THE CAMPBELTOWN AND THE LIVERPOOL PLANTATION REGISTERS IN THE MID-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY - CONNEXIONS AND COMPARISONS
by
M.M. Schofield.

     Campbeltown and Liverpool have, by good fortune, surviving volumes of Plantation Registers, which are records of vessels legally entitled by such registration to trade with the British colonies. Campbeltown has two volumes dated from September 1763 to August 1778, and Liverpool has four volumes dated from April 1744 to December 1773 and from August 1779 to November 1784. (1) The Liverpool volumes contain registers of many vessels belonging to other ports than Liverpool, and the following are the vessels belonging to Campbeltown and region:-

TABLE 1
VESSELS BELONGING TO CAMPBELTOWN REGISTERED AT LIVERPOOL
1750 To 1773

TABLE II
VESSELS BELONGING TO SMALL NORTH WESTERN SCOTTISH PORTS AND REGISTERED AT LIVERPOOL 1751 To 1773

     From the date of build of three of the vessels of Campbeltown, it can be inferred that they were new vessels, either Commissioned to be built by Cambeltown owners, or bought from Liverpool builders in the course of building and fitting out. The same applies to Mary of Mull. The description in the registers as 'built' could however mean 'rebuilt', as is shown in the 1776 edition of Lloyd's Register of Shipping. Entries are given there for Fly and John (of Campbeltown). Fly is described as 'American O(ld) B(uilt)', but in the 1778 edition is also marked 'reb(uilt 17)66', the Campbeltown register for Fly of 28 September 1775 makes it clear that this is the same vessel, and that it was formerly Pursue registered in 1766, then as in 1775, given as built at Liverpool in 1766. Only in Lloyd's 1784 edition is the place of build finally given at Bermuda, but still without a date. In the 1776 edition John is described as 'Irvine O(ld) B(uilt)', and rebuilt 1773 without a place given. The Liverpool Plantation Registers 1744-1773 rarely include a reference to rebuilding. The Campbeltown Registers are the same until 1775 after which it is not unusual to find that a vessel is described as 'new built' and not a rebuild. Since Liverpool was a considerable market for the sale of all types of vessels, it is probable that the other vessels in the Tables above were sold at Liverpool and registered there after sale. The Plantation Register thus obtained implied that a voyage to the colonies was contemplated by the new owners, but no such sailings from Liverpool or from Campbeltown to the colonies have been traced, either immediately after registration or later.

     The registers at Liverpool of vessels described as of Campbeltown rarely have a place of residence given for their owners, as the law of registry prescribed. Unusually in one entry for Duke of Argyle, Alexander McMillan and William Buchanan were both described as of Campbeltown; they were also partowners of Campbeltown and Peggy and Mary, with other associates. In Campbeltown, other partowners were Archibald Corbet the master, William Watson, and David and Isobel Oddie. In Peggy and Mary other partowners were Duncan Hen(d)ry the master, and William Finlay. Hector MacNeil was sole owner of Betty, and partowner of Pursue and Ann, in Ann with Colin McNeill, in Pursue with Alex(ander) McDonald of Boisdale (South Uist). The partowners in John were James Blew, the master, and John MacNa(I)re and Robert Smith, all of Campbeltown. Apart from the places of residence given in this summary of the owners of Campbeltown vessels between 1750 and 1773, there are no other details; but most of the names appear in the Campbeltown registers 1763-1778. Only one of these owners appears among the many owners and masters of other vessels registered at Liverpool. A David Eddie(5) was partowner of the slaver Hector of Liverpool registered there on 11 Decenber 1751, but was not master or owner in any other vessels of Liverpool or Campbeltown in the colonial or European trades. The owners of the vessels of North Western Scottish ports in Table II appear all to be residents of the places to which the vessel belonged, and their names do not appear in the Campbeltown registers; the only other information suggesting any other conclusion is that Lloyd's Register for 1764 gives Jolly Batchelor as Batchelor for a voyage in 1766 from Liverpool to Dublin, with entry in the insurer's column as 'Campbeltown.

     This suggests that these vessels registered at Liverpool were employed in types of trade which were of main concern to Scottish owners, not Liverpool owners. The only example in the Liverpool registers of Liverpool-Campbeltown partnerships is in the last volume 1779-1784, in the entries for Betty on 25 April 1781, and a further re-registration of the vessel as Ann on 14 May 1783. Archibald McNeil was given as master in each register, described as of Campbeltown in both; his partners were described as of Liverpool, merchants, two in each, but different men in the second register.

     Such evidence does not mean that Campbeltown men were not interested in Liverpool trade. In Lloyd's Registers for 1764 and 1768 (M to Z only), there are entered 15 vessels with insurers specifically given as 'Campbeltown', and in all but two the entry in the voyage column is for voyages between Liverpool and Irish ports. Anne L Bigwood in her M.A. thesis The Campbeltown Buss Fishery 1750 to 1800(6) suggests that one of the markets for the catches of the herring buss fleet was Liverpool. Some of the herrings could be for consumption there by the growing population of the port, but there were also export markets for such fish in the colonial and the Mediterranean trades. There were doubtless return cargoes to Campbeltown from Liverpool, but that may not have been possible for every vessel, and so a cargo to Ireland before sailing home may have avoided a return solely in ballast. It should be possible to establish the pattern of such voyages from Liverpool newspaper accounts of shipping using the port, and from Campbeltown customs documents. Liverpool had a special attraction for fishing vessels, loaded or in ballast, in that salt from Cheshire travelled from the refineries along the River Weaver Navigation to the Mersey and so to shipping in Liverpool docks for onward transport. The need for salt at the beginning of the fishing season nay account for the number of Campbeltown vessels registered at Liverpool in the early part of the year, once handed over to the new master and crew, they could be loaded with salt and begin their fishing voyage.

     In the Liverpool registers, there is only one vessel recorded as built at Campbeltown This was King George registered on 5 February 1762 as built in 1754, a sloop of 15 tons, after being advertised for sale in Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser on 27 November 1761. The new register gives the owners as five Liverpool merchants. She sailed to the West Indies and was re-registered at Barbados 23 July 1763 and again on 23 October 1764, owned by merchants there with connexions with Lancaster merchants(7). The vessel was probably used as a trader between the various West India islands. In the Campbeltown registers, however, there are nine vessels recorded as built at Liverpool, only two of which, Pursue and John, are in Table I :-

TABLE III
VESSELS BUILT AT LIVERPOOL AND REGISTERED AT AND OF CAMPBELTOWN, 1762 TO 1773

* Quoted as date of previous register in two Campbeltown registers both dated 26 August 1768.

     The first four of these vessels might have been bought at Liverpool and registered at Campbeltown on arrival there, but the only evidence to support this is that Charlotte, registered at Liverpool on 10 May 1763 as built at Liverpool in 1751, was advertised for sale in Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser on 27 April 1764, described as built at Liverpool without a date stated, but lengthened and overhauled in 1762. The other vessels built at Liverpool seem more likely to have been commissioned by Campbeltown owners or bought during construction.

     Two registrations at Campbeltown make reference to previous registers having been made at Liverpool. Peggy and Nelly was registered at Campbeltown on 26 August 1766, citing the previous register of 16 July 1766 at Liverpool without any name being stated. The Liverpool register of that date with matching details was named Rising Sun of Conway, a sloop of 20 tons built there in 1765, and owned by the master. The second Liverpool register was for Three Friends, made in that name at Liverpool on 15 June 1775, for which the original document has not survived; it is quoted in the Campbeltown register on 25 September 1776 in the same name, a sloop also built at Conway, in 1767.

     A full analysis of the Campbeltown registers requires detailed knowledge of local places and families, but some comparisons between the Liverpool and Campbeltown registers can be made. The Liverpool Plantation Registers contain many vessels built in the British colonies, often with the registration there being copied at Liverpool before re-registration. The Campbeltown Plantation Registers have only two registrations of vessels built in the British colonies, Tartar and Nancy, registered 20 March 1767 and 25 January 1770 respectively. Tartar was a schooner of 50 tons, built in 1765 at Hingham in Massachusetts Bay and registered 'there' on 8 August 1765. Nancy was also a schooner, of 30 tons, built in 1752 at Newbury, Massachusetts, and registered at Boston and Salem on 25 February 1752. There are no copies of these registers, as so often found at Liverpool when colonial built vessels are re-registered there. The Liverpool registers have also many registers of vessels belonging to other English and Irish ports, either registered at such ports and copies made at Liverpool, or registered at Liverpool. Campbeltown has registers for only one English port, Whitehaven, and one Irish port, Larne, both made at Campbeltown, though there are many registers made at Campbeltown for vessels belonging to other Scottish places and ports. But Liverpool registers include 151 registers of vessels belonging to 20 Scottish ports, either made or copied at Liverpool.

     A second conclusion surprising to a student of Liverpool colonial trade in the mid 18th century is tbe small size of the vessels registered at Campbeltown, in register volumes kept according to legislation for authorising vessels trading with the British colonies. Of 103 vessels registered for the first time as of Campbeltown, (not including those re-registered), 13 were between 20 and 29 tons, seven of which were only 20 tons. There were only 13 vessels between 70 and 79 tons and only nine of 60 to 69 tons. 68 were between 30 and 59 tons. The largest vessels were two of 79 tons, though one of these on re-registration was entered at 80 tons. The average tonnage for the 103 registrations was 451. The tonnage of vessels marked as of other ports shows a similar pattern, but the largest vessel of 100 tons was described as of Whitehaven, built and owned there, and for some reason registered at Campbeltown on 9 May 1765. Register tonnage was usually smaller than the measure used in Lloyd's Registers of Shipping but these vessels were not the common sizes of those found at Liverpool to be engaged in the colonial trade. Small vessels registered at Liverpool of between 20 and 50 tons did take part in the colonial trade to and from Liverpool, or were sent out to be inter-island traders in the West Indies, or to the coast of Africa as 'tenders' to bigger slaving vessels, But the size of such vessels steadily increased during the 18th century according to the Liverpool registers; these give the inpression that by about 1760 to 1775, the period of the Campbeltown registers, the average West India trader was between 70 and 150 tons, the slavers between 70 and 250 tons varying according to the part of the African coast where slaves were sought, and the Maryland and Virginia traders were between 150 and 250 tons.

     These details bring into question whether the Campbeltown Plantation Registers were in fact recording vessels intended for the colonial trade. Anne R. Bigwood's thesis The Campbeltown Buss Fishery 1750-1800 gives figures of entries and clearances to North America and the West Indies from 1750 to 1795 from the Scottish Quarterly Customs accounts showing small amounts of colonial trade, highest between 1765 to 1775. Unfortunately these numbers of shipments do not quote the names of the vessels in such trade, and their relation to the Campbeltown registers, nor the use of the port by vessels registered elsewhere at other ports and so controlled by owners outside Campbeltown(9). She does state, however, that of the vessels of Campbeltown registered or re-registered between 1763 and 1778, only three cannot be traced in the independently recorded lists of herring busses entitled to receive the government bounty. In searching various types of government records primarily for Liverpool and other Lancashire colonial traders in the 18th century before 1786, very few Campbeltown references have been fonnd, compared for example with those for Lancaster.

     Two explanations seem possible for the recording in a Plantation Register of vessels designed mainly for herring fishing. One is suggested by the fact that at Liverpool some vessels were registered which did not take part in the colonial trade, but were engaged in trade to Europe which did not require a Plantation Register, or were newly arrived at Liverpool and were registered there immediately before sale and re-registration. Both examples indicate one advantage of a plantation Register, that it was a document solemnly sworn before customs officials, which established a reasonably detailed description of the vessel, and the names of its owners who were responsible for its management and expenses, and for the legal formalities involved in any sale. Any customs officer in Great Britain and even on the Contininent would accept the credentials of a master named in the register, or endorsed on it as succeeding the originally named master. A further explanation of the nature of Scottish Plantation Register entries was made by the late Rupert Jarvis, formerly Librarian of H.M. Customs and Excise, an expert on the administration and practice of 18th century customs legislation. In Maritime History(10) for September 1972, he wrote in his article 'Ship Registry 1707-86' about 'the assimilation, after the Union (of 1707) of English and Scottish law and practice'. Before 1707 there was no Scottish law of ship registration, and a new Scottish Board of Customs was set up to administer practices previously only familiar to English and Irish customs officials. Jarvis concludes:-
     'The Scots, perhaps out of a naive Scottish pride, seem to have thought that the object of      registry was to register as many vessels as possible to the Scottish ports (when) the object of registry was precisely to register only those vessels that qualified - and hence to refuse to register those that did not'.

     This description seems to explain the nature of the Campbeltown Plantation Registers and the difference between them and the Liverpool Plantation Registers. Only in 1786 did a new law require the registration of all British shipping, 'with minor statutory exceptions' as Jarvis states, covering vessels in any variety of trade.

Notes;

1. The Campbeltown Registers are at the Custom House, Campbeltown, and the Liverpool Registers are at the Archives Department, National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, though formerly at the Custom House, Liverpool. I am grateful to H.M. Board of Customs and Excise for the opportunity to examine these documents and to the Collectors and their staffs at Campbeltown and Liverpool for facilitating access to them.

2. Probably was Diligence of Liverpool, registered at Liverpool 4 August 1747 in the Wool Register kept at Liverpool and a few other English ports for registering vessels legally authorised to carry wool from Ireland to England. Diligence was described there as a brigantine of 50 tons built at Bideford 1725, and she was owned by four Liverpool merchants and a Dublin man.

3. Pursue was re-registered at Londonderry as Jerry, date unknown, and re-registered again as in Table I, as is recited in the register at Campbeltown as Fly on 28 September 1775. An entry for Jerry is given in Lloyd's Register, 1776 edition, and in the supplementary entries under F as Fly. The vessel had a long life. The 1775 Campbeltown register was copied at Liverpool after 18 April 1780, before re-registration on 3 June as Fly of Liverpool, and again on 29 December as Greyhound of Liverpool. After a cruise as a privateer, she was re-registered on 14 August 1781, and advertised for sale on 25 May 1786 as fit for the African or Meat India trades, and on 3 August as fit for fishery or coasting.

4. An unfinished entry and not a register, between other registers dated 24 and 29 October. No date is given for build and no owners are listed. James Mcdonald was master and given as swearing the oath to the details.

5. David Eddie formerly of Liverpool, mariner, was reported to have died, Williamsons Liverpool advertised 1772 Nov 27.

6. A copy of the thesis is in the Campbeltown Public Library, and I am most grateful to Alison Todd, the Librarian, for drawing my attention to this work and facilitating access to it at Campbeltown.

7. Sailing - Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser 6 August 1762 for sailing from Cork to Jamaica. Re-registrations:- Public Record Office, Colonial Office papers, Barbados, C.O. 33/17, entry at Barbados 23 February 1764; St.Vincent C.O. 265/1, entry at St.Vincent 22 January 1765.

8. Lloyd's Register 1764 seems to indicate that both these vessels were rebuilt at Liverpool in 1764. Bee is described as of 30 tons, British built in 1756, James Blue master, and a voyage in 1764 from Liverpool to Dublin. Lord Frederick is described as of 40 tons, British built 1752, Sam Huie master, and a voyage from Liverpool to Ross probably in 1763 since no date is given. Both have Campbeltown in the insurer's column.

9. Some names of vessels and merchants in the colonial trade to and from Campbeltown are also given in an article by Susan McDonald, 'Campbeltown's American Trade in the Eighteenth Century' in The Kintyre. . Magazine, No. 4, Campbeltown 1978. These are taken from the customs records, but are not correlated with the evidence of the Plantation Registers about vessels and owners.

10. Maritime History was published by David and Charles, and R.C. Jarvis wrote three articles on ship registry, in Vol.1 No.1, 'Ship Registry to 1707', in Vol.2 No.2, 1972 'Ship Registry 1707-86', and Vol.4 No. .1, 1974 'Ship Registry 1786'. The quotations are from Vol.2 No.2 p.151 and p.154, and the one in the last paragraph from p.166. On the 1786 Act see also the introduction by R.C. Jarvis to Liverpool Register of Merchant Ships by L Craig and R.C. Jarvis, Chetham Society, Manchester 1967. There are in this volume references to two vessels registered at Liverpool being transferred to Campbeltown, and to two Campbeltown men being involved in vessels registered at Liverpool.

     This article is published with the permission of the author, whose work was undertaken at the University of Liverpool under the aegis of the Liverpool Plantation Research Project, sponsored by the Social Sciences Research Council.

Editor's Note:

Perhaps the Campbeltown Merchants were not so much naive as canny. On the outbreak of war the butcher cum general merchant in one of the small remote Argyll Islands asked for special registration as a purveyor of kosher meat. When asked by the Food Officer if there was a large Jewish colony in the island he replied that there was none but since he didn't know what 'kosher' meant he wasn't taking any chances!

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