Description:

From ships’ muster roll book, 1793 – 1795; Society of Merchant Venturers’ archive. Muster roll no: SMV 160.
Muster roll for the ship, the Pilgrim. The ship left Bristol for Bonny in West Africa and carried probably 419 enslaved Africans to St Vincent. Reports show that 15 or 16 died during the voyage.
The crew is a very mixed one, with sailors from Bristol, Gloucester, Chippenham, Pensford and Kingswood locally. There are also crew from London, Wales, Cumberland, Edinburgh, Oxford, America, Norway, Denmark, Spain and Anguilla.

See also articles of agreement for the ship, the Pilgrim .

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: 1793

Copyright: Copyright The Society of Merchant Venturers