Description:

Ships’ muster rolls from 1750 – 1751; Society of Merchant Venturers’ archive.
Muster roll no: 19.

Muster roll for the ship, the Chard, sailing from Africa and St Kitts in the Caribbean, 1749.
The Chard, a small ship of 60 tons, sailed for the Bonny coast with instructions to buy 300 slaves. The actual number bought there and sold at St Kitts is not known.

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: 1749

Copyright: Copyright The Society of Merchant Venturers