After 1960

The Board of Trade was no longer required to collect passenger lists after 1960, although lists may have been kept in some overseas countries or ports beyond this date.  For their own purposes shipping companies would have continued to compile passenger lists, but in most cases, these records have not been retained. 

P&O Passenger Lists 

In addition to the official lists required by the Board of Trade, P&O compiled lists of passengers travelling aboard its ships, although precious few examples have survived.  These company-generated passenger records have been disposed of once there were no legal grounds for their retention.  It was customery for shipping companies to supply passenger with printed lists of the names of their fellow travellers on a particular voyage.  The only lists of passengers in the P&O Archives housed at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich are: 

• Lists of passengers booked to leave the UK on P&O ships between 1911-1916 (i.e. there is no record of whether they actually sailed or not).  These are housed in 6 volumes ranging in catalogue numbers from P&O/42/34 to P&O/42/39
• Lists of passengers on P&O pleasure cruises (i.e. short leisure voyages, not line voyages to or from overseas destinations) between 1925 and 1938.  These are housed in bound volumes in catalogue numbers ranging from P&O/44/27 to P&O/44/33
• Assorted copies of the printed passenger lists which are filed with miscellanea relating to the ship in question and are not individually itemised in the NMM catalogue.  All individual ship files are catalogued in the P&O/65 series, but if you rely on this source to find an individual list, you will almost certainly be disappointed. 

For details of P&O passengers arriving at or leaving from ports outside the UK, enquirers should approach the port authorities, the local or national archives of the country in question.

If you are unable to locate a passenger list owing to the limited scope of passenger lists held in the P&O Archives, please begin your search for a P&O passenger by referring to the previous sections in this guide for information on finding departing and arriving passengers.  Please note that after 1960 it was no longer a requirement for shipping companies to deposit passenger lists with UK authorities, and neither P&O nor the UK authorities have any passenger lists after that date.

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