Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair

‘As soon as I woke up I rushed to the newsstand on the corner to look for the April issue of Vanity Fair. The second edition is even more baffling than the first one I saw in London in February. The cover is some incomprehensible multicolored tin-man graphic with no cover lines that will surely tank on the newsstand.’ This is from the opening diary entry in Tina Brown’s The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983-1992 just published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. She would go on to ‘triumphantly reinvent’ the US magazine, just as she had done with Tatler in London. The diaries have received widespread publicity, and some extracts can be found online, in reviews and at Googlebooks.

Christina (Tina) Hambley Brown was born in Maidenhead, England, in 1953, but was brought up in Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire, with an elder brother. Her father was a film producer, working on early Agatha Christie films, among others, and her mother was an assistant to Laurence Olivier. Tina was a precocious but subversive school child, being expelled from three boarding schools, and entering St. Anne’s College, Oxford, aged only 17, to study English literature. Even before graduating, she had begun writing for the New Statesman and had won a National Student Drama Award for a play (Under the Bamboo Tree).

In 1973, Brown met Harold Evans, editor of the The Sunday Times, and she was soon being given freelance assignments for the newspaper. After starting a relationship with Evans (25 years older than her), she moved to work for The Sunday Telegraph. In 1979, she became editor of Tatler, then a publication with a fast diminishing circulation, and transformed it into glossy popular magazine featuring famous photographers and writers. In 1981, she married Evans, and they would have two children, George and Isabel. The following year, when Condé Nast bought Tatler, Brown resigned, but she was then enticed back by the company’s owner S. I. Newhouse Jr., to advise on resurrecting Vanity Fair in New York City. In 1984, she was named editor-in-chief. Vanity Fair’s circulation rose dramatically. In 1992, she was invited to take over as editor of The New Yorker, only the fourth editor in its history, and remained in that position until 1998. Brown then went to work for Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein’s Miramax Films venture, editing Talk magazine, until it folded in 2002.

In 2007, Brown published her biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, which was a critical and popular success, and the year after that she worked with Barry Diller to launch The Daily Beast, an online news magazine which went on to win various awards. In 2010, The Daily Beast and Newsweek announced a merger of their operations, The Newsweek Daily Beast Company with Tina Brown as editor-in-chief. Newsweek ceased publishing in December 2012, and Brown resigned her position in 2013. She now runs Tina Brown Media. For more biographical information see Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, or The Guardian.

Most recently, however, Brown has been working on a new book, The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983-1992, which was published by W&N a couple of weeks ago (14 November 2017). Here is the publisher’s blurb (even though it declined to provide me with a review copy): ‘The Vanity Fair Diaries is the story of an Englishwoman barely out of her twenties who arrives in Manhattan on a mission. Summoned from London in hopes that she can save Condé Nast's troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is immediately plunged into the maelstrom of the competitive New York media world and the backstabbing rivalries at the court of the planet's slickest, most glamour-focused magazine company. She survives the politics, the intrigue and the attempts to derail her by a simple stratagem: succeeding. In the face of rampant scepticism, she triumphantly reinvents a failing magazine.’

Some pages of Brown’s diaries can be read at Amazon and Googlebooks, while extracts can be read at Vogue, MSNBC and The Globe and Mail. Otherwise, reviews of the book can be found at New Statesman, Financial Times, The New York Times and The New Yorker. And here are a few extracts cribbed from those sources.

10 April 1983
‘I am here in NYC at last, brimming with fear and insecurity. Getting in late last night on British Airways, I suddenly felt the enormousness of New York City, the noise of it, the speed of it, the lonely obliviousness of so many people trying to get ahead. My London bravado began to evaporate. I wished I was with Harry, who I knew would be sitting at his computer in front of his study window, in Kent, furiously pounding away about Rupert Murdoch.

I am staying at the Royalton Hotel on West Forty-Fourth Street, opposite the Algonquin Hotel. It’s a bit of a fleapit but in walking distance to the Conde Nast HQ at 350 Madison Avenue. The man at the desk seemed half-asleep when I checked in and there was no one around to haul my bag to the elevator. All the way in from JFK in the taxi, a phone-in show was blaring a woman with a rasping German accent talking in excruciating detail about blow jobs. The instructions crackling from the radio to “tek it in the mouth und move it slowly, slowly up und down” got so oppressive I asked the cabdriver what the hell he was listening to. He said it was a sex therapist called Dr. Ruth who apparently gives advice on the radio and has an enormous following.

As soon as I woke up I rushed to the newsstand on the corner to look for the April issue of Vanity Fair. The second edition is even more baffling than the first one I saw in London in February. The cover is some incomprehensible multicolored tin-man graphic with no cover lines that will surely tank on the newsstand. Some stunning photographs - they can afford Irving Penn and Reinhart Wolf, which made me pine with envy, and they don’t disappoint - but the display copy is nonexistent, so it’s not clear why they are there. There’s a brainy but boring Helen Vendler essay next to an Amy Clampitt poem, a piece headed (seriously) “What’s Wrong with Modern Conducting?” and a gassy run of pages from V. S. Naipaul’s autobiography. All this would be fine in the Times Literary Supplement, but when it’s on glossy paper with exploding, illegible graphics, it’s a migraine mag for God knows whom. Plus I learned today the Naipaul extract cost them seventy thousand dollars! That’s nearly a whole year’s budget at Tatler!

The question is, how long can Richard Locke survive as VF’s editor?

Leo Lerman, the old features legend at Vogue, heard I was in town and called me at the Royalton early this morning. He twittered on about last night’s screening, then asked me to think of a piece to write for Vogue, so that’s a relief. It means that leaving Tatler in the UK so abruptly hasn’t alienated the US Condé Nast powers as I feared.’

10 September 1983
‘The suspense about VF is now making me a basket case. I went to see wonderful Dr. Tom Stuttaford for sleeping pills and he was at his tweedy best. I told him about all my mixed-up longings. “Hmm,” he said. “I never did understand your infatuation with America. I tried it once and wouldn’t dream of making it a habit.” He removed his fountain pen and wrote a new prescription with an inky flourish. “Here’s my diagnosis, Tina. Buy a large house in the country, have a couple of babies, and just accept you are complicated.” In other words, just go off and be a wife.’

22 August 1990
‘So long between entries. Have had the whole family to stay at Quogue. Heaven having the cousins here for George.

When not with the kids have been glued to CNN, watching the developments in the crisis in the Gulf since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. He's such a preposterous figure, with the backward beret and huge chimney-sweep mustache, but clearly much more dangerous than anyone gave him credit for. No one took Hitler seriously either. It seems to be the hallmark of the most dangerous dictators that no one considers them a threat until too late.

The September issue is a news storm with the Trump piece and the Hitler speeches revelation. Happily, Trump trashed us to Barbara Walters on her show, and that spun another column from Liz Smith.’

16 August 1991
‘We christened Izzy last weekend on one of the nicest days we could have dreamed of, at the Church of the Atonement, Quogue’s little clapboard church, as we did for G. It was a glorious day. We had all the friends over for a buffet lunch on the porch and a local band playing at the entrance. Izzy looked so adorable in her frothy little dress, with those huge eyes in her china-doll face. She loved being swooped up and down by all the guests, grabbed the rector’s cross from around his neck, and chomped on it happily. She has all Harry’s power-packed energy and his equable temperament. Nothing fazes her as she moves from one passionate absorption to the next. How lucky I am.’

Muckraker or historian?

Ida Tarbell, muckraker or more accurately one of the first ever investigative journalists, was born 160 years ago today. She came to fame in the first years of the 20th century for a detailed exposé of how John D. Rockefeller had, at times illegally, built up his Standard Oil company. She kept a diary briefly, when in the public limelight because of the Standard Oil revelations; and this has been used by one biographer. Images of the diary manuscript have been made publicly available thanks to her alma mater, Allegheny College.

Tarbell was born on 5 November 1857 in Erie County, northwest Pennsylvania, but the family moved in 1860 to Titusville, a centre for new oil production. Her father, a carpenter, built wooden oil storage tanks, although later he became an oil producer and refiner, and would suffer when the railroads and large oil producers agreed a price fixing scheme. Ida did well at school and and went on to study biology at Allegheny College in 1876, the only woman in her class, and then to work as a teacher at Poland Union Seminary in Ohio. After a couple of years teaching, she decided she preferred writing, and turned to journalism. She found employment with The Chautauquan, a teaching supplement for home study courses. In 1886, she progressed to become the publication’s managing editor.

In 1890 Tarbell moved to Paris to research a biography of Madame Roland for her postgraduate studies. To support herself, she wrote short features on prominent Frenchwomen and Parisian life for a syndicate affiliated with Samuel McClure’s magazine. McClure then offered her a staff position on his magazine, for which she wrote, first, a popular series on Napoleon Bonaparte, and then, once back in the US and based in Washington D.C., another on Abraham Lincoln. The articles were collected into a book, and made her name as a writer and an expert on Lincoln. She moved to New York City, where McClure’s was based in 1898, and in 1902 began a series of articles which would become her most famous work: The History of the Standard Oil Company. This was the result of much detailed investigative research (before the concept of investigative journalism existed). While praising Standard Oil’s owner John D. Rockefeller for various accomplishments, she also exposed the illegal means by which he had monopolised the oil industry in its early years. Popular opinion labelled her type of journalism as ‘muckraking’ though she considered herself more of a historian.

In 1906, Tarbell purchased a country retreat in Easton, Connecticut, with 40 acres, though for the next 18 years she continued to live in New York City, only retiring to Easton aged 67. That same year, 1906, Tarbell left McClure’s and spent most of the subsequent decade writing for American Magazine, which she co-edited. She also wrote books, including The Business of Being a Woman, The Ways of Women (which put her at odds with the suffragist movement of the era) and an autobiography (in 1939), All in the Day’s Work (which includes a chapter Muckraker or Historian?). Many of these are freely available online at Internet Archive. She also served as a member of various government conferences and committees concerned with defence, industry, unemployment, and other issues. She died in 1994. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Allegheny College, Smithsonian.com, Biography.com, or Connecticut History.

Although not a well known name internationally, Tarbell’s reputation nationally has not dimmed in time, and a good number of books have been written about her, or with her as their main focus: Ida M. Tarbell: The woman who challenged big business - and won by Emily McCully; Taking on the Trust: How Ida Tarbell Brought Down John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil by Steve Weinberg; and Muckrakers: How Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, and Lincoln Steffens Helped Expose Scandal, Inspire Reform, and Invent Investigative Journalism by Ann Bausum. However, the definitive biography of Tarbell is considered to be Kathleen Brady’s Ida Tarbell: Portrait of a Muckraker (Putnam, 1984, subsequently University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989). A good portion of this can be read freely online at Googlebooks.

Brady’s biography is the only one, as far as I can tell, to make use of a diary Tarbell kept briefly during the period that the Standard Oil articles were making her famous. She includes a few short extracts in Chapter Eight: Unexplored Land. (For clarity I have italicised those paragraphs I’ve taken directly from Brady’s narrative.)

‘So much was happening,’ Brady writes, ‘that even she [Tarbell], who said she always shrank from self-knowledge, felt that she somehow had to sort things out. She was overwhelmed by reaction to the Standard story - especially since she originally doubted that anyone would care to read it. She was shaken by the death of her father and the hedonism of Sam McClure. Tarbell felt the need of a faithful companion, and so she bought a diary. In the next year, much would be written there.’

Brady continues: ‘As she struggled under the strains of the magazine, she thought she might be able to write her problems away by confiding them to a journal. She opened her small leather diary, took up her pen, and wrote: “May 5, 1905. Bought nearly two months ago and not a word written - bought as books of this kind have been before for a companion and so dead to life I could not use a companion. There has come a point where it is life or death-in-life - and I am not willing to give up life. If the innermost accesses are to be entered I must go there alone. I am conscious so much of myself is evading me. And this poor little book is a feeble prop in my effort to reach the land I've never explored.”

Her diary was a safety valve which allowed her to release her strongest emotions. Her first long entry there revealed a very flustered woman with a great reservoir of romantic love and no perspective when it came to a man who impressed her. James was at that time revisiting America after an absence of twenty years. Enthusiastic reception to The Golden Bowl brought him the opportunity of a lecture tour. Having traveled through the South, the Midwest, and California, he was at the end of his journey and back for a last visit to New England. George W. Cable, then a prominent writer of stories set in the South, hosted a dinner to precede James's lecture and invited the Hazens, the writer Gerald Stanley Lee and his wife, and Ida Tarbell. She at first declined the honor. She wrote in her diary: “All the rudeness - the ignorance, the imbecility, and inarticulateness of my life flared up in me and I blushed to think of sitting near. But they wanted me and I wanted to go. I dared to do it. I lay awake nights thinking of it. Afraid and eager. For I knew there was something there for me.”

She so yearned for James’s esteem, it seemed no one else’s had ever mattered. “It is a thirst for his particular formal assurance I’m on the right road. I’m real as far as I go. I am not a sham - that the soul is not dead or sleeping for the soul is there  - the being one with its noble walk, its wide vision knows that is something. I wanted to be assured. How pitiful I am!” [. . .]

She wrote staccato fashion in her diary: “I might have done better, was sadly conscious all the time that was the end of HJ for us. Am in a funk of soul because there could be no more. We talked a little of Paris, its charm. I know what she says to him. She says it to me too well - that much in common! I told him how I missed him chez Daudet and when he left he said, ‘I hope we shall not miss again.’ ”

Still under the spell of James she wrote: “A great leap and then dull renunciation! Que bon? I am not equal to it. But I deliberately sought another chance to see him. He had asked when I went home. I said I went to Boston and he was - or did I fancy it - disappointed! Ce qu’on veut il voit!” ’

And then, a few pages later, Brady refers to Tarbell in three more (separate) paragraphs as she goes into some detail as to how Tarbell and other staff members, affronted morally by McClure’s adultery, left his employ.

‘To it was added the lingering hurt of his philandering and her need for a change. When [Tarbell] started her diary, it seemed she had no place to run. Now seven months later it seemed that if escape was needed, she could flee Sam McClure. Her rupture from The Chautauquan nearly fifteen years before lifted the dead weight of closed opportunities and approaching age. Might she have thought in her innermost self, her “land I've never explored,” that the way to rejuvenate herself was to rebel? To give up security and opt, as she had done in her youth, for freedom?’

‘McClure frantically tried to discuss it with Ida, but she said [John] Phillips [an associate editor] would speak for her. She scribbled in her diary: “Persisted only that I didn’t like the whole business [of the insurance company and so on] - the way it had been done - all the crazy features (he seems to acknowledge craziness now).” McClure was dumbstruck to learn that Tarbell preferred Phillips to him. Tumultuous days followed.’

‘The financial state of McClure’s was so complicated and the principals so emotional that matters were not settled for a year. Boyden, Steffens, Baker, Siddall, Dunne, David McKinlay of the book company, and McClure’s cousin Harry joined Tarbell and Phillips in their walkout. As for her diary, Ida Tarbell never felt the need to write in it again.’

Allegheny College’s Pelletier Library holds a substantial archive of Tarbell’s papers, including a very small amount of diary material: three pages from 1888, and the more substantial 25 page document from 1905-1906. Much of the archive - including the two diary manuscripts - is available to view as pdfs on the college’s website (though Tarbell’s handwriting is hard to read at times, and there is no transcription).

Tupper the tinkerer

Earl Silas Tupper, an American tinkerer, businessman and inventor, best known for Tupperware, was born 110 years ago today. For a few years when a young man he kept a daily diary, extracts of which can be found in The Tinkerer’s Story by Kathleen Franz. The diary shows him energetic, full of ambition to be an inventor, to make money, and, above all, to own a car!

Tupper was born on 28 July 1907 on a farm in Berlin, New Hampshire. His father looked after the family farm and greenhouse, while his mother took in laundry and ran a boarding house. As a boy, Earl learned he could sell more of his father’s produce by going door-to-door than he could in the market. After finishing at high school, he continued working for his parents, who now owned a nursery in Shirley, Massachusetts, until he was 19. He found employment on the railways and as a mail clerk before studying tree surgery. He started up his own tree and landscaping business - Tupper Tree Doctors Company - and began inventing items such as a women’s corset, a special hairpin dubbed Sure-stay, and a portable tie rack. In 1931, he married Marie Whitcomb and they would have five children.

During the Depression, Tupper’s business went bankrupt, but having met Bernard Doyle he went to work for his plastic company in Leominster, Massachusetts, part of the larger company, DuPont. A year later, he left and started The Earl S. Tupper Company, designing and developing plastic industrial products. During the war years, he mostly worked under contract for DuPont, producing moulded parts for the navy. It was from DuPont that he acquired a black, hard, polyethylene slag, a waste product of the oil process, and eventually found a way of refining it into a translucent, flexible, lightweight, non-toxic plastic which he called Poly-T. After the war, he turned his attention to the consumer market, making items such as plastic tumblers and cigarette cases; his Tupper Seal invention allowed an air- and water-tight lid. But selling plastic products - even in his Fifth Avenue shop - remained an uphill task.

In the late 1940s, Tupper joined forces with two distributors of his products - Brownie Wise (in Florida ) and Thomas Damigella (in Massachusetts) - who began to shift high volumes. The three met in 1951 and developed a new sales model called the Tupperware Home Party Plan with exclusive rights for selling Tupperware products (which were withdrawn from sale in shops). The plan was modelled on a home party plan pioneered by Stanley Home Products, but expanded and refined by Wise. Damigella and his wife became the first such distributors of Tupperware; and Wise was named vice president of Tupperware Home Parties in 1951. In 1958, Tupper fell out with Wise, who was dismissed, and then sold his company to Rexall Drug Company for $16m, divorced his wife, gave up U.S. citizenship (to avoid tax) and bought himself an island in Central America. He died in Costa Rica in 1983. Further biographical information is available at The Tupperware Collection, The New York Times obituary, Daily Maverick, Encyclopedia.com or Wikipedia.

Between 1933 and 1937, Tupper kept a daily diary of his activities. As far as I know these have never been published. However, they are used (and quoted from) extensively by Kathleen Franz in her book Tinkering: Consumers Reinvent the Early Automobile (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005). This is available to preview at Googlebooks. The opening paragraphs in Chapter 4 - A Tinkerer’s Story (i.e. about Tupper) - are worth quoting in full. (The illustration below also comes from Franz’s book.)

‘Earl Silas Tupper represents one grass-roots inventor who embraced the prolific advice literature on the importance of individual inventors and the profitability of patents during the Great Depression. Tupper, creator of the famous plastic containers that bear his name, was an avid tinkerer who began his inventive career by patenting and promoting an automobile accessory. In the 1930s, a young Earl Tupper tinkered with the design of numerous consumer novelties ranging from hairpins and permanently creased dress pants to a streamlined sled. While many of these were fleeting ideas, he promoted some quite vigorously. Tupper kept detailed diaries and notes of his daily activities between 1933 and 1937, and these documents reveal the intense efforts of one consumer-turned-amateur inventor to heed popular advice on invention, to emulate an older generation of independent inventors, and to successfully market his automotive improvements for profit.

Even as the design of the automobile became more complete in the 1930s and university-trained engineers and designers took greater control of technological innovations in the car, Tupper proved that tinkerers still saw the automobile as a fertile field for improvement. Tupper focused his efforts on patenting and marketing a collapsible top for rumble seats, which he dubbed the Clipper Rumble-Top. The rumble-seat top embodied Tupper’s hopes for gaining fame and fortune from invention. His writings reflect the widely held belief in the democratic nature of invention. Like many inventors, he hoped his patents would provide the capital on which to build personal financial security.

For Tupper, invention provided the key to individual success. Although Tupper wrote about the humanitarian benefits of invention, the bulk of his diary entries reflected his more immediate worries about money and his goal of improving his own material circumstances through patenting and selling his ideas. Popular advice encouraged tinkerers like Tupper to model themselves on inventor-heroes of previous generations and to use their own experience to redesign existing machines. A devoted student of popular magazine stories about invention, Tupper embodied what historian Brooke Hindle has called the process of emulation, an empirical approach to invention in the nineteenth century that relied on “fingertip knowledge,” creativity, and a desire to “equal and surpass the work of other [inventors].” Advice experts and committed grass-roots inventors like Tupper continued the process of emulation into the twentieth century, sustaining the efforts of those who invented outside a growing system of corporate research and development laboratories.

Earl Tupper’s coming of age in New England fit the genre of inventor biographies circulating in the popular literature of the early twentieth century. Born on a New Hampshire farm to a family of modest means, Tupper “developed a love of invention” and “showed an enterprising and entrepreneurial spirit” by the age of ten. Tupper worked at odd jobs and, through study and persistence, achieved success by inventing a simple plastic container. This simplified story, however, obscures the haphazard and difficult path Tupper followed prior to his success. Tupper had a complex relationship to automobility and to invention. His diaries speak not only to the economic hardships faced by many Americans during the Great Depression but also the hopes and difficulties of patent management for grass-roots inventors. Tupper’s experiences serve as a bridge between nineteenth-century ideas of invention as democratic and accessible and a modern corporate structure that placed invention and innovation in the hands of trained scientists and engineers who worked for large corporations.’

And here are several brief excerpts from Tupper’s diary, all of which I have extracted from Franz’s narrative (each one, therefore, is very likely to have been taken from a longer entry in the diary itself).

2 January 1933
‘Lately I have developed a ravenous appetite for knowledge, [. . .] Why couldn’t I have realized my real future desires while in school?’

7 January 1933
‘If I can get a little money ahead, I’ll show the world some real inventions. [. . .] I let my imagination play to-day . . . on what I would buy if I had only . . . $10,000 to spend. (Boy! - it was tough getting back to the depression).’

12 January 1933
‘I’ll be a super being if I successfully complete it [a programme of study].’

20 January 1933
‘I am ever impressed by the vast amount of interesting - fascinating - and elevating knowledge to be had by the ambitious in this world. It is impossible to live long enough to acquire it all.’

10 February 1933
‘It certainly is amazing what a rotten grafting game our politicians can get away with - even when the facts are broadcast to the people. If this old depression could continue for five more years,  think it would much to awaken the masses to activity towards wiping out corruption.’

4 March 1933
‘This noon we heard . .. President Roosevelt sworn into office. . . Mr. Roosevelt said a lot of nice things if he can and will see them through. I hope this old depression either grows much worse, or leaves us entirely - and very soon. Boy! I feel more stranded than Robinson Coruso [sic] even could have felt. . . It’s certain things can get no worse for me - financially.’

5 May 1933
‘That rumble top certainly looks like somebody’s Million Dollars.’

18 June 1933
‘I am too strapped for money and have notebooks full of sketches and a house of models of inventions awaiting completion and business. [ . . .] If I had a car, I could take care of myself.’

25 June 1933
‘No matter how poets and song writers play up pagan existence and Midevial [sic] civilizations, I’ll still take modern civilization . . . and ultra modern civilization - the more advanced the better I’m for it.”

23 July 1933
‘Gosh this standing around with nothing to do, is driving me crazy. I’m going to start making tops if nothing else.’

10 August 1933
‘Those birds don’t mind saying mean things to a poor little inventor. Just the same, I still believe that I can make money and selling those tops.’

10 September 1933
‘I have just $19 left to my name, no car, and apparently nothing else. With those business assets, I must take care of a fine little wife and a darling child. [. . .] I could always live, but to carry on and keep life for them worth living is a problem - it has been for a year.’

9 December 1933
‘How I crave a new auto now!’

7 February 1934
‘Mr. Sheedy doesn’t want to spend any more money until he sees what we can do toward merchandising the top. I believe that the patent should be granted, then we would have something to sell. As it is we have nothing. [. . .] And since Mr. Sheedy is paying the bill, I can’t say much.’

8 March 1934
‘I hope they sell like hot-cakes.’

22 March 1934
‘I’ve been planning sales campaigns, moving, buying a car, and everything else.’

22 January 1937
‘I can do this designing better than anyone else.’

UK-US talks on commercial union

‘Spent the morning at the Embassy [. . .] making final revisions to the text of the joint Anglo-American statement on Commercial Policy, the Agenda Outline (derived from this statement and for communication to the Russians, Chinese and eventually the other United Nations). [. . .] It is clear that each side must now do two things: (i) prepare the way by technical studies to see, for example, which of the tariff formulas are practicable and by what means; (ii) obtain certain major decisions or guidances on policy from their Ministers (on our side particularly on the subject of preferences).’ This is from the rather dry diary (though with touches of humour) kept by James Meade, a Nobel Prize winning British economist born 110 years ago today. The diary documents early discussions between the US and the UK on a future international commercial union, which would lead, in 1947, to 23 nations agreeing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Meade was born in Swanage on 23 June 1907, and brought up in Bath, England. He was schooled at Lambrook and Malvern College before entering Oriel College, Oxford in 1926 to study classics; however, he then switched to philosophy, politics and economics. In 1930, he was elected to a fellowship at Hertford College where he taught economics, a relatively new subject at the time. In 1933, he married Margaret Wilson, and they had three children. 

In 1937, Meade joined the Economic Section of the League of Nations in Geneva as editor of the World Economic Survey, but in 1940 returned to England where he worked in the economic section of the War Cabinet Secretariat. There he was joined by Lionel Robbins and John Maynard Keynes; together they tackled economic problems ranging from the rationing system to the pricing policy of nationalised companies. From around 1942, they focused on post-war reconstruction, domestic and international. In particular, Meade was involved in international discussions for a ‘commercial union’, which would lead, in time, to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

In 1947, Meade returned to academic life at the London School of Economics. In the early-mid 1950s, he published his most important contribution to economics, The Theory of International Economic Policy (two volumes). From 1957, he was Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge until his retirement in 1969. Thereafter, he remained at Cambridge, as a senior research fellow of Christ’s College. His many offices and honours included: the chairmanship of an Economic Survey Mission to Mauritius in 1960, presidency of the Royal Economic Society from 1964 to 1966, and chairmanship of a committee of the Institute of Fiscal Studies from 1975 to 1977. In 1977, Meade was awarded, jointly with the Swedish economist Bertil Ohlin, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics ‘for their pathbreaking contribution to the theory of international trade and international capital movements’. He died in 1995. Further information is available from Wikipedia, the Nobel Prize website, The British Academy, or various obituaries, such as those in The New York Times and The Independent.

For a short period, in the latter part of his time working for the government and while involved in the negotiations for a commercial union, Meade kept a diary. This is now held in the library archives of the London School of Economics. In 1990, it was published (as edited by Susan Howson and Donal Moggridge) by Macmillan Academic and Professional in The Wartime Diaries of Lionel Robbins and James Meade, 1943–45. The book is still in print and available as a hard copy or e-book for around £50 from Amazon or Palgrave. Some pages can be read freely online at Googlebooks. Here are several extracts from Meade’s diary as reproduced in the Palgrave book.

16 September 1943
‘Spent the morning and afternoon working in the Embassy, first on a revision of the Aide-Memoire on Commercial Policy (now to be called the Introductory Note on Commercial Policy) and on the Illustrative Outline. We have altered the order in which the points are to be dealt with - taking Quantitative Import Restrictions, State Trading and Subsidies before Tariffs and Preferences, and ending up with International Institutions. The idea behind this manoeuvre is not to suggest a frontal attack on the American tariff quite so brutally. [. . .] It seems that all is going well from our point of view on procedure. Our ideas that there should be frequent plenary sessions to stress the interdependence of all the subjects, and that the agenda should cover four main topics - namely Money, Investment, Commod and Commercial Policy - were more or less accepted with the reservation that there should at a later stage be two more committees on International action against Unemployment, and International Cartels. [. . .] Before supper I went to a cocktail party at Magowan’s house, at which all (or most) of the American and British delegations were present plus a number of other people from the Embassy etc. I exchanged words in the course of the evening with the Keynes’, the Butlers, R. L. Hall and Margaret Hall (who in a most affected manner declared that she felt like kissing me), Hawkins, Feis, the Pasvolskys, Dennis Robertson, Sir George Sansom (? pre-war commercial attache at Tokyo - at any rate a great authority on Japan and the Far East), and Law. Dennis and I had a talk with Sansom on the problem of low-cost Japanese competition. It was most refreshing to meet a British diplomat who really knew the Far East who held the commonsense view that we should have been generous and liberal in our economic treatment of Japan but adamant with her politically and militarily (except just the opposite). He and Dennis and I are to have dinner together one day to discuss these problems. I had a talk with Law who was most anxious that we should go ahead in an enthusiastic and positive manner to discuss the international implications of post-war unemployment policy. I argued strongly that, in view of the delicate position on the discussion of these problems at home, it really was out of the question that we should give any very positive lead on this subject. What a role to have to play, - to apply the soft pedal on this of all subjects! After the cocktail party I went on to supper with Di to Mrs Wheatcroft (a ‘British Mum’ evacuated with Margaret who works in the Embassy and was a great friend of Margaret’s). The evening consisted in a display of short snippets (none complete) of toy cinema films and a demonstration of chemical experiments (some of which worked) by her son and Billy Hart (aged 12 and 13).’

29 September 1943
‘A morning free from meetings, which I spent at the Embassy clearing up many odd points with Liesching, reading papers etc. I also spoke with Robbins on the subject of the British attitude on the currency problem. He seems to realise clearly that the question whether the Fund deals in national currencies or in Unitas is really of secondary importance. We must not allow there to be a break on such a senseless issue. Had lunch with two men from the State Department, Phelps and Gay, who wished to discuss the problem of state trading. I argued that we should set certain price rules and criteria for state trading which would correspond to the price rules with private enterprise as modified by permitted subsidies and tariffs. After lunch I saw Rasminsky for twenty minutes. He has come from Ottawa to talk with Keynes and others on the currency discussion. He is in exactly the same sense of perplexity as myself. Why must the British fight so on a point which is of so little substance as the monetisation of Unitas? In the afternoon another meeting of the Anglo-American group on commercial policy. First we discussed export taxes and restrictions, on which subject the Americans accepted our suggested rule without any difficulty. Then I introduced the general subject of the formation of the Commercial Union and of its institutions. The Americans are in very much the same mind as ourselves on these issues; but they want it to be made compulsory for members of the Commercial Union not to extend the advantages of membership to non-members. Later I dined with Galbraith and his wife at the Cosmos Club and then went on to their home in Georgetown to talk. He is the ‘relentless’ type of radical, believes that Russia should be permitted to absorb Poland, the Balkans and the whole of Eastern Europe in order to spread the benefits of Communism, that the outlook for American politics is very black because even if the Roosevelt administration wins the next election the liberal New Dealers are now all a crowd of tired, cautious and conservative liberals, etc. I think he may be a little embittered at the punishing experience he had at OPA where there was a witch-hunt against liberal College professors of which he was the main victim. He is off to New York to join the editorial board of Fortune.’

18 October 1943
‘Spent the morning at the Embassy with Liesching and Shackle, making final revisions to the text of the joint Anglo-American statement on Commercial Policy, the Agenda Outline (derived from this statement and for communication to the Russians, Chinese and eventually the other United Nations), and the similar Agenda of the Cartels group. Lunch with Hawkins, Pasvolsky and Liesching at the Cosmos Club, where we discussed future procedure on Commercial Policy. It is clear that each side must now do two things: (i) prepare the way by technical studies to see, for example, which of the tariff formulas are practicable and by what means; (ii) obtain certain major decisions or guidances on policy from their Ministers (on our side particularly on the subject of preferences). Then we shall be prepared to renew our meetings, by next January or February. Meanwhile, and after our next series of meetings, we must decide how to introduce the subject to other nations. For this, it was agreed, the Agenda Outline, posing the questions covered by our joint statement, will be very useful. After Hawkins had left we had some further conversation with Pasvolsky about the extent to which we should in the near future give a lead to the other Europeans and smaller United Nations. Pasvolsky was inclined to argue that when approached by them we should ask them what they wanted instead of telling them what they should do. His reason was mainly that they should not be in a position later if anything went wrong to maintain that they had no responsibility. There is no doubt some force in this; but 1 think that we must nevertheless give a very strong lead. In Commercial Policy in particular these countries just are not in a position to say what they want until they have some idea what the USA and UK are likely to do; and even if they could be persuaded to say what they wanted without knowing what we intended, they would be very likely to say quite the wrong thing, whereas with a little prompting they might quite genuinely be persuaded to ask for the right things. [. . .]

Went to a cocktail party at the Brighton Hotel, at which drinks on a copious scale were provided for the entertainment of the Board of Trade permanent delegation in Washington by us visitors from the Board at home. Miss Dalgleish mixed strong and frequent drinks. The party went through the symptoms of incipient alcohol poisoning, which I observed as an impartial spectator, confining myself to tomato juice. Liesching made a good pep-talk speech telling the Washington delegation what good people they were; and every effort, unsuccessful but only just unsuccessful, was made to get Liesching laid out on the floor. The party broke up and I returned, with Joan Carmichael and Mary Williamson, to a late supper at 2820 N. Street.’

19 October 1943
‘Spent the morning partly at the Embassy writing notes for our report to ministers on the result of our commercial policy talks, but mainly in sorting papers, arranging money matters, signing declarations about income tax etc. in preparation for our departure. Lunch with Bernstein of the US Treasury, with whom I discussed the prospects of the monetary plans from the point of view of American Congress and public opinion. Bernstein said that they would have the Federal Reserve Board with them and seemed hopeful that they might persuade some of the American bankers that a scheme was essential. Nevertheless he was clearly very impressed by the political opposition which they would have to be prepared to face. I asked him whether he was satisfied with the progress made in the Anglo-American discussions on this subject. He said that he was very satisfied, and that they had never considered that getting agreement with the British would prove any very real obstacle. But he added that he was sorry that tempers had not always been good during the talks. He is still evidently smarting somewhat from Keynes’s ill manners. But he added sweetly that he thought we should not have considered their ideas so sinister as we did, if only they had had a real opportunity to explain the workings of their ideas. (Visions of Bernstein preparing another hundred questions and answers on the Stabilisation Fund!) Went back to the Embassy in the afternoon to work on my notes for our report to ministers on commercial policy. Took Di and Joan Carmichael to supper at the Washington hotel and to the cinema to see Fred Astaire dancing, which is certainly a very pleasing sight.’

The tricycle diaries

‘I tricycled over to Peers Court, Stinchcomb and lunched with the Brooke-Hunts, 16 1/2 miles; then on to Hempstead, to a garden party and home by Gloucester, 36 miles in all. I rode Clara’s tricycle and sustained a flying fall in going down a sudden pitch. I was not hurt and enjoyed my day immensely.’ This is from the sometimes amusing and colourful diaries of John Dearman Birchall, a cloth merchant who retired to Gloucester to live the good life as a squire, and who died 120 years ago today. Apart from tricycle expeditions, his diaries, which were edited alongside those of his wife’s by their grandson, tell of farming, fishing, flower shows and garden parties, as well as his work as a magistrate and wider political events.

Birchall was born in Leeds in 1828 into a family of wealthy Quaker merchants. His mother died when he was nine, and an older sister, Eliza, gave him religious instruction and was his closest friend. He was educated at small private schools in York and Croydon. As a young man, he joined a Leeds firm of cloth merchants, and then, in 1853, aged 25, he started his own company. In 1861, he married Clara Jane Brook, having left the Quakers and being baptised into the Church of England. Their daughter, Clara Sophia, was born the following year; but soon after Clara Jane died of consumption, aged but 21.

Birchall’s firm went on to win prizes for its cloth at international exhibitions as far afield as the United States and Australia. In the late 1860s, though, he bought a small estate near Gloucester, Bowden Hall, thus becoming a squire. There he was able to indulge his cultured passions, notably art (he was an occasional patron of the Pre-Raphaelites) and blue-and-white porcelain. However, now some distance from his company, he became less involved in its day-to-day business matters, though he retained the biggest share holding for another two decades. In 1873, he married Emily Jowitt who was only 20, and they had five children. In time, Birchall became a magistrate, an alderman, and ultimately High Sheriff of Gloucestershire. Emily, like Eliza, died tragically young, in 1884. He himself died on 11 June 1897.

There is very little information about Birchall online other than basic details at Geni.com or Geneagraphie. However, because Dearman and Emily both kept diaries, a good deal more about their life became available in 1983 when Alan Sutton (eventually taken over by The History Press) published The Diary of a Victorian Squire, Extracts from the Diaries and Letters of Dearman & Emily Birchall. The book was edited and put together by David Verey, Birchall’s grandson. A couple of reviews can be found online, at History Today and John Edwards blog. Here are several extracts from Dearman Birchall’s diary as found in Verey’s book.

2 March 1871
‘The entry of the French capital by Germans is the news of the day and the dramatic sitting of the national Assembly at Bordeaux where by a majority of near 3 to 1 they confirmed this iniquitous treaty and deposed the Bonaparte family for ever. These and other striking scenes fill one’s mind to the exclusion of all ordinary topics.’

17 March 1871
‘We had a tremendous frost last night; fortunately my apricots which are all in bloom are well protected.’

28 March 1871
‘I hear that the Hopkinsons have sold Edgeworth to a Kentish gentleman for £40,000.’

19 April 1871
‘London. City in morning. Horticultural Show in the afternoon very charming. The azalias, roses and Veitch’s Stove plants especially the anthuricum Scherzerium with its gorgeous scarlet bloom and spiked centre tongue of rather lighter shade. Evening at Burlington club conversazione. We met Gambier Parry, Millais, Tom Taylor etc. Collection of fayence Urbino ware, Wedgewood, bronzes, Marquis of Westminster’s collection of paintings including Turner’s sketch and Constable’s greatest picture.’

10 August 1872
‘Constant rain. The county near here is dreadfully flooded and accounts are bad from all parts of the country. Potato disease prevails; foot and mouth amongst cattle. The seven milk cows have had it here, and now the sheep have it in their feet, swollen, mattering and maggoty, with the most disgusting stench. The quantity of keep in the park, and the dreadful wet season seem the natural causes. The sheep are sore, without wool and often bleeding in their breasts from lying in wet grass. It is thought they had better continue in the park in the hope of recovery which I suggest might be accelerated by nursing in a dry barn or what not.’

19 August 1872
‘Ann has a letter giving account of poor Cobb’s lamentable suicide in the Barnsley Canal. She had first tried to be run over on the rails. Our cooks have not been fortunate. Mrs Dyson an incurable; Jane died from cancer and now Mrs Cobb committing suicide.’

13 May 1876
‘We dined at the Drummonds. They have had a scare about scarlet fever. The under nurse was taken ill on Thursday and yesterday the doctor recognized it as a mild case of scarlet fever so she was sent to the fever hospital. Nobody was there except Lady Elizabeth. Cecil has heard this afternoon that the Government have very bad news from Turkey and that war is imminent. The outbreak at Salonika is likely to be repeated elsewhere and the mussulman blood is rising; with 7 million soldiers in Europe desiring war, as much as a spark could set such inflammable material on fire.’

23 May 1876
‘Mr Warburg came for one night. Looks well and is in good spirits. He describes the general business as being well managed beyond former precedent (the absence of Mr Webb in America as beneficial). We stand well everywhere abroad. He says the waters of Carlsbad are very efficacious in the cure of severe forms of gout [Dearman’s chief weakness] and that the Grosvenors and Bedfords are never absent. He describes Bohemian scenery in the neighbourhood of Carlsbad as very lovely.’

27 May 1876
‘Margaret left us today (the faithful maid). She was much depressed. We gave her £10 and hope her marriage may prove a happy one.’

10 June 1876
‘Had long conversations with partners. Mr Webb in particular who gave us a most interesting description of his American experiences. No improvement at the Mill. Average this year 86 pieces a week, 2230 pieces value £18,900. Trade getting much flatter. Today we had separate interviews with Cheetham. He first privately told me of his sorrows, father dead, sister insane, brother wretched, uncle unkind, wife ill at Scarborough - fears for her brain. I suggested Oswald spend half his days at the Mill till the end of the year, as a support to Cheetham to make more sympathy between the departments. Webb, Campbell and Oswald agreed to do away with cheviots and confine themselves to certain specified makes - at present with all their patterns they are getting few orders.’

20 May 1881
‘Went to stay at Enderby [the Drummonds]. Garden Party on the Saturday. Two bands and plenty of lawn tennis, and 5 splendid fire balloons. Emily came out in her terracotta aesthetic dress and Clara in her summer costume. No one looked half as nice.’

27 May 1881
‘Drawing lesson from Mr Watson, perspective mostly but to-day he brought a cast of an ornament for me to do in chalk with view to improving myself in light and shade. Emily has lessons in Spanish. In afternoon I went to Ealing to see a procession of tricyclist clubs, Gloucester and many London ones. We saw examples of the Special Salvo, Otto, Cheylesmore, Meteor, Humber, Devon, Tom Tit and Omnicycle.’

1 June 1881
‘Emily had her first At Home, 4-7. Great success. 80 people came. Afterwards we went to the (aesthetic) Opera Patience; the love-sick maidens most charming, jokes amusing, airs lively. The children have measles.’

13 June 1881
‘I went to Bowden. The house had not even got one coat of paint all over it. Best bedroom begun papering. Ordered stables to be colourwashed. Called on dear old Mr Jones. He said, “I shall be under the sod before you come down again. I am very happy.” I tried to encourage him thinking the pain he complained of in his chest was partly indigestion. Mrs Jones told me he was sinking; but I could scarcely credit it. I only stayed 10 minutes as he soon fatigued. The next day Mr Jones died aged 84. It will be a great loss. His end was peaceful without pain. He dozed away and the time when his spirit fled was not marked or even noticed by those who had the privilege of being present. May we be sustained by as robust a faith when our end comes.’

25 July 1883
‘Emily and I to Gloucester and back on tricycles. Clara Armitage left. She is not yet 20 years old, and reminds me of Clara’s mother - her bright complexion and open face please all who have made her acquaintance.’

27 July 1883
‘Splendid day. To Thornbury Castle with the Archaeologists. We went by rail to Charfield and drove thence. Country lovely. Mr. Stafford and Lady Rachel Howard invited us to tea.’

28 July 1883
‘Superb day for our Garden Party which went off brilliantly. 200 people here, Probyns, Gambier Parrys, De Ferrieres, Guises, Bells, Gibbonses, etc. Violet and Lindaraja in Russian costumes made sensation. It was the finest day since we returned home. Dawes Band played.’

4 August 1883
‘We had the Upton Feast before us on the Bench. A man called Page was fined 10/- and expenses 27/6 for being drunk and assaulting the police whom he struck and kicked; Middlecote 5/- for being drunk. The evidence showed a disorderly and disreputable gathering.’

5 August 1883
‘Last week 13 gallons of milk came in per day. Mrs Warner made 20 lbs of butter in the week; we sold 8 lbs and used about 12. She says that 30 quarts of milk per day are ample for all our requirements - it is getting wasted for want of vessels. Mr Gray proposes that Mrs Keylove shall make the excess milk into butter and sell it.’

9 August 1883
‘Excellent Village Flower Show of fruit and flowers but the afternoon was stormy and the garden muddy and soaked. We had 68, all our neighbours, to tea in the hall.’

11 August 1883
‘Emily and I went to Whiteholme [Mary Birchall’s] picking up Florence in Leeds on the way, for the grouse shooting.’

13 August 1883
‘We joined the Townhead party on the moors, Edward Birchall, Charles Armitage etc. It was very warm and fatiguing. I never saw half as many birds before. We shot 49 1/2 brace.’

23 August 1883
‘I tricycled over to Peers Court, Stinchcomb and lunched with the Brooke-Hunts, 16 1/2 miles; then on to Hempstead, to a garden party and home by Gloucester, 36 miles in all. I rode Clara’s tricycle and sustained a flying fall in going down a sudden pitch. I was not hurt and enjoyed my day immensely.’

16 September 1885
‘Tricycled to Upleadon. The Grays commence their departure on Saturday. The place looks very nice. I then went on to Huntley to call on the Ackers. The house struck me as looking very dull and uninteresting. [This was by S.S. Teulon, and would probably not compare very favourably with Prinknash.] Ackers says how bad everything is. He cannot get an offer for Prinknash and has to keep it up, and cannot sell the Prinknash herd of shorthorns. He has now the three houses and is going to give up butler and footman and keep waiting maids. I had been 32 1/2 miles.’

22 September 1885
‘Sale of Mr. Hobbs’s stock at Park Farm; very bad prices realized. Things are now probably lower than for 20 years. The season has been good and stock is plentiful, importations continuing the prices continually fell. The horses brought exceptionally bad figures. I bought a colt for £13.15.0. Mr Davis purchased sheep and horses. He looked very wild. I believe Mr Hobbs would have remained at Park Farm if Mr Davis had given him a sensible reduction from his rent of £500 p.a.’

29 June 1885
‘Fishmonger had caught a sturgeon this morning at Awre, 9 ft. long, weight 260 lbs. It was still breathing when I saw it.’

24 August 1885
‘Garden Party at the Doringtons at Lypiatt Park. We took the Greens and enjoyed a very pleasant expedition. It took us nearly two hours with barouche going by Stroud - a mistake - returning Miserden way; it was a most superb day and the company numbered over 200, all the best people in the county, and the Greens were much struck with the beauty of the place and agreeable party and the picturesque country.’

25 August 1885
‘Garden Party at Hardwicke 3.30 - 7. A smaller party than yesterday. Mr Baker was walking about and seemed very cheerful. The garden looked in nice order; but the grass plot much cracked from the unusual drought which has prevailed for at least a couple of months.’

The Diary Junction

Adieu to my youth

‘Pretty cold this morning but we must get the carriage repaired, which broke down last night about 12 oclock. Managed to get to the polling place about an hour and half before it closed. This is my birthday, it is now 21 years since I came into this world. “Adieu to my youth - ” ’ This is Sandford Fleming, the great Scots-Canadian railway engineer, born 190 years go today, who created the idea of a standard worldwide time. Although he kept a diary for most of his life, he rarely wrote more than a few words each day. A selection of his youthful diary entries - considered rather ‘laconic and factual’ - were published in 2009, but, according to one critic, shed more light on that period in Canadian history than on the great engineer to be.

Fleming was born on 7 January 1827 in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. Aged 14, he was apprenticed to a prominent Fifeshire surveyor and assisted in tracking new railway lines between Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee. In 1845, he and an elder brother emigrated to Canada; their parents followed a little later. After dallying in various colonial Canadian cities, such as Montreal and Ottawa, the brothers settled in Peterborough lodging with a cousin.

Fleming moved to Toronto, where he worked with a printing company while looking to further his engineering career, through securing his surveyor’s qualification and by taking on various commissions. He was also involved in founding the Canadian Institute, and is credited with designing Canada’s first postage stamp, costing three pennies and depicting a beaver, now the national animal of Canada. Fleming married Ann Jean Hall, daughter of the county’s sheriff, in 1855, and they had six children.

From 1852 onwards, Fleming took a prominent part in the development of railways in Upper Canada; from 1855 to 1863 he was chief engineer of the Northern Railway. In 1863, the colonial government of Nova Scotia appointed him chief railway engineer and charged him with construction of a line from Truro to Pictou. On refusing to entertain high bids for small contracts, he resigned his position and carried out the work as a contractor rather than a civil servant. In 1867 or so, he was appointed by the new dominion government to the post of engineer-in-chief of the Inter-Colonial Railway, a position he would hold until its completion in 1876.

Meanwhile, in 1871, the construction of a Canadian Pacific Railway had been made part of the bargain by which British Columbia was induced to enter the new dominion, and Fleming was appointed the project’s engineer-in-chief. The following year, he headed an expedition to find a practicable route. In 1880, with over 600 miles of railway completed and most of the engineering difficulties overcome, the government decided to form an agreement with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, handing over the project - together with vast subsidies of land and money - to the new commercial company. The privatisation was a severe blow to Fleming, who was effectively dismissed. However, a few years later he became a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

From 1880, Fleming was chancellor of Queen’s University in Kingston, a position he retained until his death. Apart from remaining involved in various commercial projects, he continued to devote himself to Canadian and Imperial problems, such as the unification of time reckoning throughout the world (and, indeed, is credited with inventing the ideal of unification and time zones), and the construction of a state-owned system of telegraphs throughout the British empire. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1897. His final years were spent mostly at his house in Halifax. He died in 1915, leaving the house and its 95 acres to the city, an area now known as Sir Sandford Fleming Park. Further information on Fleming can be found at Wikipedia, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Web Exhibits, Atlas of Alberta Railways, and Queen’s University.

The 190th anniversary of Fleming’s birth is being commemorated today with a so-called Google doodle - and this in turn has led to sudden spurt of attention by the media to the great (and largely forgotten in the UK until now) Scottish engineer - see The Telegraph, The Independent, India Today, or The Sun. Not so forgotten in Canada: in 2009, the Toronto-based publisher, Dundurn, brought out Sir Sandford Fleming - His Early Diaries, 1845-1853 by Jean Murray Cole (which can be previewed at Googlebooks). According to Cole, Fleming began his lifelong habit of keeping a journal in Scotland on 1 January 1845, just seven days before his 18th birthday. Her book contains the early journals (1845-1853) which, she says, ‘give a vivid picture of Fleming’s development and maturing as he sought to make a place for himself in the competitive atmosphere of Canada West in the 1840 and 1850s.’

Michael Peterman, a past professor of English at Trent University, begins his foreword to the diaries as follows: ‘It is with great pleasure that I write this Foreword to Sir Sandford Fleming: The Early Diaries. As the Chair of the Publications Committee of the Peterborough Historical Society for the past fifteen years, I have shared with my fellow committee members a commitment to see this project shaped and realized. It began as an idea in the mid-1990s, spurred on by Jean Murray Cole, who had studied Fleming’s life and admired his diaries in their home at Library and Archives Canada. We felt then that an annotated and accurate transcript of young Sandford’s early diaries would make a useful and informative addition to the record of life in pre-Confederation Canada. It would provide a view of the colony through the eyes of a young and ambitious Scottish immigrant as he struggled to make a place for himself in a new land, to find satisfying work for his talents, and to develop his professional interests. Laconic and factual as the diary entries often are, they take us into the texture of Fleming’s brave new world and alert us to the kind of community he had to deal with as he sought to make a career and place for himself. To him, Canada was “a marvellous world” and a ‘‘goodly land.” ’

Richard White, reviewing the diaries in The Canadian Historical Review (Volume 91, Number 3, September 2010), agrees with Peterman’s assessment that the laconic, factual nature of the entries leave rather a lot unsaid: ‘The problem is that the diaries say so little. They are brief daily entries that simply note the main activities of the day. Some are very short - ‘Christmas. Out sleighing. Good dinner at the Drs’ (25 December 1845), ‘At Timson’s yesterday. Very severe frost. Drawing class evening’ (13 Februaray 1849), ‘Preparing paper and diagrams for Saturday evening’ (20 March 1851). Others are more substantial - ‘Intended going over to the Island to set back meridian but wind blowing & exceedingly cold, called on Lieut de Moleyers who thinks that I had better finish my drawing of Gloucester Bay immediately while the weather is rough & attend to this afterward’ (19 January 1852). Such entries do reveal details that researchers of early engineering and surveying techniques might find useful, but they are still very short, rarely more than four or five lines of printed text, and they leave much unsaid. The months and years go by without much of Fleming’s character being revealed. One has the sense that almost anyone could have written these entries.’

However, White does not believe they are quite so valuable in providing a forecast of the man to come: ‘In time, though, the numerous mundane facts and details begin shaping into a sketchy picture of Fleming, and perhaps the most striking quality that emerges is how resourceful and capable a man he was. He arrived in Canada with several valuable skills - drawing, drafting, surveying, engraving - and he used them all to make a living. He pursued every opportunity, and every job he did seems to have brought him some recognition, and often the opportunity to do the same again. The entries also reveal a strong commitment to work. A large map of Toronto, which he surveyed, drew, and engraved in association with the Toronto printers Scobie & Balfour, was a multi-year project, on which he seems to have persevered with extraordinary tenacity. All in all, Fleming emerges as the essential self-made man who established himself through his own competence and effort. One gets glimpses of his humbleness too. In one of his few reflective entries Fleming looks back and marvels that ‘a poor boy came to this country 8½ years ago with his brother’ (6 September 1953) and that he is now so respected and financially secure. The entries are slim, to be sure, and the editor’s concluding claim that the diary offers ‘a clear forecast of the accomplishments of his later years’ overstates the matter, but something of the man emerges, no doubt.’

Nevertheless, White believes there might be value in the picture that the diaries draw of the period: ‘These hundreds of mundane details, taken together, also reveal something of the world Fleming inhabited - that intriguing period from the late 1840s to the 1850s that was such a critical moment in the modernization of English Canada - and although the editor makes little mention of this it could well be as important as what the diary says about Fleming.’

Here are several extracts from Sir Sandford Fleming - His Early Diaries, 1845-1853.

1 January 1845
‘I went to bed for the last time in the year 1844 at 11 oclock, and rose at ½ past 7 on new years day. Almost everyone you met said “good new year to ye” &c. Happy to say I saw noone drunk except a carter boy who I believed pretended more than anything else. I finished a sketch of ‘Ravenscraig Castle’ in the morning which Mr Crawford was to make arrangements with Mr Lizars about the engraving of it. Began in the evening to draw on stone Kirkcaldy harbour to be lithographed by Mr Bryson. My present wish is to write a sort of diary so that I can put down anything particular that happens or is of utility to recollect.’

January 1848
‘How strange it sounds, but it will soon be familiar to us. Poor 1847 is dead, is now numbered with the past, and all our deeds and actions, evil or good are sealed. Yes sealed with the great seal of time. Let us form a good resolution to live the lives of honest men, let us learn the way to do good, and walk upright. If it should be for no other purpose than to honour our Father and Mother dear, to comfort them in their old age. Surely we could not see their grey hair go with sorrow to the grave.’

1 January 1848
‘Last night David, Ann & I were at a wedding. The party were very merry, finished about 3 A.M. and most of us went to finish at another party. It is enough to say we got to bed about 7 oclock and got up about eleven. David and I called upon several friends during the day, being the usual custom.’

3 January 1848
‘At work again, engraving a view of St Peters Church, Cobourg. It is very tedious work. Would rather be in the country chopping. It may be so but one is never content with their present condition.’

4 January 1848
Again at St Peters in the forenoon, but think it as well to give it up, in the mean time, as it is not likely that I shall make a good job of it when my mind does not go along with it.’

5 January 1848
‘Today I have commenced to design a Town Hall for the Town of Cobourg, as I promised when I was down last. It may never be of any pecuniary advantage to me but it is practice and they may probably take my unsold plans of Cobourg, as a sort of remuneration for me.’

6 January 1848
‘In the forenoon today I have been engaged sketching out a plan for the Town Hall at Cobourg. Afternoon I volunteered my services to take out two voters to the Township of Scott about 50 miles from Toronto. We started about 5 oclock P.M. and slept in Buffalo robes at the village of Stouffville 30 miles out.’

7 January 1848
‘Pretty cold this morning but we must get the carriage repaired, which broke down last night about 12 oclock. Managed to get to the polling place about an hour and half before it closed. This is my birthday, it is now 21 years since I came into this world. “Adieu to my youth - ” ’

8 January 1848
‘Winter morning - snowing. Started for Toronto, our ride was through the bush, only one house for about 10 miles. Arrived at Newmarket where the Hon Robert Baldwin is here with his party, they having defeated our friend Mr. Scobie by 260 majority. Went up to Sharon and saw David Willson & Temple.’

10 January 1848
‘Sunday is omitted in this Diary. It being near one before getting home I did not get up till near church time. Poor Mr. Russell confectioner was burnt out yesterday morning at 4 oclock. Lost all but the lives of his family. Today I have commenced at Scobie & Balfour again.’

11 January 1848
‘The balance of the 1st Quarters rent is due today amounting to £3.10. £1.10 being paid on taking the house. Reed 10/ from Scobie & Balfour to make up the balance. Mr. Holland promised to give me 4 dollars for making a plan for Mr Bethune.’

12 January 1848
‘Little Mr Buchan, Scobie & Balfour engraver had been drunk last night and cant work today. Silly fellow to spend his time and money, and breaking his constitution. Can it be possible that I shall be a drunkard; surely not. Paid the Jew £3/10 the Quarter rent.’

14 January 1848
‘The weather is unusually mild, it rained almost all day. In the evening a fire broke out in Yonge Street in a wooden house, but owing to the rain and the plentiful supply of water in the ditches, the fire was prevented from going farther.

15 January 1848
‘Last evening I saw along with Cochrane the sculptor, some plaster casts that have just been brought to town for the Society of Arts. There is some good things among them. Went over to John Buchans last night, he was just getting better from being drunk poor fellow. He has kept sober a long time now.’

17 January 1848
‘Today is Handsel Monday, if all is well there will be great merry makings at  Haugh Mills. Reed from Scobie & Balfour £2/10 paid Father £2/5. Last Wednesday I got from David 7 dollars to help pay the rent which with the other two makes 9 dollars I gave my Father that time & owe David $7. Engaged at Scobies just now making a title to the Newcastle & Colborne map. There is a vast deal of work at it, but shall try to make a good job.’

19 January 1848
‘In the afternoon today my Father, David, Mr Pollock & I went out to the Humber Mills about 16 miles out, to see them, they are to let or sell. It is a pretty place, a flour mill with two runs of stones just finished and a good saw mill with plenty of pine.’

26 January 1848
‘I have been thinking for some time that, the charcoal light of the magnetic battery might be brought to some practical use. I only require one experiment, but it would be an expensive one for me unless I could meet with a powerful battery, but I dont think there is one in Canada. It is to try if more than one light can be formed with one set of wires by masking the connection and interposing charcoal points. If this is the case, we have a good and cheap substitute for Gas, would give a much better light, and at least could be easily adapted to lighting streets or churches just by having a wire like the Telegraph ones, with a charcoal apparatus here & there. Worth trying.’

The cost of men and food

‘Married men are paid by the keep of a cow, a house, potatoe & flax ground, with a certain yearly sum in money. At one period of the war unmarried ploughmen paid by the year received 18£, and 6½ bolls of meal with milk. In 1816 the money wages fell to 9£. At present. 12£.’ This is Thomas Robert Malthus, the British scholar whose writings on political economy and populations studies - notably that population growth will always tend to outrun food supply - caused controversy in his time. He left behind a few travel diaries, which show him always aware of ‘the economic aspect of things’ as well as ‘his persistent interest in the costs and amenities of living in different environments’.

Malthus was born on 13 February 1766 into a large prosperous family living in Westcott, Surrey. He was educated at home, then Warrington Academy, and entered Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1784, eventually being elected a Fellow in 1793. Earlier, though, he had taken orders for the Church of England, and become a curate. His first work - An Essay on the Principle of Population - was published anonymously in 1798, and then revised by him five or six times, during his lifetime, incorporating new information. The work made him famous at the time, and he remains one of the most well remembered of early economists.

Essentially, Malthus argued in his essay that hopes for future human happiness - as expressed by learned men, including his father - must be in vain because food supply, which increases in arithmetic progression, will always be outstripped by population growth, which increases by geometric progression if unchecked. Indeed, population, he argued, will expand to the limit of subsistence, and be held in check by war, famine, ill health.

In 1804, Malthus married Harriet Eckersall, and they had three children. When the East India Company College was founded, in 1805-1806, to train administrators for the Honourable East India Company, he was appointed professor of history and political economy. Although initially situated in Hertford, new buildings including accommodation for the professors and their families were soon after constructed at Haileybury, just outside the city, where Malthus taught and lived for the rest of his life (having helped, in 1817, defend the college against closure).

In 1818, Malthus was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1820, he published his Principles of Political Economy, and soon after was a founding member the Political Economy Club. Later, he was elected one of the 10 royal associates of the Royal Society of Literature, and he cofounded the Statistical Society of London. He died suddenly in late 1834. Further information is available at Wikipedia, The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, BBC, Encyclopaedia Britannica, New World Encyclopedia or the Biographical Dictionary of British Economists.

Malthus travelled infrequently: to northern Europe in 1799, through Sweden and Finland to St Petersburg; to France and Switzerland in 1802; to Ireland in 1819; to the Continent in 1825; and to Scotland in 1826. He may have kept diaries on all these trips, who knows, but only those from 1799, 1825 and 1826 appear to have survived - the 1799 diary (four notebooks) only being discovered in 1961. These diaries were transcribed and edited by Patricia James and published in 1966 in Cambridge at the University Press for the Royal Economic Society as The Travel Diaries of Thomas Robert Malthus.

According to the eminent British economist Lionel Robbins, who wrote the foreword, the diaries are not only notable for their occasional entries on population questions (shedding light on differences between the first and second editions of ‘Essay on the Principle of Population’), but because ‘they afford valuable evidence of general temper of the author’s mind in its focus on the economic aspect of things - his patient empiricism, his concern with the mundane details of institutions and customary behaviour, his persistent interest in the costs and amenities of living in different environments.’

Robbins finishes his foreword: ‘Since the discovery of these diaries, I have often thought of the pleasure which they would have given to Maynard Keynes who wrote so eloquently of their author and who valued so highly the ways of living and thinking for which he stood. How he would have relished the piquant details of travel and the agreeable parties at which such serious questions were discussed. It is a fitting thing that they should now be published by the Royal Economic Society whose fortunes he did so much to establish and whose meetings for so many years were made memorable by the liveliness of his wit and fancy.’

Here are several extracts from the three tours: Scandinavia, 1799 (four notebooks), the Continent, 1825, and Scotland, 1826.

13 June 1799
‘Showry. Therm at 2, 59. Saw the King’s library which consists of upwards of 300,000 volumes. It contains many scarce books & valuable manuscripts; but we were too much pressed for time to examine them with any attention. Talked to a man who had published a book on Statistics. According to his calculations, 1 in 40 die in Norway, 1 in 38 in the islands, 1 in 37 in the dutchies. He said that Professor Thaarup had stolen from him.  Call’d upon Monsr. Wad, professor of natural history in the University, a great mineralogist, & saw some curious specimens relating to the formation of coal & amber, a new semimetal & some new crystals & c. & c. We have found all the professors that we have seen extremely polite, & ready to give every kind of information. The King’s library is open every day from 10 till 12, & a professor generally attends.

There are no corn laws in Denmark & no publick store except a small one for the army. The Bank is entirely a government institution but in great credit. The notes are as low as 1 rix dollar. Silver must be paid at the bank when demanded. These notes bear a discount in Holstein. I heard, but do not know whether from good authority or not, that there was a discount on these notes in the islands about 10 yrs ago. The Bank is said now to be very rich in silver, & it is thought probable that in a few years the notes will be destroyed & that there will be only a silver currency.

Every thing is remarkably dear at present in Copenhagen. Beef & mutton 6d., Fresh butter is. Common labour in the environs of the town 2s. - in the country 1s. 4d. There is a very great demand for labour at present, and labourers are scarce. Every thing in the shops is remarkably dear, & books particularly so. Only four years ago labour in the country was 1 danish marc or 8d. a day. This rapid rise in the price of labour has placed the lower classes in a very good state, and it is expected that there will be a very rapid increase of population. In the afternoon went to see the review, which upon the whole went off very well, tho it was unluckily a showry afternoon. The soldiers at a distance appeared to be handsomely drest, but on a nearer view their cloathing was very coarse. The horses small, but handsome, & in good order - all with long tails. Towards the end of the review I got near the King’s tent & saw him quite close. He is treated quite as an idiot. The officers about the court have all orders not to give him any answer. Some of the party observed him talking very fast & making faces at an officer who was one of the sentinels at the tent, who preserved the utmost gravity of countenance & did not answer him a single word. Just before the royal party left the tent the Prince rode up full speed, & his father made him a very low bow. I could not well distinguish the Prince’s countenance, and could only see that he had a thin pale face & a small person. His father has the same kind of face & person, but is reckoned a better looking man.

We observed the French minister with his national cockade. He had an interesting, tho rather fier countenance, and seemed to look on what he saw as a poor farce not worth his attention. When he addressed any person his features relaxed into mildness & he seemed to be perfectly well bred in his manner. The Princess Royal is rather pretty, and is, I understand, a most agreeable & valuable woman. Lady R F spoke in the highest terms of her - She is a daughter of the Prince of Hesse who lives in the palace at Sleswic. We saw the Princess get into her carriage with her daughter, the only remaining child of five, who is now about five yrs old. There was a large party of nobility in the King’s tent, but Ld R F was not there. The King drove off first, accompanied by the Princess Royal & her daughter, in a gilt chariot with six very handsome grey horses.’

28 June 1799
‘We were engaged to dine with Mr Ancher at half past 2, & to go to his brother’s in the evening. In the morning, walked up to the Castle with the daughter of the landlord of our Inn as an interpreter. She speaks french, is a little of a coquette, & is much celebrated in the neighbourhood for the gracefulness of her manners; but she has not much pretension to beauty. On account of her superior accomplishments she is admitted into the first circle at Christiania. Mr A praised her highly & said that she was one of their best actresses. They have private theatricals at Christiania as well as at Frederickshall, & Mr A himself often takes a principal part - sometimes indeed that of author as well as actor. He told us of a tragedy that he had written on the subject of the death of Major Andre, which he performed before the Prince Royal, playing himself the part of the Major. The Prince, he told us, was highly pleased.’

8 June 1825
‘Bruges at 8 o’clock. Hotel nearly full.’

9 June 1825
‘Tower in the Market Place. Church of Notre Dame: Carved Pulpit. Statue of the Virgin by Michaelangelo. Tombs of Charles the Bold & his daughter. St Salvador. Baptism of John by Van Os. Resurrection not yet put up.

Church of Jerusalem not worth going to. Black Manteau’s. Some of the whitened houses do not suit the antient character of the Town.

At the Hotel Fleur de Bled Vin de Bordeaux ordinaire 2.f.’

10 June 1825
‘To Ghent by the Grand Barque. Passage 5½ francs each, dinner included, wine excluded. Vin de Bordeaux ordinaire 3 f. Claret at 4 f. not better. - rather approaching to the wine at 1½ f.’

For a great part of the way the banks were so high that the country was not visible - wood on each side - chiefly poplar of different kinds, and beech - Latter part of way banks lower - neat houses - good deal of rye the main food of the common people. Labour 14 sous, 28 French Sous. White bread 3½ pounds for 4 Sous or pence.’

11 June 1825
‘Town - marks of the wealth and splendour of the middle ages. Cathedrale de St Bavo rich in marble. Pulpit by Delvaux. Statue of Bishop Trieste by Quesnoy. Chch. St Michael. Crucifixion by Vandyke - a very fine picture, but dirty, and not distinct. -another copy in Academy in better order, but not reckoned so good. Van Kraeger. Boxon sculptor - single portrait of himself.

Nunnery. Town Hall Gothic side superb.

Sabots, women without stockings. Blue Carters frocks. Cotton cloaks.’

12 June 1825
‘Feats of swimming from the bridges of the Schelde and the Leys, numerous barges laden with Coals chiefly from Charleroix.

In the afternoon to Brussels by the Diligence - premiere caisse. Pavé the first half of the way between two rows of beeches. Country flat but not unpleasing from the number of trees - chiefly different kinds of poplar, and beech, - no large timber. Much rye in full ear, and good crops, some barley turning yellow, - but little wheat - just coming into ear. good crops flax. From Alost the crops of wheat and rye forwarder, and the finest and fullest I ever saw. - the first half of the way the houses the neatest, - last half thatched cottages, and a waving country much like England. Alost and Assche very white and cheerful. Blue frocks, women without shoes. Hotel Belle Vue. Place Royale. Park - splendid.’

4 July 4 1826
‘Hill by Turnpike before breakfast. Small hill the other way after breakfast. Down to Stoney river and wooden bridge. View of Luss & Ben Lomond. Steam boat. Rowerdennan. Tarbet. Inversnaith. Rob Roy’s cave. Tarbet. Walk on a shoulder of one of the mountains in the evening.

Heard at Luss that the wages of the man who worked in the slate quarries were about 20d. a day. All had been employed, and there had been little or no fall.

In Fifeshire, from Mr Bruce the same account. Wages had risen in 1825, and had not fallen again - no want of agricultural work. In 1811, 12 and 13 the price of labour for single men had been 12s. a week. In 1823, they had fallen to 9s. and in 1825 rose to 10s. at which price they remained, June 30th 1826. For about 3 months of the year the wages are only 9s,; and during the harvest much is done by piece work.

Married men are paid by the keep of a cow, a house, potatoe & flax ground, with a certain yearly sum in money. At one period of the war unmarried ploughmen paid by the year received 18£, and 6½ bolls of meal with milk. In 1816 the money wages fell to 9£. At present. 12£. Altogether what the married men receive is worth more than the earnings of the single man. Their wages in money are about half those of the single man.

The boll of wheat is rather above 4 bushels, of barly six, of oats six.

Farms are now for the most part let in Scotland so as to vary with the price of corn. Sometimes the whole rent varies with the price of corn, and sometimes a part is reserved in Money.’