We discuss the properties of H{alpha} emission stars across the sample of 22035 spectra from the Gaia-ESO Survey internal data release, observed with the GIRAFFE instrument and largely belonging to stars in young open clusters. Automated fits using two independent Gaussian profiles and a third component accounting for the nebular emission allow us to discern distinct morphological types of H{alpha} line profiles with the introduction of a simplified classification scheme. Altogether we find 3765 stars with intrinsic emission and sort their spectra into eight distinct morphological categories: single component emission, emission blend, sharp emission peaks, double emission, P-Cygni, inverted P-Cygni, self absorption, and emission in absorption. We have more than one observation for 1430 stars in our sample, thus allowing a quantitative discussion of the degree of variability of H{alpha} emission profiles, which is expected for young, active objects. We present a catalogue of stars with properties of their H{alpha} emission line profiles, morphological classification, analysis of variability with time and the supplementary information from SIMBAD, VizieR and ADS databases. The records in SIMBAD indicate the presence of H{alpha} emission for roughly 25% of all stars in our catalogue while at least 305 of them have already been more thoroughly investigated according to the references in ADS. The most frequently identified morphological categories in our sample of spectra are emission blend (23%), emission in absorption (22%), and self absorption (16%). Objects with repeated observations demonstrate that our classification into discrete categories is generally stable through time while seemingly less stable are categories P-Cygni and Self absorption, which is the consequence of discrete classification rules as well as of the fundamental change in profile shape. Such records of emission stars can be valuable for automatic pipelines in large surveys, where it may prove very useful to pinpoint outliers during calculation of general stellar properties and elemental abundances. They can find use in studies of star formation processes, interacting binaries and other fields of stellar physics.

Cone search capability for table J/A+A/581/A52/tabled2 (Cross-identifications to Simbad, Vizier and ADS)