Andrew Shilling
English naval officer in the East India Company

Andrew Shilling (c. 1566 – 1 January 1621) was an English naval officer.
Biography
Early life
Shilling was born in Cley next the Sea, Norfolk and christened on 30 July 1566, the son of Henry Shilling whose occupation is unknown and Elie Michelson, sister of William Michelson (d. 1587), a sea captain based in Ratcliff, Stepney, Middlesex, late of Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Andrew Shilling was named after his grandfather Andrew Michelson (d. 1565), a ship-owner of Cley next the sea.
Career
Originally a petty officer in the Royal Navy, from this position he gradually raised himself to the higher ranks of the service, and on 30 May 1603 he became for life one of the six chief masters of the navy. In 1617 he obtained leave from the admiralty to take part in the fifth joint-stock voyage undertaken by the East India Company, and he sailed from Gravesend on 4 February as master of the Anne Royal, one of a squadron of five East India Company's Marine warships under the command of Martin Pring. On 6 February Maurice Abbot, Deputy-governor of the EIC mustered the men, paid their wages and the fleet left the Downs on 5 March. They arrived at Saldanha Bay (now Table Bay) on 21 June.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18783558. VIAF identifies the subject as 10246619. The Library of Congress control number is nr94039492. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1566, 1621, 1587 and 1565.
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This entry incorporates text from “Andrew Shilling” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.