior to your visit.

The Shipping Registers are listed in Port Number order by year. There is an index of Ships available in the form of a card catalogue. Please ask a member of staff for details. It is essential that from these cards you note down the full reference as well as the year the ship was registered. It is also useful if you know the type of ship, it's official number and/or its tonnage. This will help you to distinguish between two vessels of the same name. If you only know the names of the ship's owner, our names index, also in the form of a card catalogue, may help you find the names of ships that individuals/companies owned.

The majority of Hull's Fishing Vessel Registers (C DPC/1/50-60) were deposited by the Registry of Shipping and Seamen in 2002. Three volumes were deposited earlier (C DPC/1/38-40). C DPC/1/50 is the earliest register and is the only register in which vessels are recorded in a chronological series. Ordinarily fishing vessels were neither recorded in order of date of registration or of their H number. It appears that H numbers became vacant as vessels were lost, sold or scrapped, the H number was then reassigned and recorded in a later volume. Also entries were periodically closed in one volume and transferred to another. When this happened, the previous and subsequent volumes are recorded in each entry. The covering dates for each register are therefore purely indicative.