Theodosia Crowley

D.O.B: 1694 D.O.D: 1782

A ship given as the ‘Crawley‘ made eleven slaving voyages from London between 1728 and 1738, all to unknown ports in Africa and then to Jamaica, none with ownership information, and all under Robert Clarke as captain. The will of Robert Clarke late Master of the merchant ship called the Crowley Pink widower of Port Royal Jamaica (which takes the form of an incoherent letter to the London merchant Thomas Vigne written at Kingston and dated 17/06/1741) makes clear that the ship was in fact the Crowley and expressed his fear that ‘I shall not go any longer in Mr Crowley’s imploy’; he enclosed to Thomas Vigne a bill of £100 sterling drawn ‘on my master Ambrose Crowley Esq., it is for money Disburs’d on the Crowley only.’  Ambrose Crowley was too young to have been the owner of the slave-trading voyages, coming of age in 1739: the voyages must therefore have belong to the Crowley firm in the period in which it was managed by his mother Theodosia (d. 1782). There is no reference to the slave-trade in M.W. Flinn’s family biography, which does however  identify the Crowley among the firm’s vessels and suggests it was the ship launched in 1727 and offered by John Crowley (d. 1728) to carry naval supplies to Jamaica.