The Sergison Papers

Charles Sergison (1654-1732) had a long and honourable career with the Navy Board in which organisation he rose to become Clerk of the Acts, the Principal Officer and Commissioner responsible for the Board’s secretariat. He occupied this position for nearly thirty years from early 1689/90 to his retirement in 1719. On leaving office he retained a large quantity of his papers, of which some 125 volumes and folios have survived and are now in the National Maritime Museum.

This present volume is drawn from a limited selection of Sergison’s papers, consisting in the main of selected correspondence between the Navy Board and the Admiralty on the various facets of naval administration, such as shipbuilding and the dockyards, seamen and manning, pursers and victualling and finance, up to 1702, at about the end of William III’s reign. Hence much of Sergison’s later career, in particular during the War of the Spanish Succession, is excluded, though this period is still covered in the original manuscript collection.

For an overview of the period as a whole, the Sergison Papers may usefully be read in conjunction with Queen Anne’s Navy (NRS Volume 103).