Description:

Ships’ muster rolls from the 29th Sep 1774 – 29th Sep 1775; Society of Merchant Venturers’ archive. Muster roll no: 35.

Muster roll for the slave ship, the Polly, which sailed from Bristol in 1772 to Angola in West Africa. The ship was then sailed, with the cargo of enslaved Africans, to the Caribbean islands of Barbados and St Vincent.

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: 1772

Copyright: Copyright The Society of Merchant Venturers