[2] The society played a part in the development of Bristol, including the building of Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Great Western Railway.

The society's members were active in the English colonisation of North America, helping to establish the Bristol's Hope and Cuper's Cove settlements in Newfoundland.

Over the next fifty years, the society joined with the city corporation and Bristol MPs in fighting numerous attempts to restore London's monopoly.

During the eighteenth century one quarter of the individual members of the society were directly involved in the slave trade, including Michael Becher, Edward Colston, John Duckenfield, and Isaac Hobhouse.

This initial proposal also failed but negotiations resumed in 1736 when 60 soldiers drowned after their vessel crashed on the Wolves rocks near Flat Holm.

Although the society was represented on the board, it ceded its role in the management of the port of Bristol, which had dominated its activities throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Since 1922 the society has been the endowment trustee for the independent charity, the St Monica Trust, enabling very substantial developments to accommodate older people in recent years.

[16] The Society of Merchant Venturers comprises men and women who volunteer their skills and expertise to support the organisation's objectives.

The Merchant Venturers work closely with the wider community and many of its members play a role in Bristol's commercial life and the institutions within the city.

Merchant Venturers serve on the boards of many local charitable and cultural organisations, and are guaranteed seats on the University of Bristol Court and the Downs Committee.

[19] On 7 June 2020, during international Black Lives Matter demonstrations provoked by the murder of George Floyd, a group of protestors in Bristol pulled down the 1895 statue of Edward Colston that stood in Magpie Park in The Centre, Bristol, objecting to the veneration of Edward Colston, a slave-trader, and pushed it into the harbour.

[20] During ensuing debate over the legitimacy of this act, the Society of Merchant Venturers was accused of having used its influence to block previous attempts to remove the statue legally.

[21] In response to the statue's removal, a spokesperson for the Merchant Venturers promised the society would "continue to educate itself about systemic racism".

[24] luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum mercator metuens otium et oppidi laudat rura sui; mox reficit rates quassas, indocilis pauperiem pati.

A merchant fearing the African wind wrestling the Icarian sea praises leisure and the fields of his own town; soon he repairs the battered ships, not taught to suffer poverty.