Photo – Lloyd’s Register Foundation
In these strange times, I have found there is plenty of time for research, therefore I was delighted to find out about a new resource to investigate from Debbie Levett, Secretary for Friends of Island History Trust.
Debbie informed me about the Heritage & Education Centre of the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and their digital online records. I had visited the centre some years ago and was fascinated by the information in their records. However the access to the physical records was not straightforward and I thought it was more useful to search for information in other ways.
Fortunately many of those records have now been catalogued and digitised, and are searchable online for free and available for public use.
Photo – Lloyd’s Register Foundation
When I visited their office, I was fascinated by the history of Lloyd’s Register which was the first maritime classification society, the Register began in 1760 and has inspected and surveyed vessels on the basis of the quality and condition of their workmanship and materials. These vessels were given a classification and entered within our annually published Register of Ships as a record of safe ships, and later, a record of all vessels over 100 tons regardless of whether they had been surveyed.
Photo – Lloyd’s Register Foundation
The society operated at ports and offices all around the United Kingdom and Ireland, and eventually, across the globe. The society eventually accumulated a large collection of material (1.25 million documents), that are being digitised and catalogued, consisting of survey reports, correspondence, photographs, ship plans and certificates, dating back to 1834. Around 200,000 of these are now online with more scheduled at a rate of around 30,000 a month.
Photo – Lloyd’s Register Foundation
From a local point, it is worth mentioning that Lloyd’s Register has long had a presence in and around the Isle of Dogs and a number of the records deal with the main shipbuilding areas of Limehouse, Blackwall and Millwall.
Photo – Lloyd’s Register Foundation
I will be exploring the site over the next few weeks and hopefully will bring some of the stories related to ships built on the Isle of Dogs.
The portal to the online catalogue can be found here
Isle of Dogs Life 