Description:

Ships’ muster rolls from 1788 – 1789; Society of Merchant Venturers’ archive.
Muster roll no: 75.

Muster roll for the ship, the Royal Charlotte , sailing from Bristol to Africa and the West Indies and from thence to Bristol, 1788.
The Royal Charlotte sailed from Bristol with orders to buy 450 or 460 slaves. It is not known how many were actually bought and sold at St Vincent, in the Caribbean.

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: 1788

Copyright: Copyright The Society of Merchant Venturers