These documents are loose pages from an 18th century log of licenses for sea captains. I have eleven pages from a book that probably held a 100 or more. I bought all of the Lowestoft pages I could find, but others in the lot didn't have any Lowestoft connection and included ships and captains from Great Yarmouth, Felixstowe, etc. The lot seemed to be regional, not nationwide.

So what did I buy? It's hard to tell where theses pages came from, which is the problem when dealers rip books apart and sell the pages separately. We have no context and down the buyer chain people like me have to resort to guessing.

What I have here is a sort of combination of registration of the ships and the owners; a license where the pilots can ship to and the tonnage of the ships they can pilot; and license for the areas the ships are allowed to journey to.

Here's what I found in my research. At the time these pages were written in the 18th C., there was no national registration of merchant ships, where they could go, or anything certifying the skill of the captains and pilots. However, the need was recognized and eventually various schemes came about with the goal of certifying ships and the experience of their captains for insurance and and to ensure the safety of goods and passengers.

Lloyd's, the great London insurance house, started a system of registering captains, etc., but that didn't start until 1869, much later than these samples. So these are not from the Lloyd's "Captain's Registers". The Lloyd's registery ended in 1947. The government system of registering ships to their ports (our LT for Lowestoft on our trawlers and drifters) didn't start until 1869. That's why my documents don't have LT numbers on them; they're too early.

Trinity House had a charge to increase the safety and professionalism of captains and their ships and was founded much earlier than my samples, in the 16th century. The main records are held in the Guildhall in London, but the records themselves are spotty due to fires (1666 and 1714) and World War 2 bombing. They are not open to the public.

Trinity House had a regional outpost in Great Yarmouth, which closed in 2002. I suspect the book these samples came from was kept there and were later torn apart to be dispersed in ephemera auctions and on Ebay.

So what was the purpose of the registry? The purpose was to register professional and competent ship owners and captains so that passengers, shippers, investors and insurers had a rational basis for risk if they were hiring the ship and captain. Back in the 17th C. Samuel Pepys was concerned about the quality of Port of London Pilots (he must have had a scare!) and was given permission to devise a test of their abilities and the Pilot's documentation was brought the control of Trinity House.

All ports need sea pilots to guide vessels safely through local hazards and into harbour. Our sand banks offshore of Lowestoft are well known and treacherous. Pepys was also concerned about the high number of coal ships (and London did need its coal!) running aground. Traditionally the pilots were local men who knew the seas around their home ports. Pilots were also needed on large navigable rivers.

Under the Trinity system a pilot had to be 35 years old, hence the birthdates after every name, and was required to be experienced. On my logs you'll also see experienced noted.

Under the Trinity House scheme qualified pilots could claim a set fee, and whenever you have a set fee you also have unofficial local pilots who are willing to work for less. In Lowestoft these gypsy-pilots were know as Brumigen Pilots.

Enjoy the licenses and if you make a connection or have something to add, please feel free to put your comments in the Discus section below.