Description:

Ships muster rolls from 1783 – 1784; Society of Merchant Venturers archive.
Detail from muster roll no: 120.

Muster roll for the ship, the Mermaid from the bay of Honduras, 1782.
Honduras, in Central America, was the source of much of the mahogany shipped to Bristol via Jamaica.

The muster roll is a list of all crew signed on for all or part of a voyage, which was used to calculate the money each man should pay to the Sailors’ Hospital Fund (insurance).

The Society of Merchant Venturers is a Bristol-based organisation, which was formed in 1552 as an elite body of merchants involved in overseas trade. The Society still exists today.

Date: 1782

Copyright: Copyright The Society of Merchant Venturers