Port Books

Port Books record local customs duties paid on overseas trade between 1565 and 1799. Smaller ports are usually incorporated within the Port Book of a larger head port. Recorded data includes:

• The name, tonnage and home port/port of departure of the arriving or departing ship;

• The destination or next port of call (not necessarily correct);

• Coastal movements;

• name of the merchants and whether they were foreign;

• Details of the cargo;

• The date of the payment of duty.

In many cases the date of arrival may not correspond exactly to the date of the payment of duty but it is reasonable to assume that payment would have been made within a short time after arrival. When a cargo was not subject to duty payments a certificate was issued stating as such. These are usually recorded in a separate list.

Theoretically, all movement of vessels carrying dutiable cargo into and out of a port should be recorded in the Port Books, although this will rarely have been the case due to smuggling, corruption and other evasion.

A total of approximately 20,000 Port Books have survived, although many are in a poor state of preservation and there are many gaps. They are hand-written and those compiled before 1600 tend to be written in Latin. There are a small number of similar documents for the period before 1565. Most Port Books are held in the PRO.