See item level records.

The collection was previously held by the Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, Kent County Council.

The journal kept by Sir John Narbrough, 1666-1711 (1 vol plus 3 maps, one of which is dated 1711), accounting for two voyages: the first, to the Caribbean on board ASSURANCE and then BONAVENTURE, from 1 May 1666 to 20 October 1668; the second, on board SWEEPSTAKES, to South America and through the Straights of Magellan, 15 May 1669 to 1 August 1671; is held by British Library (BL Add MS 88980)(formerly U1515/03 and U1515/04).

Administrative / biographical background
Sir John Narbrough (c. 1640-88) began his career as a boy in the merchant navy but soon became a protege of a buccaneering naval captain Sir Christopher Myngs to whom his family (like that of Sir Cloudesley Shovell) is believed to have been related and with whom he seved in the West Indies from 1657-61, then as a lieutenant from October 1664 during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, taking command of the VICTORY when Myngs, Vice-Admiral of the Red, was mortally wounded during the Four Days' Battle (1-4 June 1665). He was promoted to captain of the ASSURANCE on 9 June 1666, and commanded her at the St James's day fight on 25 June. In 1667 he was part of the Sir John Harman's squadron in the West Indies on the ASSURANCE and then on the BONADVENTURE after her captain was killed and Narbrough wounded in the thigh in an attack on Surinam in October 1667. For two years from May 1669 he undertook a voyage on the SWEEPSTAKES to South America and the Pacific. During the Third Anglo-Dutch War he took command of the Duke of York's flagship The ROYAL PRINCE when her captain was killed at the Battle of Solebay on 28 May 1672. He was promoted to Rear-Admiral of the Red on 17 September 1673 and was knighted on the 30th. From October 1674 to September 1676 and from June 1677 to the summer of 1679 he commanded two fleets sent to the Mediterranean to protect English shipping, support the English garrison at Tangier and to control the Barbary pirates. These were his last fighting commands. His first wife Elizabeth Calmady, whom he had married in 1677, died on 1 January 1678 and he married secondly, on 20 June 1681, Elizabeth Hill (d. 1732), daughter of John Hill (d. 1706) a merchant navy captain who was later a Commissioner of the Navy and Master of Trinity House. Sir John Narbrough died of fever on 27 April 1688 in command of a commercially unsuccessful expedition to the West Indies to salvage treasure from the NUESTRA SENORA DE LA CONCEPCION wrecked in 1641. Sir Cloudesley Shovell (1650-1707) had an almost impeccable naval career rising from cabin-boy in 1663 to Rear-Admiral of England and joint Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty's Fleet. He saw action in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, against the Barbary Pirates, and in the Glorious Revolution, Nine Year's War and the War of the Spanish Succession. It ended, however, in disaster and notoriety with 1300 of his men on 22 October 1706 wrecked on the rocks of the Isles of Scilly. On 10 March 1691 Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell married Elizabeth, née Hill (1659–1732), widow of Sir John Narbrough (1640-88) who had died in the West Indies and whom she had married (as his 2nd wife on 20 June 1681). She was the daughter of Captain John Hill (d. 1706), of Shadwell, a wealthy merchant seaman and a Commissioner of the Navy from 1691 to his death and an Elder Brother of Trinity House from 1685 (Master in 1694). On his death Hill is said to have left £100,000 to his daughter. Their elder daughter, Elizabeth (1692–1750), married in 1708 Sir Robert Marsham (1685–1724), created Baron Romney in 1716. Captain John Hill (d. 1706), of Shadwell, was a Commissioner of the Navy from 1691 to his death and an Elder Brother of Trinity House from 1685 (Master in 1694). His daughter Elizabeth (1659-1732) married on 20 June 1681 (as his 2nd wife) Admiral Sir John Narbrough (1640-88) and 2ndly on 10 March 1691 Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell (1650-1707). On his death Hill is said to have left £100,000 to his daughter.