I was obliged to comfort her

‘Observed a nice looking girl waiting as well as myself so got into conversation with her but was soon interrupted by the arrival of the engine puff, puff, puffing away. Laid hold of her hand took her across the rails to the opposite platform, handed her in and took very good care to sit on the next seat to her. All Right - off she goes - cutting along like a sky rocket. In going through the tunnels the engine fellow set the confounded screeching whistle a going which so terrified my fair companion that I was obliged to put my arm around her waist to comfort her.’ This is Edward Snell, born two centuries ago today, who kept a lively, candid and illustrated diary while working as a young engineer in the West Country. Before he was 30 years old, he emigrated to Australia, where he also kept a diary, and where he made his fortune on the railways.

Snell, the eldest of four children, was born on 27 November 1820, in Barnstaple, Devon, son of a jeweller and clockmaker. When his father died in 1827, his mother was left in financial difficulties, and the family moved to a smaller house in nearby Newport. Thanks to family connections, Snell was able to take up a seven year apprenticeship in Bath as an engineer and millwright with Stothert’s foundry. On completion of his training, he secured a position at the Great Western Railway Company Swindon workshops as head draughtsman, soon rising to deputy works manager. He remained with the company for six years, until a reduction in wages in 1948-1949 (after the British Railway Mania crash) decided him to emigrate to Australia.

Snell spent some time in South Australia surveying and painting, and then gold digging in Castlemaine (where he amassed £341 worth of gold in less than half a year). He married Charlotte Elizabeth Bayley in Geelong in 1853, and they would have nine children. That same year, and for substantial fees, he began to work for the Geelong and Melbourne Railway Company, designing, among other structures, a substantial terminal station and workshops at Geelong. Some of these works were criticised for being flawed, and Snell was called to defend his work in a number of enquires. He also set up several business partnerships, though none lasted very long. He returned to England with his family in 1858, to a life of retirement. He turned to spiritualism in the 1870s, gaining some notoriety in Bath, and died in 1880. Further information is available from Wikipedia.

Snell is largely remembered today for two diaries, both profusely illustrated with pen and ink sketches, that he kept, one during his early working life (after the apprenticeship) from 1842 to 1849, and the other while he was in Australia, 1849-1858. The first is (or was in 2002) in the possession of Snell’s great grand-daughter; the second was purchased in 1935 by the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, from a book dealer in Exeter. Only the Australia diary has been published - by Australian publisher Angus & Robertson in 1989 as The Life and Adventures of Edward Snell: The illustrated diary of an artist, engineer and adventurer in the Australian colonies 1849 to 1859 (edited and introduced by Tom Griffiths).

Unfortunately, I have not been able to source any extracts from The Life and Adventures; but, online, I have found a few extracts form the Australia diary. In 2002, the Bath History journal (Volume IX) published Edward Snell’s Diary: A Journeyman Engineer in Bath in the 1840s written by John Cattell (I think, but I’m not certain, that this must be the National Head of Research at Historic England - see here). Cattell starts off his essay as follows: ‘Edward Snell is a relatively obscure figure who is best known in this country for his two watercolour views of the new locomotive works and railway village in Swindon in 1849. But he was so much more - engine, erector, civil engineer, surveyor, draughtsman, inventor, artist, traveller and adventurer. His greatest contribution to posterity; perhaps, was as a diarist and chronicler of the social scene in England and subsequently in Australia.’

And here is Cattell’s concluding paragraph: ‘Snell’s English diary offers fresh insights into the true nature of life for many of Bath’s inhabitants in the 1840s. His account of a busy working life is strikingly at odds with the usual descriptions of genteel Bath society, and reflects the changing nature of the city at that time. It puts flesh on the bones of the histories of the period in a way that amounts to a veritable goldmine for the social historian. Above all it is the personal and highly entertaining story of an articulate young artisan eager to make his way in the world. That it is told with wry humour and illustrated by such amusing sketches, at times approaching caricature, only adds to its appeal.’

The essay continues with much detail and diagrams from the diary, and also a few extracts. It is worth noting that Cattell wrote at the time, i.e. in 2002, that he was editing Snell’s first diary for publication - but I’ve found no trace of any such publication. Here are some extracts from Snell’s diary as found in Cattell’s essay. (My use of ‘Undated’ signifies that there is no date given in Cattell’s essay for that entry.)

14 April 1842
’Staid at home all evening reading. Zenas Hall came in slightly fuddled and began to show symptoms of a scrimmage - but the effervescence of his spirits soon passed off and he sat down quietly playing his flute till bedtime ... [When] Zenas ... staggered into the room this evening ... the first indication of his not being  compis mentis  was communicated to me in the shape of a punch on the head. Owing however to the difficulty he experienced in preserving his centre of gravity the said ‘punch’ was no more than a love tap and did not in the least ruffle my truly amiable temper.’

Undated
’Miss B[rooke] desired me to brew myself a glass of whiskey and water and as I was not aware of the strength of the ‘cratur’ I mixed a jolly good tumbler of half and half swallowed it and soon found myself unable to preserve my centre of gravity and as great as a lord in my estimation. Can’t very distinctly remember all the little absurdities I was guilty of. I had a notion of trying to walk in a straight line from one lamp post to another but I have a strong suspicion that I did not succeed. I have likewise a faint recollection of making love to Mrs Coopey, attempting to preach a sermon, then spouting Richard the 3rd, singing a Psalm & then toddling up stairs to bed with a great many injunctions from Mrs Coopey to be sure & take care of the candle and not set any thing on fire.’

Undated
‘Went home to bed - found it plaguey hot & wanted to sleep with the window open but Hall wouldn’t consent to it so I took up my quarters on the outside of the bed and kept Hall awake by chattering till he got so savage I thought it dangerous to persist so in compliance with his advice I ‘shut my head and went to sleep’.

26 December 1844
’We met at Mr HS [Snell’s shorthand for Henry Stothert] the same company we saw the night before with the addition of Mr Laufiere & Mr & Mrs William Stothert & family. Spent the evening gloriously - every delicacy of the Season - beautiful girls, music, dancing, etc. Obliged to leave them at 12 tho. Went into the Full Moon with Mr Laufiere & Mr Pitt & had a glass of brandy & water & cigar.’

Undated
‘This morning old Bluebottle came up into the pattern shop grumbling about our shutting the door and trigged it open himself, but had barely reached the bottom of the ladder before it was shut again, by that fountain of all mischief Bill Glass. This contempt of his authority acted upon old Bluebottle’s excitable temper to such a degree that he was constrained to blow off steam, which he immediately did in the shape of a volley of oaths and imprecations quite dismal & heartrending to listen to, but we excused it as we thought without a vent of some kind he must inevitably have burst his boiler. When the tempest of his wrath had in some degree subsided, he mildly swore by God he’d have the door off the hinges, which was accordingly done by old Sam Hook, so that the pattern shop is now most admirably ventilated, though unfortunately instead of pure air of heaven, ‘wot poets call zephyr breeze’ the Sulphuric vapour from the furnace finds it way into the shop, and by half suffocating the unfortunate inmates gives them a slight foretaste of what they may expect in the next world, when consigned to the tender mercies of the gentleman whose name should never be mentioned in the hearing of ‘Ears polite’.’

22 April [?]
’. . . to see Miss Ellis & found she was out. This is probably the last time I shall ever see her as she leaves Bath for Glamorganshire tomorrow & will not return till the winter, & before that time I shall, I expect, have quitted Bath for London.’

24 April [?]
‘In the afternoon took a walk with a Miss [Susan] Thomthwaite to Sham Castle where she left me to flirt with a tailor and 2 counterjumpers and if I had any regard for her I should have taken offence at it. As it was it made me look rather silly and I’ll warrant I don’t walk her out again for some time to come ... After Chaple [sic] took a walk with Miss Ellis and after I left her took another with Henrietta.’

Undated
>‘While there observed a nice looking girl waiting as well as myself so got into conversation with her but was soon interrupted by the arrival of the engine puff, puff, puffing away. Laid hold of her hand took her across the rails to the opposite platform, handed her in and took very good care to sit on the next seat to her. All Right - off she goes - cutting along like a sky rocket. In going through the tunnels the engine fellow set the confounded screeching whistle a going which so terrified my fair companion that I was obliged to put my arm around her waist to comfort her and being in total darkness thought there could be no harm in giving her a kiss or two but the tunnel was so confoundedly long at Brislington that by Jove I could hardly make a hundred last all the way through.’