This is a page from a register of ships arriving and departing from Blyth. The register is part of the Ridley collection, held at Northumberland Archives. The Ridley family owned lots of the land in and around Blyth, including the harbour area, from the 1720s onwards. 

The register records the names of the ships, their port of origin, the masters’ names, the ships’ cargoes, date of loading, date of sailing and port of destination from Blyth. This page records the ships coming into the port 1st-10th September 1790. The volume contains entries that cover the period 1790-1794. 

Do = ditto (the same as above) 

Keel = 21.54 metric tons of coal, 1 metric ton = 1000kg (see heading of columns 6-8) 

Mixed, round, small (heading of columns 6-8) – grades of coal 

Keel – also a type of boat used to transport coal, typically used on NE coast 

Tons of salt (column 8) – imperial ton = 1016kg  

1793 – 343 ships  

1794 – 315 ships  

Between 1755 and 1767 an average of 165 ships docked at Blyth per year. Between 1793 and 1799 that average rose to 292 ships per year. 

(See WR Sullivan Blyth in the Eighteenth Century, Oriel Press, Newcastle, 1971) 

Newcastle Journal, 7 Jan 1744 

At Blyth, a good sea-port in Northumberland, good convenience for carrying on any trade, with liberty to build warehouses, granaries, and other things necessary; also a new wind-mill, built with stone and well-accustomed; a fire-stone quarry for glass-house furnaces; a draw-kiln for burning limestones; two large sheds for making pan-tiles and stock-bricks, with a good seam of clay for that purpose; also at Link-house, one mile from Blyth, a large new malting, well supplied with water. Enquire at Link-house aforesaid, or of Matthew Ridley, esquire, Newcastle.