Database and Voyage Mapping

Welcome to our database of shipping and maritime communities. As our project progresses, we will collect data on thousands of ship voyages into and out of English ports and gather the names of seafarers and merchants who worked in the English seaborne trade.

If you would like to search the database from our previous project, The Merchant Fleet of Late Medieval and Tudor England, 1400-1580, you can find it here: Medieval and Tudor Ships of England.

Database Structure

Our geospatial relational database will eventually comprise approximately several hundred thousand records, linked to a web-mapping application that enables spatial analysis of the dataset. We will make this dataset publicly available through our interactive project website. It will support detailed analysis (statistical, spatial and temporal) of the structure of the records. Information contained in it will be linked through three key pieces of information provided by the sources: (1) ship voyages, including departure and destination details, allowing us to map the direction and volume of trading voyages; (2) the names of seafarers, including details of residence/home port, age, and other information garnered from trade, taxation, musters, admiralty and probate records; (3) the types of commodities imported and exported, which will be linked to the ship-voyage data. Throughout the project, we will provide additional information on how to utilise the database.

Next 6 Months

We are building the largest open digital resource on early modern shipping and trade, with over 1 million voyages and tens of thousands of seafarer records drawn from archives across Britain. Launching in March 2026, the database will enable researchers, students, and the public to explore the ships, people, and trade routes that contributed to Britain’s emergence as a global maritime power.

Building the Maritime Britain Database

Over the course of this project, we have created an unparalleled resource:

• Over 1 million ship voyages recorded.
• Tens of thousands of seafarer entries, drawn from hundreds of muster rolls and ship surveys.

This vast dataset has been painstakingly compiled from archives across Britain. The key sources include:

• Port Books (E 190, The National Archives, Kew) – Introduced in 1565, these recorded taxation on overseas trade, naming home ports, ships, masters, merchants, and goods. Coastal trade, though untaxed, was also listed in the same format.
• Ships’ Passes – Originally issued for Mediterranean voyages as protection against hostile action, later expanded to cover vessels bound for other regions.
• CUST 2 (Inspector General’s Accounts) – Provided detailed accounts of imports and exports, listing commodities, quantities, values, and duties, though without ship-level detail.
• Colonial Office Records (CO/390, The National Archives, Kew) – Shipping returns that recorded the number and tonnage of English and foreign ships engaged in overseas trade from each head port.
• British Library Collections – Statistical series documenting fishing, coastal, and overseas trade, including the total tonnage of vessels operating from each port.

Together, these sources form the backbone of the largest open digital resource ever created on English (and later British) shipping and trade between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

Phased Release Plan

The complete open-access database will launch in March 2026. In the meantime, researchers and the wider public will gain early access to parts of the collection as they are completed:

• Stage 1: Curating the Voyages (Oct 2025 – Mar 2026)
  Standardising and finalising the 860,000 voyages from the port books, making them consistent, accurate, and searchable.
• Stage 2: Integrating the Data (Jan – Feb 2026)
  Bringing together all our datasets into one platform, supported by a powerful search tool. Users will be able to explore the entire database or focus on individual datasets in detail.
• Stage 3: Mapping the Seas (Feb – Mar 2026)
  Adding GIS-based mapping of ship voyages to visualise trade routes, networks, and patterns over time. This prepares the way for the full public launch in March 2026.