Call for two volunteer graduate research associates to work on ERC-University of Exeter paper

Posted on February 14, 2013 by ColinGreenstreet

The University of Exeter is holding a conference in September 2013 on Worki ng lives between the deck and the dock. This conference is part of a three year ERC funded project led by principal investigator Dr Maria Fusaro, and supported by associate research fellows Dr Bernard Allaire, Dr Richard Blakemore, and Dr Tijl Vanneste.

The MarineLives project team is delighted that its paper has been accepted by the conference organisers, and is now looking for two volunteer graduate research associates to assist it over the next few months in completing the paper. All intellectual contributions to the paper will be recognised in the paper’s authorship.

The paper is titled: “Each according to his office”: Risk, rank, and labour in English whaling enterprise at Spitsbergen, 1656-7. Its proposers and current principal authors are Philip Hnatkovich (Ph.D candidate, Pennsylvania State University) and Colin Greenstreet (Project Leader, Marine Lives).

Philip and Colin are forming a small research team to complete the research and writing of the paper. Two existing members of the MarineLives project team are joining the research team – Dr Janet Few, a community historian, and Karen Gunnell, a professional archivist with marine historical interests.

We would like to supplement the research team with two further volunteer graduate research associates. Specifically we are looking for seventy hours of your research time, spread over the next four or five months. We plan to complete research by the end of June and to submit the paper by the end of July 2013, in time for consideration for publication in a planned edition of conference papers.

At the core of the research is a social and economic reconstruction of the crew of the Owners Adventure and the Greyhound, the two whaling ships commanded by Thomas Damerell, and of their financiers.

If you join us in this work you will receive a rigorous training in collaborative research techniques, drawing on Colin Greenstreet’s training as a management consultant at McKinsey and Booz.Allen & Hamilton, and on Philip Hnatkovich’s and Colin’s training and practical experience of historical research.

You will be introduced to developing hypothesis based issue analysis, writing research and source evaluation plans, and meticulous demographic reconstruction.

You will also gain and contribute to an understanding of contract and incentive structures in English whaling in the 1650s, and to the economics and risk management of such ventures in the same period. Much of the detailed evidence will be drawn from High Court of Admiralty of England and Chancery Court litigation, and there will be a chance to explore how litigation was used by litigious financiers in an attempt to rewrite economic outcomes, and how ship owners and crew members responded and resisted such attempts.

If you would like to learn more about this opportunity, please contact us using this contact form.

ERC-Exeter Conference Paper Outline

“Each according to his office”: Risk, rank, and labour in English whaling enterprise at Spitsbergen, 1656-7

Authors: Philip Hnatkovich (Ph.D. Candidate, Pennsylvania State University) & Colin Greenstreet (Project Leader, MarineLives[i])

This paper examines the environmental, financial, and social pressures upon and within seventeenth-century English arctic whaling enterprise through a microhistory of a botched English venture in southern “Greeneland” (Spitzbergen) in the summer of 1656. The role of rank and the specific “offices” of the men involved in the venture are explored in the context of the high physical and commercial risk of whaling as an enterprise, and the highly differentiated nature of labour to successfully find, catch, and process whales.

In this particular case, the failure of the Owners Adventure and its companion pinke, the Greyhound – put to sea by London merchant and experienced whaling entrepreneur Richard Batson – to return with their expected haul, resulted in multiple law suits and protracted litigation between the financiers, the ships’ officers and crew, and accompanying land men. The litigation was centred upon the High Court of Admiralty of England (HCA), physically located at Doctors Commons in London, but extending to a suit brought before the Poultry Counter by an ordinary seaman, and a related suit in Chancery.

The crux of these cases was a dispute at sea between the young captain and commander Thomas Damerell and the more seasoned harpooners Edward Gosling, Richard Maundrie, and William Humfrey, who openly challenged Damerell’s decision to attempt landfall through an unusually thick and hazardous ice shelf. Their standoff galvanized the crews, leading Damerell to accuse Gosling, Maundrie, and Humfrey of mutinous behaviour; Batson and his fellow merchants ultimately aligned with Damerell in the resulting litigation and refused to pay wages to the crews.

This personal and situational conflict, replayed in detail through depositions given by the principals, crew, and accompanying land men, to the judges of the High Court of Admiralty, serves as a cogent starting point for a discussion of the deeper, structural faultlines of whaling enterprise – and the conditions of English sea labour more generally – in the mid-seventeenth century. As asserted by John Appleby, though Greenland whaling was an industry of increasing economic value in this period, its unique set of financing and working conditions remain poorly understood in maritime historiography.[ii] Environmental conditions in the Arctic made whaling a particularly challenging and hazardous segment of English fisheries expansion in the early and mid-seventeenth century. Its use of a labour-intensive, shore-processing industrial system, in contrast to the offshore processing of whales by the Dutch, required large numbers of men. Greenland voyages included a novel mix of seafarers, routinely placing a number of novice landsmen alongside workers with specialized skills like harpooners, butchers, brewers, and coopers. Furthermore, whaling was a highly competitive field which pitted vessels representing different companies – and different nations – against one another in a struggle for shore space and shrinking yields. At mid-century, declining temperatures associated with the Little Ice Age fostered the partial collapse of Greenland whale stocks and shortened its fishing season, placing further pressures on enterprise and exacerbating competition.

Based on the account given in the HCA depositions, our essay first uses the shipboard challenge to Captain Damerell in order to dissect the mechanics of Greenland whaling, and highlights the tensions between the different specialised “offices” held by crew members. The technical skills of the harpoonists and their importance to the success of a whaling adventure enabled them to challenge the authority of the young captain Damerell. We cross-reference these depositions with further legal records from the Chancery and Probate courts, and with a range of national, municipal, and parish records, including State Papers and hearth tax returns, to reconstruct the social backgrounds of the principal figures in the Owners Adventure-Greyhound litigation.[iii] In doing so, we place the case within the broader commercial networks and regulatory conflicts affecting whaling in the Commonwealth period.

Our microanalysis is informed by the transcriptions and insights contributed by the members of the MarineLives project, a digital humanities initiative working toward a collaborative transcription and online database of the court materials contained in HCA volume 13/71, from which many of the depositions derive.[iv] In total, an examination of the conflicts at the heart of the failed Spitsbergen enterprise of 1656 suggests the potential contributions that the continued digitization and enrichment of HCA materials can make toward a greater social history of sea labor in the early modern age.

[i] For further information on the MarineLives project see http://www.marinelives.org and http://marinelives-theshippingnews.org/blog/

[ii] John C. Appleby, ‘Conflict, cooperation and competition: The rise and fall of the Hull whaling trade during the seventeenth century’, The Northern Mariner/le marin du nord XVIII, no. 2 (April 2008), 45-7.

[iii] For example, C 6/134/15 Batson v Colvile. Plaintiffs: Richard Batson and Gowen Goldagne. Defendants: Robert Colvile, John Colvile and William Clarkson, 1657; SP 46/96/fo 5: Order of the Council for Trade that for this year Bell Sound and Horn Sound shall be reserved for the Company of Merchant Adventurers to Greenland and the rest of the harbours left free for all other Englishmen. Copy. 1650/1 Mar. 3; SP 46/96/fo 8-12: The proceedings at the Council for Trade, between the Muscovia Company, Monopolizers of the trade of Greenland, and others, Adventurers thither, for a Free Trade: Printed: [1651]; SP 46/96/fo 23-24: Description of the present state of the Greenland fishing and the methods employed, and conclusions drawn therefrom [by the Muscovia Company]. Copy. [1651/2 Jan.]

[iv] HCA 13/71 transcriptions of depositions relating to arctic whaling have been made by Dr. Janet Few, Karen Gunnell, Colin Greenstreet, Dr. Liam Haydon, Philip Hnatkovich, Alex Jackson, William Kellett, David Pashley, Daniel Richards, Laura Seymour, Alexis Harasemovitch Truax, William Tullett, and Jill Wilcox.

Fishing for whales (part one)

Posted on January 22, 2013 by ColinGreenstreet

This blog article is the first in a series of three on arctic whaling off the coast of Spitzbergen. The series draws on a rich set of witness statements made in the case of Batson against Gosling and others in the High Court of Admiralty of England in late 1656 and early 1657 (HCA 13/71), and is supplemented by answers in a further High Court of Admiralty volume (HCA 13/128) from early 1657.¹

The series has been written to illustrate the research potential of the High Court of Admiralty records. In this case, into commercial practices of whaling, into the seventeenth century arctic environment, and into historical technology.

SERIES PREVIEW

In this first article we set the scene – exploring the 1650s arctic ice, looking for whales, and meeting a lively cast of characters.

The second article in the series explores the geography and environment of whale fishing off “Greeneland” (Spitzbergen), focussing on the route and travails of two ships, the Owners Adventure and the Greyhound, captained and commanded by Thomas Damerell.

The last article deals with the technology and material culture of mid-seventeenth century English whaling, including the chasing of the whale in six man oared shallops and the boiling of blubber in shore based furnaces on Spitzbergen, as well as at Blackwall on the River Thames.

SETTING THE SCENE

The normal practice of English arctic (“Greeneland”) whalers, was to establish a summer base on the shore of one of a number of southern Spitzbergen bays.

This required fragile wooden ships to penetrate the sea ice to the whale rich coastal bays, towed by their crews in the ships’ shallops or wherries. Success in working through the ice was highly dependent on the arctic weather, and on the courage and skill of the whaling crews. The ships carried sizeable crews, appropriate to the challenges of navigation through ice and to the people intensive hunting of the whales. The harpooners were highly experienced men, who knew the conditions of the ice intimately from many summers in the north.

The whales were hunted in the bays, where they were harpooned from the same ships’ shallops, and eventually lanced and killed, before being towed to shore. There “land men” stripped the blubber from the carcasses and reduced the tissue to oil in large metal furnaces. Skilled butchers, brewers and coopers augmented the muscle of general labouring landsmen.

Travelling on the Owners Adventure was Maurice Foarde, a thirty year old brewer from Shadwell. He had been hired by Captain Damerell “to goe a copper man for boyleing of the whales taken the sayd voyage.”² He was joined by Edward Ashmore, a forty year old butcher from Whitechappel and Edward Reynolds, a fifty yeare old cooper from Saint Botolph Algate.³ ⁴ All told, there were thirteen land men together on the Owners Adventure and the Greyhound, with at least twenty-five mariners. The land men of the two ships were supervised by Richard Kirton, a forty year old Ratcliff man. Kirton’s job? That the landsmen “did their office and duty in cutting up and boyleing and ordering of such whales as should bee taken the sayd voyage.⁵

In contrast, the Dutch, by the mid-seventeenth century, made use of furnaces on their ships to boil blubber whilst at sea.⁶

The proximate cause of the dispute between Richard Batson and Edward Gosling was the failure in May and June 1656 of the two ships under the command of Thomas Damerell to reach the southern Spitzbergen shore in unusually heavy ice. Given the available technology and feeding habits of the preferred species of whales, it was much harder to fill the ships away from the rich hunting grounds of the bays.

They returned home near empty handed “onely with as much bloober as made (when it was boyled at Blackwall) eighteene tonns and upwards of oyle and the finns of two whales.”⁷ Even the blubber was largely of walruses, rather than whales, having “about twenty butts of blubber of sea horses“, which they had stripped from carcasses of walruses killed by Dutchmen on Hope Island.⁸The Dutch took only the walrus teeth, which a contemporary writer on Dutch Spitzbergen estimated to be of greater value than ivory.⁹

The contrast with the other four London ships was painful. Despite the undoubtedly tough ice conditions, they had brought back considerable quantities of blubber and oil, having finally put into shore on 13th of July.¹⁰

The adventure, with its failure to gain any harbour, took a heavy toll on Damerell’s crews, especially the crew of the pinke, the Greyhound. On the Owners Adventure many “for want of refreshment on shore fell sick of the scurvie, and some of the Greyhounds Company dyed thereof.”¹¹

Richard Batson was the lead London merchant behind the financing of Damerell’s whaling adventure, and was joined in the action by his fellow London merchants and partners, Humfrey Beane and Gowan Golderne, who are collectively described in the litigation as Batson and Company.

Edward Gosling was masters mate and one of the harpooners on the the larger of the two ships, the Owners Adventure, which accompanied the smaller pinke, the Greyhound. Gosling was joined in the action by Richard Maundrie and William Humfreye, respectively fellow masters mate and harpooner on the Owners Adventure, and company member and harpooner on the same ship.

At the heart of the problem was the condition of the Spitzbergen ice sheet that summer, and the failure of Damerells ships to get to shore, first at Bell Sound, and then anywhere else on the coast of Spitzbergen. There was also a simmering conflict between Captain Damerell and Edward Gosling. This started with their conflicting judgements on the risks of the Bell sound ice, and continued throughout the voyage.

After returning to London, Damerell (and his backers) attempted to blame Gosling, his fellow masters mate, the harpooner Richard Maundry, and a third harpooner, William Humfrey, for the failure of the adventure. The financiers refused to pay the crews wages and a war of litigation broke out with multiple suits and over a hundred pages of depositions in the High Court of Admiralty.

THE WRONG KIND OF ICE

It was the carpenter’s third voyage to Greenland, all three in the service of Batson Beane and Golderne. The condition of the ice had been much easier on the first two voyages, as the carpenter, William Clarkson, told the court:

“His first voyage was in the Richard (one Mr Peryman Master) which shipp went to Bell Sound to first where shee safely arrived and the second voyage was in the Gentleman of London (the foresayd Damerell Master) which shipp went to the foreland point, and to Smiths Bay Crosse Road, Port Nock, and Ducks Cove and anchored safely in all those harbours or places, and the last voyage being the voyage in question, in the Owners Adventure (the sayd Damerell Master) in which as is predeposed shee gott not at all to harbour,

And saith that the sayd first voyage there was little or noe Ice upon the Coast, in soe much that a smale wherrie might safely have passed into harbour, And that the sayd second voyage there was smale store of Ice in soe much that in this deponents Judgement there was not by a thousand parts soe much Ice as was the voyage in question.

And that the voyage in question there was soe great store of Ice that in the judgement of the sayd Damerell himselfe and all the masters of the other shipps Company with him they never sawe soe great a quantitie of Ice upon the Coast and soe they and the sayd Damerell did saye and declare severall tymes in presence of this deponent and others of their shipps Companies whilst they were at Greeneland and since.”^{12a 12b}

The condition of the arctic ice was highly changeable, so that:

“At Greeneland the Ice doth usually open and shutt, and men that goe thither when great yeares of Ice are most watch their opportunitie to get into harbour.”^12b

Taking an opportunity to tow a ship through light ice was one thing, but in June 1656 conditions were horrendous. Captain Damarell’s men were exhausted from working their two ships through leagues of heavy ice, fending off iceflows as they progressed into Bell Sound. The four other English Captains decided to turn back, but Damerell was determined to press on.

Captain James Golding, The master of the Merchant Adventure, was astonished by Damerell’s appetite for risk. William Clarkson recalled:

“The arlate Master Golding (leaning over the Quarter of his own shipp) called to Richard Maundry then aboard the Owners Adventure and sayd thus, or the like in effect, Dick, I thinke your Master (meaning the sayd Damerell) is madd, for hee hath bin at us (meaning himselfe and the sayd Master Welch) to worke further into the Ice toward shoare, and seeing our selves to the Northward of our harbour thinke it to gett in, the Ice being soe thick and wee soe farr northerly, that and are therefore mynded to worke out to sea againe.”¹³

Clarkson himself “supposed the danger soe great shee the (Owners Adventure) being soe farr in the Ice that the least gale of a Westerly winde would sinke the sayd shipp and stave her to peeces.”¹⁴

The dangers of working a ship through thick ice were acute. Captain Pybus’ ship came close to disaster in the same ice that Captain Damerell was determined to press through:

“The sayd Pybus his shipp by her goeing into the Ice at the same tyme and place (though not soe farr as the Owners Adventure did) was soe much damnified and hurt thereby and by breaking through the Ice againe to sea, that when shee was gott cleere to Sea she was ready to sinke by reason of a hole the Ice had staved in her bowe, at which shee tooke five or sixe feete water in hold, and her company were ready to forsake her had shee not ther had the helpe of the Companyes of the sayd Golding Welch and Child their shipps, and of the Company of the Owners Adventure to helpe to pumpe her and stopp her leake.”¹⁵

The historian John Appleby has summarised the difficulties facing whalers off Spitbergen from the 1640s onwards:

“The underlying competition for access to the southern sounds and bays at Spitsbergen, an inherent characteristic of the trade since its earliest days, appears to have been intensified by the declining number of whales due to, particularly the onset of colder weather during the 1640s and beyond. Not only did this leave bays and harbours enveloped with ice for longer, cutting the hunting season, but also it may have contributed to increasing mortality among whales…According to the Company, even the “best Harbors make more loosing voyages than gayning, but once in 3,4, or 5 yeares the Whales Coming in plentifully by scoales.”¹⁶

Undoubtedly 1656 was a tough year in a tough decade, but the relative success of the other whaling ships left Captain Damerell exposed, and determined to excuse himself through allegations of mutinous behaviour by Gosling and Maundry. Batson and his fellow owners chose to side with the captain, to the disgust of the crews.

THE MAIN MEN

Richard Batson (alt. Battison) (b. ?, d. ca. 1667) was a cutler and a successful London merchant, as well as the part-owner of the Owners Merchant, and a freighter and employer of the accompanying pinke, the Greyhound.¹⁷

In contemporary records, he often appears as the lead merchant in Batson and Company. This firm had a substantial interest in the Greenland fishery in terms of capital commitment and activity.

When the Yarmouth merchant and whaler, Thomas Horth (alt. Howarth), proposed in 1654 that English merchants should supply 3000 tons and 500 men for the Greenland fisheries, he pencilled in 200 tons for “Battison and partners.” A further 300 tons were suggested for Whitwell and partners, 500 tons for unnamed Yarmouth merchants, and 1600 tons for unnamed London merchants.¹⁸

The second owner and financier was Humfrey Beane (b. ?1613, d. 1679/80), a cordwainer and merchant, and also part owner, freighter and employer of the Owners Adventure and part freighter and employer of the Greyhound.¹⁹

Humfrey (alt. Humphrey) Beane of Ebisham (alt. Epsom), Surrey, had broad commercial interests. J.R. Woodhead suggests that Beane was available at the Turkey Walk on the Exchange, and that he had “great interest in Greenland whale fisheries.” A dissenter, Beane was buried in Bunhill Fields.²⁰

In a further case in HCA 13/71, Humphrey Beane and Company is identified by the master of the Sarah as the owner of the same ship, which was captured by a privateer off West Africa carrying black slaves and elephants teeth and bound for Virginia.²¹

Thomas Damerell (b. ca.1619, d. ?) was the master of the Owners Adventure and the commander, director and orderer of the Greyhound. He was thirty-seven when the events took place and described himself as a mariner from Limehouse, in the parish of Stepney.

Gowan Golderne (alt. Goldagne; Goldegay; Goldgay) (poss. b. ?1614, poss. d. ?1657) was the third of the named part-owners and financiers of the two ships in question. He is likely to have been a merchant. His unusual name appears only occasionally in records, in 1647 when appointed to a committee of the militia in Southwark, and as having unsucessfully sold on a job lot of prize commission tobacco in 1653.²²

Edward Gosling (alt. Goslin) (b. ?, d. ?), the prime object of the suit against Batson et al., was an experienced mariner and harpooner, who believed he had the confidence of Richard Batson.

William Humfrey (alt. Humphrey) (b.?, d.?). Member of the company of the Owners Adventure and a harpooner. Humfrey was the third crew member named, after Gosling and Maundrie, in the suit against Batson et al.

Richard Maundrie (alt. Maundrey, Mandry) (b. ?, d. ?) was Gosling’s fellow masters mate and a harpooner on the Owners Adventure. It is possible that he was from the family of Maundrey mariners in the Thames estuary town of Leigh on the Essex shore. Leigh (alt. Lee, Lee-on-sea), together with neighbouring Eastwood, was home in the early seventeenth century to a number of important mariner and merchant families, including Goodlads, the Haddocks, and the Moyers. Fifteen miles downstream of Tilbury and Gravesend, the town was a popular point for pilots to embark and disembark onto ships. It was the home of the writer Samuel Purchas, and had a strong link with the Greenland trade through William Goodlad (b., d. 1639), who had been chief commander of the English Greenland fleet for twenty years.²³

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The article is based upon the collective work of all five MarineLives transcription teams, and has been made possible through the transcriptions, insights and support of thirteen project associates and facilitators:

Dr Janet Few, Karen Gunnell, Colin Greenstreet, Dr Liam Haydon, Philip Hnatkovich, Alex Jackson, William Kellett, David Pashley, Daniel Richards, Laura Seymour, Alexis Harasemovitch Truax, William Tullett, and Jill Wilcox.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

(1) Cornelis de Man, Detail of Smerenburg land station of the Noordsche Compagnie on Amsterdamøya Island, off northwest coast of West-Spitsbergen, oil on canvas (1639), sourced from wikimedia

(2) Anonymous, Whale boat off Eden, New South Wales, Australia, towed by a harpooned whale, photograph (late C19th)

(3) Detail showing Spitzbergen and surrounding seas, from Augustus Petermann, Map of the sea of Spitzbergen, to illustrate ‘Sir John Franklin, the sea of Spitzbergen and whale-fisheries in the Arctic regions,’ Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. 23, 1853, betw. pp. 130 & 131, viewed 10/01/13, sourced from an Internet Archive edition

(4) Fig. 194, Woodcut, in Thevet, Cosmographie Universelle (Paris, 1574), sourced from an Internet Archive edition

(5) Edges’s map of Greenland (Spitzbergen), ca. 1611, published in James Travis Jenkins, A history of the whale fisheries: from the Basque fisheries of the tenth century to the hunting of the finner whale at the present date (London, 1921), facing p.58, sourced from an Internet Archive edition, viewed 10/01/13

(6) Detail showing Bell Point and Bell Sound, from Edge’s map of Greenland (Spitzbergen), ca. 1611, sourced from an Internet Archive edition

FOOT NOTES

(1) HCA 13/71 contains 13 separate depositions relating to the dispute between Batson and Gosling. HCA 13/128 contains several answers addressing different aspects of the same dispute.

HCA 13/71 ff.463r-469r Case: Batson against Gosling and others; Deposition: 1. John Ely of Saint Mary Magdalen Bermondsey in the County of Surrey Mariner aged twenty eight yeares; Date: 18/12/1656.

HCA 13/71 ff.469r-472v Case: Batson against Gosling and others; Deposition: 2. John Colvile of Ratcliff in the parish of Stepney and County of Middlesex Mariner Gunner of the Owners Adventure aged thirty sixe yeares; Date: 29/12/1656.

HCA 13/71 ff.472v-477v Case: Batson against Gosling and others; Deposition: 3. William Clarkson of Shadwell in the parish of Stepney and County of Middlesex Shipwright Carpenter of the Owners Adventure aged twenty nyne yeares; Date: 03/01/1656

HCA 13/71 ff.479r-484r Case: Richard Batson Humfrey Beane Gowan Golderne and Company against Edward Goslinge Richard Maundrie and William Humfreye; Deposition: 1. Thomas Damerell of Lymehouse in the parish of Stepney and County of Middlesex Mariner Master of the shipp the Owners Adventure and Commander alsoe of the Greyhound aged 37 yeares; Date: 23/12/1656.

HCA 13/71 ff.484r-488v Case: Richard Batson Humfrey Beane Gowan Golderne and Company against Edward Goslinge Richard Maundrie and William Humfreye; Deposition: 2. Edmond Reynolds of the parish of Saint Botolph Algate London Cooper and Cooper of the Owners Adventure for the voyage in question aged fifty yeares; Date: 01/01/1656(57).

HCA 13/71 ff.488v-490v Case: Richard Batson Humfrey Beane Gowan Golderne and Company against Edward Goslinge Richard Maundrie and William Humfreye; Deposition: 3. Thomas Chauntrell of the parish of Saint Bottolphe Algate London Cooper, and Coopers Mate of the Owners Adventure the voyage in question aged twenty five yeares; Date: 07/01/1656(57)

HCA 13/71 ff.490v-493v Case: Richard Batson Humfrey Beane Gowan Golderne and Company against Edward Goslinge Richard Maundrie and William Humfreye; Deposition: 4. Edward Ashmore of Saint Mary Matsellon Whitechappell London Butcher aged 42 yeares; Date: 09/01/1656(57).

HCA 13/71 ff.493v-497v Case: Richard Batson Humfrey Beane Gowan Golderne and Company against Edward Goslinge Richard Maundrie and William Humfreye; Deposition: 5. Maurice ffoard of Shadwell in the parish of Stepney and the County of Middlesex Brewer aged thirty yeares; Date: CHECK(57)

HCA 13/71 ff.500r-502r Case: Batson against Gosling and others; Deposition: 6. Richard Kirton of Ratcliff in the parish of Stepney and County of Middlesex Overseer of the Landsmen in the Owners Adventure and the Greyhound aged forty yeares; Date: 29/01/1656(57).

HCA 13/71 ff.578r-581v Case: Batson against Gosling and others; Deposition: 4. Lovewell Luckett of the parish of Saint Olave Southwarke Mariner aged twenty two yeares; Date: 12/02/1656(57).

HCA 13/71 ff.581v-586v Case: Batson against Gosling and others; Deposition: 5. Jeramie Joffrey of Ratcliff in the County of Middlesex Rope Maker aged thirty eight; Date: 16/02/1656(57).

HCA 13/71 ff.586v-589r Case: Batson against Gosling and others; Deposition: 6. John Pibus of Greenwich in the Count of Kent Mariner master of the shipp the Adventure of hull aged forty fower yeares; Date: 28/02/1655(57).

HCA 13/71 ff.589r-591r Case: Batson against Gosling and others; Deposition: 7. Nicholas Parkins of Wapping in the parish of Stepney and County of Middlesex Mariner aged forty yeares; Date: 02/03/1655(57).

HCA 13/128 no foliation Case: Henry ffreeman and others against Richard Batson, Humphrey Beane, and Gowen Goldegay; Answer & schedule of unpaid wages: Richard Batson, Humphrey Beane, and Gowen Goldegay: Date: January 13th 1656 (57).

HCA 13/128 no foliation Case; Edward Gosling and Richard Mandrye against Richard Batson, Humfry Beane, and Gowen Goldgue; Date: February ?8th 1656(67).

HCA 13/128 no foliation Case: Edward Gosling, wages; Answer: Richard Batson; Date: Repeated in court on February 13th 1656(57)

HCA 13/128 no foliation Case: Batson and others against Edward Goslinge and others; Answer: Edward Goslin and Richard Maundery; Date: Repeated in court on April 15th 1657

(2) HCA 13/71 f.494r

(3) HCA 13/71 f.490v

(4) HCA 13/71 f.484r

(5) HCA 13/71 f.500r

(6) HCA 13/128 (1656-58) Case: Edward Gosling, wages: Answer: Richard Batson; Undated, no foliation, recto

(7) HCA 13/71 f.500Av

(8) HCA 13/71 f.480v

(9) Hessel Gerritszoon van Assum, ‘Description of the new country, called by the Dutch Spitsbergen’ (Amsterdam, 1613), in William Martin Conway, Early Dutch and English Voyages to Spitsbergen in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1904), p.28), Internet Archive edition, viewed 19/10/12

(10) HCA 13/71 f.475r

(11) HCA 13/71 f.471r

(12a) HCA 13/71 f.476v

(12b) HCA 13/71 f.477r

(13) HCA 13/71 f.473v

(14) HCA 13/71 f.475v

(15) HCA 13/71 f.470v

(16) Appleby, John C., ‘Conflict, cooperation and competition: The rise and fall of the Hull whaling trade during the seventeenth century’, The Northern Mariner/le marin du nord, XVIII No. 2, (April 2008), p. 24), viewed 22/01/13

(17) ‘Batson, Richard’, in J.R. Woodhead, ‘Backwell – Byfield’, The Rulers of London 1660-1689: A biographical record of the Aldermen and Common Councilmen of the City of London (London, 1966), pp.21-42, viewed 10/01/13; PROB 11/324/232 Carr 59-116, Will of Richard Batson, Cutler, June 16th 1667

(18) ‘The Greenland trade from 1620 to 1673′, in William Robert Scott, The constitution and finance of English, Scottish, and Irish joint-stock companies to 1720, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1910), p.74 and more generally pp, 69-75, Internet Archive edition, viewed 22/01/13

(19) PROB 4/1778 Beane, Humphrey, of Epsum alias Ebisham, Surrey, esq. 1680 6 Sept.

(20) ‘Beane, Humphrey’, in J.R. Woodhead, ”Backwell – Byfield’, The Rulers of London 1660-1689: A biographical record of the Aldermen and Common Councilment of the City of London (London, 1966), pp. 21-42, BHOL edition, viewed 22/01/13

(21) HCA 13/71 f.636v Case: A busines of Examinations of Witnesses on the behalfe of John Jeffreys, Thomas Colclough and Company Owners and employers of the shipp the Rappahannack whereof Thomas Clarke was Master and her tackle furniture and lading, And of humfrey Beane and Companie Owners of the shipp the Sarah, whereof Arthur Perkins was Master and of Robert Lewllin and Companie Owners of the goods in the same against John Scroall Captaine and Commander of the shipp the Mary of Amsterdam and the Unicorne of Middleburgh and against Vandergosse and Coymans and all others Owners of the said shipps in particular and all others in generall etcetera; Deposition: 4. Arthur Perkins of Wapping in the County of Middlesex Mariner Late Master of the said shipp the Sarah, aged 44 yeares; Date: 16/03/1656

(22) C.H. Firth, R.S. Rait (eds.), ‘September 1647: Ordinance to settle the Militia of Southwark.’, Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642-1660 (1911), pp. 1010-1011, viewed 22/01/13

(23) H.W.King, ‘Ancient wills. No. 7.’ (A sketch of the genealogy of the Purchas family), in Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, vol. 4 (Colchester, 1869), pp. 166-71, Internet Archive edition, viewed 22/01/13

ABOUT US

The MarineLives project is run by volunteers. New associates, facilitators and advisors are most welcome. If you would like to learn more about the project and wish to explore how you might contribute to making the Admiralty Court records available to a wider academic and general public please contact us now, using our contact form. You can also follow us on Twitter and on Facebook.

Since the start of the project in September 2012, the project team has transcribed 1025 pages containing approximately 560,000 words of HCA 13/71 (1656-1657). The original manuscript volume is held at the National Archives in Kew. We expect to complete transcription and editing of the entire volume by the end of March 2013.

The transcriptions referenced in our Shipping News blog are work in progress. We encourage our readers to compare the transcriptions with the digital images of the transcribed pages. If you see an error, or can fill in blanks in our transcriptions, we would be delighted to hear from you and we will incorporate your improvements.

Progress review two

Posted on January 21, 2013 by ColinGreenstreet

MarineLives is an innovative academic project for the collaborative transcription, linkage and enrichment of primary manuscripts, which were originated in the High Court of Admiralty, London, 1650-1669. The end product will be a publicly and freely available online academic edition of the 1656-1657 volume (HCA 13/71).

TRANSCRIPTION AND EDITING

Our volunteer transcribers are back at work after the Christmas break, and we are celebrating the transcription of one thousand pages since the start of the project. That’s around five hundred and fifty thousand words in four and a half months, one third of which have now been edited. We are on track to complete the transcription and text editing of HCA 13/71 by the end of March this year.

A huge thank you to all our volunteer transcribers, who committed to the fourteen weeks of Phase One of the project, which finished on December 14th. In alphabetical order our transcribing associates have been Deborah Ashby, Rachel Bates, Katie Broke, Elio Calcagno, Dr Janet Few, Jamie LeAnne Hager Goodall, Karen Gunnell, Dr Liam Haydon, William Kellett, John Miller, David Pashley, Dr Cathryn Pearce, Andrew Richens, Daniel Richards, Laura Seymour, Ida Sjoberg, and Alexis Harasemovitch Truax.

Likewise in alphabetical order, our transcription team facilitators have been Colin Greenstreet, Philip Hnatkovich, Alex Jackson, William Tullett and Jill Wilcox.

Giovanni Colavizza and Patrizia Rebulla have led our semantic markup efforts, with Giovanni creating the technical platform used by the transcribing teams, based upon the open source software package SCRIPTO. Gordon O’Sullivan project managed the establishment of our PhD Forum.

Our project advisors have been Dr Richard Blakemore (Exeter), Dr Catherine Buchanan (Westminster School), Dr Stuart Dunn (King’s College London), Dr Charlene Eska (Virginia Tech), Margaret Schotte (PhD Candidate, Princeton), Jo Pugh (National Archives), and Vikki Corker (National Archives).

We must be doing something right, since half of our team have revolunteered to continue transcribing till the end of March and to finish the volume.

Since Christmas we have reduced our transcription teams from five to two in number.

These are led by two of our team facilitators, William Tullett, a masters student at King’s College, London, and Alex Jackson, a recent masters graduate from the University of Sheffield.

Working with William and Alex are Dr Janet Few, Karen Gunnell, Jamie LeAnne Hager, Dr Liam Haydon, Philip Hnatkovich, Dr Cathryn Pearce, David Pashley, and Laura Seymour.

We are down to the tougher pages, written by two High Court of Admiralty clerks who would have benefited from advanced handwriting lessons. If you are an experienced and enthusiastic transcriber who likes challenging texts, you would be very welcome to join us for these last two and a half months of transcription. You can get in touch with our transcription teams using this contact form.

PHD FORUM

Two successful online PhD forum sessions took place in January – the first on geography, trade, commerce and law, convened by Philip Hnatkovich (Penn State) and Dr Richard Blakemore (Exeter); the second on material culture and language, convened by Dr Liam Haydon (Manchester) and Laura Seymour (Birkbeck College, London).

Participating in the two sessions, in addition to the convenors, were Dr Charlene Eska (Virginia Tech), Colin Greenstreet (MarineLives project leader), Jamie LeAnne Hager Goodall (Ohio State), Sue Jones (Birkbeck College, London), Katherine Parker (Pittsburgh), Dr Cathryn Pearce (Greenwich Maritime Institute), (Margaret Schotte (Princeton), Steven Schrum (Washington University, Saint Louis), and Royline Williams-Fontenelle (Oklahoma).

We plan to hold further online forum sessions and are open to new members, both PhD candidates and early career researchers. You can get in touch with our PhD Forum convenors using this contact form.

PHASE TWO AND CALL FOR PARTNERS

Our leadership team is working with our project advisors and our PhD Forum members to develop our goals, project plan and financing for Phase Two of the MarineLives project.

We have identified four potential modules for Phase Two, starting between June and October 2013.

Possible Phase Two Modules

(1) Module: Semantic markup of transcribed text of HCA 13/71

Our aspiration is to develop a TEI-compliant semantically marked up text for HCA 13/71 which will enable us to perform sophisticated searches, and to display data directly as text, and indirectly accessible through a GIS supported environment. We know broadly what we want to do, and have commenced semantic coding, but we need to partner with a university department with strong TEI expertise to ensure we have a robust conceptual plan, and that this module is successfully delivered. We believe that this module could form the basis for a small scale academic grant application.

(2) Module: GIS enablement of HCA 13/71

We wish to display HCA 13/71 text and data in a GIS-enabled environment. This has been mentioned in a recent blog posting, Mapping Marine Lives.

We have taken a look at existing software, and have thought about conceptual frameworks, but we are not GIS experts, and would benefit greatly from partnering with an institution with GIS interests and expertise.

We are currently working with our newly formed PhD Forum to develop a more detailed set of user requirements for GIS capability.

(3) Module: Linkage and annotation

We are interested in linking the data in HCA 13/71 to other primary and secondary sources, both digitally and non-digitally. We have started this process, but are now exploring how we might do this more systematically, both by theme and by source type. We are also exploring possible annotation software which we might integrate into our digital edition on our planned production server. There is the potential to develop a module around this activity, involving both a technical partner and one or more content partners.

(4) Module: Integration of HCA 13/71 digital edition with innovative search engines

We have started discussions with the Discovery search engine team at the National Archives about the potential to integrate our future production server and its associated data and software with the new Discovery search engine.

We are also interested in integrating our metadata into federated and other search engines.

We have a number of innovative ideas about historical search and linkage, and would welcome contact with academics and institutions who share our ambitious vision for search and linkage of primary documents and archival metadata. You can contact us to discuss search and linkage using the following contact form.

GRANT APPLICATIONS

Fingers crossed for MarineLives editorial advisor Dr Charlene Eska (Virginia Tech), who has submitted a grant application to the National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington D.C.

Dr Eska plans, if successful, to employ a PhD candidate to work on textual and semantic editing connected to the MarineLives project.

PUBLISHING PROJECTS

We are interested in hearing from academic publishers who take in an integrative approach to seventeenth century marine and social history.

Potential publication projects include a guide to the High Court of Admiralty, in print and electronic formats, linked to a production server supporting the MarineLives project.

You can get in touch with our publication coordinator using this contact form.

A penny for your thoughts

Posted on January 9, 2013 by ColinGreenstreet

The first online session of the MarineLives PhD forum takes place today. Philip Hnatkovich (Penn State) will be leading the discussion of geography and trade. Richard Blakemore (Exeter) will be leading the discussion of commerce and law.

Marine Lives PhD forum members study and teach at the universities or colleges of Birkbeck, London; Cambridge; Exeter; Greenwich Maritime Institute; Manchester; Ohio State; Oxford; Oklahoma; Pennsylvania State; Pittsburgh; Princeton; Queen Marys, London; Washington, St Louis.

We are taking the admiralty court volume HCA 13/71 as our starting point, and will be exploring its potential, and that of admiralty court records more generally, to assist researchers and readers in deepening their understanding of these topics.

PhD candidates and early career researchers who wish to discuss joining our established PhD forum should contact us using our contact form.

The Shipping News blog is the project’s principal means of communicating with a wider audience, and we would like some direction from you, our readers. We are developing synthesised and annotated material on a range of themes, some of which we have already shared with you in this blog. We would like to know which topics interest you so that we can prioritise our blog publication plans.

Below is a list of themes on which we are working, all of which could form the basis of a blog article. Please let us know which of these themes interest you and which you would like to see in print, using our contact form.

We are also exploring the mapping of data from HCA 13/71 and would welcome your suggestions as to data you would like to see mapped. Contact us using our contact form telling us the data you would like to see mapped and we will do our best to turn it into a Google Map, providing access to relevant depositions and cases within HCA 13/71 which make reference to the data. See our experimental map of some of our French data contained within HCA 13/71. If your are a GIS expert and would like to work with us to create some powerful functionality, we would love to hear from you.

If you would like to participate in the synthesise and annotation of any of these themes, we would be delighted to have you join our annotation team, which we are in the process of forming for Phase Two of the MarineLives project

WHICH BLOG THEMES DO YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT?

Admiralty and marine related commercial law

Bound for Barbary

Brest men of war

Credit

Currants and raisins trade

Customs and excise

Discipline

Dover

Dunkirk men of war

English coastal trading

Factors and agents

Female involvement in marine activities

Fish

French merchants

High Court of Admiralty process

Injury and death

Interpretation

Language

Literacy

London taverns

Market conditions

Masquerade

Merchant accounts

Metals trade

Oranges and lemons trade

Ostend men of war

Privateering and piracy

Ports

Portuguese merchants in London

Swedish and Norwegian merchants

Thames estuary

Thames shipyards in the 1650s

The Exchange in the City of London

Timber trade

Violence

Wine trade

TELL US WHAT MAPS WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE

The MarineLives project team is exploring the use of maps to display data from the Admiralty Court. We would like to hear from you our readers as to what categories of data you would like to see mapped.

Below is an example of what can be produced using some (though not all) of the French related merchant and mariner data in HCA 13/7111.

View larger map

Contact us using our contact form and we will produce a bespoke map for you (and our readership) in Google Map and publish it on the Shipping News blog.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

(1) The Coast of Barbary & the Maroc to Quibriche Caravan Route, Manesson, A. (1719), sourced from Internet Archive

(2) Stettin, Hollandische Merkur (Haerlem, 1660), sourced from Internet Archive

(3) Tower Street , Thames Street and the Legal Quays, Roque, 1746, sourced from Wikimedia commons

ABOUT US

Since the start of the project in September 2012, the project team has transcribed 980 pages containing approximately 540,000 words of HCA 13/71 (1656-1657). The original manuscript volume is held at the National Archives in Kew. We expect to complete transcription and editing of the entire volume by the end of March 2013.

The transcriptions referenced in our Shipping News blog are work in progress. We encourage our readers to compare the transcriptions with the digital images of the transcribed pages. If you see an error, or can fill in blanks in our transcriptions, we would be delighted to hear from you and we will incorporate your improvements.

An intimate relationship: Amsterdam and London

Posted on January 8, 2013 by ColinGreenstreet

The vital port and manufacturing cities of Amsterdam and London were embraced in the 1650s in an intimate relationship. The relationship was to be much tested through commercial, political and military rivalry.

Throughout this testing period, even during the multiple Anglo-Dutch wars, the lives and families of highly mobile apprentices, merchants and mariners led to intimate and mutually beneficial commercial and cultural contact.

This blog article deals specifically with the character and geographical mobility of a selection of merchants based in Amsterdam and London identified in the Admiralty Court of England and mentioned in HCA 13/71.

Dutch merchants in Amsterdam

Frederick Wolfe, living near Saint Anthonies port in Amsterdam, merchant

Frederick Wolfe was an Amsterdam merchant, who was the correspondent of Domingos vas da Britto, a forty year old merchant living in London. Wolf lived near Saint Anthonies port in Amsterdam, where da Britto’s now servant, Manoel Perera, had earlier lived with Wolf for four and a half years.

Twenty-one year old Manoel Perera now lived in London as a merchant servant and testified in the Admiralty Court of England:

“37. To the seaventh article hee saith that hee well knoweth the producent
38. ffrederick Wolfe and hath soe donne for theise thirteene yeeres last past
39. or thereabouts, and saith the said ffrederick for eight yeeres of that time
40. hath lived at Amsterdam, where hee was and is an Inhabitant and
41. Burger, and keepes his wife, children and familie there neere in his
42. house being neere Saint Anthonies port, as hee this deponent hath
43. lived fower yeeres and a halfe with him, ended about three yeeres since
44. and this deponents master Mr da Britto hath continuall correspondence
45. with him by lettres of this deponents knowledge, And saith the said producent
46. was and is a subiect of the States of the United Netherlands and
47. for such commonly accompted. And otherwise hee cannot depose.”¹

However, Frederick Wolf had spent his childhood in Lisbon, as had Domingos vas da Britto. The two merchants had known each other from infancy and had gone to school together in Lisbon.

“9. To the seaventh article of the said allegation hee saith and deposeth that hee
10. well knoweth the producent named ffrederick Wolfe and hath soe donne
11. from the infancie of the said producent and of this deponent, they goeing
12. to schoole together at Lisbone, and saith that for theise eight yeares last
13. or thereabouts the said producent hath lived and liveth in Amsterdam as a
14. Merchant, and was and is an inhabitant of that citie, and a subiect
15. of the Lords the States of the United Netherlands. and for such commonly
16. accompted….”²

Charles Gabrij, merchant of Amsterdam, aged 45

Charles Gabrij testified in the case of “The claime of Peter Reynolds Gilbert Van Sisteren and John Swaen in the hare in the feild“. He confirmed the Amsterdam residence and statehood of John de Swaen, one of the three litigants, but was uncertain whether he knew Peter Reynolds in person.

“40. Charles Gabrij of Amsterdam Marchant aged 45
41. yeares or thereabouts sworne and examined.
42. To the said allegation hee saith that hee well knoweth the producent
43. John de Swaen and hath soe donne for theise seaven yeares last past
44. or thereabouts, during which space hee the said John hath bin an Inhabitant
45. of Amsterdam where hee is a marchant and keeps house and
46. familie there, and saith hee was and is a subiect of the Lords
47. the States of the United Netherlands and for such commonly accompted,
48. and which hee deposeth living alsoe and in Amsterdam (where hee
49. hath dwelt about thirtin yeares) and being well acquainted with
50. the said John de Swaen. And saith hee well knew the father
51. and knoweth the brother of the arlate Peter Reynaldo who is
52. commonly accompted a native of Amsterdam and a subiect of the
53. said States, but this deponent is not sure that hee knoweth
54. the person of the said Peter And otherwise hee cannot depose.”³

Dutch AND FLEMISH merchants in LONDON

Abraham Bald, twenty-six year old Dutch merchant in London since 1655

Phillip van Hulten was an Amsterdam merchant, known to Abraham Bald, a young twenty-six year old Dutch merchant, who had been living in London since 1655, but who had been born in Amsterdam. Bald testified that he had known Phillip van Hulten, resident in the Lady Gracht in Amsterdam, for five years.

“11. To the tenth article of the said allegation hee saith and deposeth that
12. hee well knoweth the producent Phillip van Hulten and hee
13. hath donne for these five yeares last or thereabouts this deponent
14. for all that time and (untill about elevene moneths since hee
15. came to live in London) dwelling in Amsterdam where he was borne
16. and where he had acquaintance and dealing with the said Phillip
17. in the way of merchandize, and saith the said Phillip then
18. dwelt (and as hee believeth still dwelleth) on the Lady Gracht
19. in Amsterdam, in the house where his father (whom this deponent
20. alsoe well knowe dwelt before hin, and further that for said
21. producent was and is a merchant of good account and an
22. Inhabitant and free citizen of Amsterdam (where this deponent
23. beleeveth hee was borne) and a subject of the Lords the States
24. of the United Netherlands, and for such commonly accompted.
25. and further hee deposeth not.”⁴

Philip Copy, a flemish merchant, living in London, aged 36

Philip Copy attested to the Amsterdam residence of Gilbert Van Sisteren, the third of the plaintiffs in the case of “The claime of Peter Reynolds Gilbert Van Sisteren and John Swaen in the hare in the feild“, as well as the Amsterdam residence of John de Swaen, whose correspondence he had answered from a previous residence in Dunquirke. Copy himself was a native of Rosborough in fflanders, in the Dominion of the King of Spain.

7. Philip Copy of London Merchant aged 36
8. yeares or thereabouts sworne and examined.
9. To the said allegation hee saith and deposeth that hee well knoweth
10. the producent Gilbert van Sisteren and hath soe done for the
11. tenn monethes last past or thereabouts, and hath oftentimes seene
12. him in that space; and saith the said Gilbert is an Inhabitant of
13. Amsterdam, whence this deponent hath received lettres from him, dated
14. there, and saith hee that hee the said Gilbert is a native of the
15. Busse or S’Hertogen bosch in the Dominion of the Lords the States
16. of the United Netherlands, and a subiect of the said States and for
17. such commonly accompted and reputed. And otherwise hee cannot
18. depose, saving that within a yeere last this deponent living at
19. Dunquirke received lettres from the arlate John de Swaen dated at
20. Amsterdam (the Place of his residence; and directed to his brother correspon
21. =dent living in house with this deponent, and then absent, this deponent
22. having order to receive his lettres in his absence and answer them, which this
23. deponent did and wrote accordingly to the said John de Swaen to
24. Amsterdam./”⁵

Charles Marescoe, twenty-five, merchant in London

In contrast, twenty-five year old Charles Marescoe had spent most of his life in England

1. To the 3 Interrogatorie hee saith hee hath lived in England about sixteene yeares
2. continually and hath before that lived both in holland ˹and˺ in fflanders only
3. as a schoole boy for some short tyme as at Amsterdam in holland and
4. Lisle in fflanders and saith that hee hath seene printed Coppyes of
5. the last treaty betwixt Spaine and the United Provinces wherein to the best
6. of his remembrance there is an Article that noe shipp of warr belonging
7. to the King of Spaine or his subiects shall molest search or take
8. any shipps belonging to the sayd States or their subiects though bound
9. to or comming from an enymyes Port And further saving his
10. foregoeing deposition hee cannot depose/”⁶

Charles Maresco’s commercial correspondence and papers have survived and are held at the National Archives, Kew. A portion of the papers have been edited by Henry Roseveare.⁷

FOOT NOTES

(1) HCA 13/71 f.58r Case: The claime of ffrederick Wolfe of Amsterdam in the Hare in the feild; Deposition: 2. Manoel Perera of London Merchant aged 21 (Signature of “Manuel Perreyra” at end of deposition); Date: 21/02/1655 (“same day”). Transcribed by Colin Greenstreet.
(2) HCA 13/71 f.58r Case: The claime of ffrederick Wolfe of Amsterdam in the Hare in the feild; Deposition: 1. Domingos vas da Britto of London Merchant aged 40 (Signature of “Domingo da Britto” at end of deposition) ; Date: 21/02/1655. Transcribed by Colin Greenstreet.

(3) HCA 13/71 f.64r Case: The claime of Peter Reynolds Gilbert Van Sisteren and John Swaen in the hare in the feild; Deposition: Charles Gabry of Amsterdam Merchant aged 45 yeares or thereabouts; Date: 01/03/1655 (“same day”). Transcribed by Colin Greenstreet and Jill Wilcox.

(4) HCA 13/71 f.57r Case: The claime of Phillip Van ?Hulten of Amsterdam for his goods in the Hare in the ffeild; Deposition: Abraham Baldd of London Merchant aged 26 (Signature of “Abraham Baldd” at end of deposition); Date: 19/02/1655. Transcribed by Karen Gunnell.

(5) HCA 13/71 f.64r Case: The claime of Peter Reynolds Gilbert Van Sisteren and John Swaen in the hare in the feild; Deposition: Philip Copy of London Merchant aged 36 yeares (Signature of “Phillipiis Coppey” at end of deposition) ; Date: 01/03/1655. Transcribed by Colin Greenstreet and Jill Wilcox.

(6) HCA 13/71 f.536v Case: Goodwin and Company against the Saint John; Deposition: 3. Charles Marescoe of Saint Bottolph Billingsgate London Merchant aged twenty five yeares (Signature of “Charles Marescoe” at end of deposition) ; Date: 04/02/1656. Transcribed by Colin Greenstreet.

(7) Henry Roseveare, Markets and Merchants of the Late Seventeenth Century: The Marescoe-David Letters, 1668-1680 (Oxford, 1987)

ABOUT US

Since the start of the project in September 2012, the project team has transcribed 970 pages containing approximately 533,000 words of HCA 13/71 (1656-1657). The original manuscript volume is held at the National Archives in Kew. We expect to complete transcription and editing of the entire volume by the end of March 2013.