Database Rollout and How to Search

Welcome to our searchable database, which contains details on Kent’s ships and maritime and military communities. Over the rest of 2025, we will have three phases to the rollout of our searchable database.

Phase One (May/June 2025)

We have made our database of ships, musters, and merchants available, enabling users to search for individual ships by name or people by name. Additionally, it provides the ability to search for a particular port.

Phase Two (Summer 2025)

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping of Kent’s ship voyages. When this is made available, users will be able to see the voyages of individual ships sailing from and into Kent’s ports. Users will be able to look at ports or the voyage destinations and origins for the whole county. Additionally, we will make available the commodities dataset, allowing users to analyse the types of commodities imported and exported into Kent’s ports, as well as goods moved coastwise. Commodities will also be mapped, meaning users will be able to see where, for example, most of the cheese shipped into Kent came from, or be able to see the types of commodities shipped from Kent to the continent and other places like London.

Phase Three (Autumn/Winter 2025)

This phase will incorporate a large body of data from the period 1670-1765. This will be information gathered from the port books. Once complete, this will make freely available an unparalleled resource for those who wish to investigate Kent’s maritime history.

How to Search the Database

Go to www.maritimebritain.org and select the Maritime Kent project. After selecting this option, click on the "Database and Mapping" tab. This will provide you with the opportunity to search the muster records or voyages (our commodities dataset will be launched in Phase Two). To search for ship name, you can select three options. Due to the inconsistent spelling of names, we advise that you select ‘name contains the entered value’. Once you type in three letters, this will find all references to ship names which contain those letters (i.e. kat should bring up Katherine, and ‘Wel’ will bring up Welfare, Speedwell, Welcome, etc). Follow the same principles with searches for shipmasters. You can also search voyages by date. Searching by year will bring you all the voyages in the database for that year. You can also search the date the coquet (cocket) was issued. Customs collectors issued coquets to shipmasters undertaking coastal voyages. Coquets were important because while coastal trade was untaxed, officials were keen to ensure that cargo destined for coastal trade was not shipped overseas, thus avoiding customs duties. The shipmaster was supposed to show the coquet to the official based at the port the ship sailed to as a way of showing the vessel had not sailed overseas. Not all port books record coquet dates, so searching by year will produce more results.

When searching the musters database, you can choose to search by place, by person, who the muster was taken by, or the year of the muster. When searching the Troop surname, you need to follow the same principles outlined above and enter three characters to see how many names appear containing those letters.