A most excellent person

Today marks the 320th anniversary of the death of John Evelyn, a contemporary and friend of Samuel Pepys, who described him as a ‘most excellent person’. He was a writer, gardener, and a diarist, and his diaries, spanning 50 years, are considered of historical importance. Here is the draft chapter on Evelyn from London in Diaries (see an earlier Diary Review article for more about this yet-to-published book).

John Evelyn - a most excellent person
John Evelyn is another famous 17th century London diarist, though his diaries reveal a far less colourful character than Pepys, and show none of the latter’s wide-ranging curiosity, nor his introspection, nor his love of gossip. The two lived contemporaneously - Evelyn was born before Pepys and died after him - and were friends, mentioning each other in their diaries. But what Evelyn’s diary lacks in colour and entertainment, it makes up for in time span and historical importance. He was much interested in London’s development, its new squares, houses and gardens, and, after the Great Fire, he was involved with rebuilding the city.

Evelyn was born in 1620 at Wotton, near Dorking in Surrey, the large family estate founded originally on wealth accumulated after his great-grandfather brought the invention of gunpowder to England. John would, eventually, inherit Wotton, but not until the end of his life, in 1699. John spent much of his childhood near Lewes in Sussex with his mother’s parents, and declined to go to Eton. He was admitted into the Middle Temple in 1637, and also became a fellow commoner at Balliol College, Oxford, though he left without taking a degree. After his father’s death in 1640, Evelyn inherited sufficient wealth to allow him to live independently.

These were, though, confusing times in England, especially for a Royalist like Evelyn. After a very brief involvement with the Royalist army, he managed to gain permission to go abroad, where he stayed - in France and Italy - for several years to avoid the Civil War. In Paris, in 1647, he married the 12 year old Mary Browne, daughter of the English ambassador. He returned to England soon after, but did not live with his wife for several years. In 1652, the couple moved into Sayes Court, Deptford. This was a property, once leased from the crown by his father-in-law, but which had been seized by Parliament, and which Evelyn had had to buy back. In time, he rebuilt the house and developed a beautiful garden. This latter was a project that would lead to his serious interest in botany and garden history, and the writing of an encyclopaedia of gardens and gardening practices - Elysium Britannicum.

Here is Pepys, a lifelong friend of Evelyn, describing a visit to Sayes Court some years later (in 1665): ‘ . . . and so I by water to Deptford, and there made a visit to Mr Evelyn, who, among other things, showed me most excellent painting in little; in distemper, Indian incke, water colours: graveing; and, above all, the whole secret of mezzo-tinto, and the manner of it, which is very pretty, and good things done with it. He read to me very much also of his discourse, he hath been many years and now is about, about Guardenage; which will be a most noble and pleasant piece. He read me part of a play or two of his making, very good, but not as he conceits them, I think, to be. He showed me his Hortus Hyemalis; leaves laid up in a book of several plants kept dry, which preserve colour, however, and look very finely, better than any Herball. In fine, a most excellent person he is, and must be allowed a little for a little conceitedness; but he may well be so, being a man so much above others.’

After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Evelyn was favoured by Charles II, though he never sought or held high rank. Instead, he busied himself with various minor posts usually aimed at improving public life, whether by licensing hackney coaches, developing sewers, reforming the streets, regulating the Royal Mint, or re-planning London after the great fire. He was a founder member of the Royal Society. Under the Catholic King James II, he became alarmed by attacks on the English Church, which led him to concur with the revolution of 1688 that brought William of Orange to the throne. Towards the end of his life, in 1695, he was made treasurer of Greenwich hospital for old sailors.

Writing was surely Evelyn’s main passion. His early works were largely Royalist tracts, but other, mostly scientific, books soon followed. He wrote pioneering works on tree cultivation (Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees), soils (A Philosophical Discourse of Earth) and pollution (Fumifugium). His later works tended to be more concerned with culture, art, and religion, with titles such as Sculpture: or the History and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper, and Numismata - A discourse of medals, antient and modern. An 800-page history of religion was published after his death.

And then there is his diary which has come to overshadow all his other works. First edited by William Bray and published in two volumes by Henry Colburn in 1818 as Memoirs Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, comprising his Diary from 1641 to 1705/6, and a Selection of his Familiar Letters. A more complete and definitive edition comprising six volumes was edited by Esmond Samuel de Beer and published by Clarendon Press 1955. Experts acknowledge that some parts of Evelyn’s diaries were compiled at a later date from notes, and that because they show evidence of hindsight, they are more memoir than diary.

Though covering a period of over 50 years, Evelyn’s diary is not as long as Pepys’s, nor is it as entertaining or interesting. It is dry and factual, and mostly the entries are brief and unemotional - except on the death of a child. When Richard - aged but 5 - dies, Evelyn fills several pages with the precocious boy’s achievements, concluding with, ‘Here ends the joy of my life, and for which I go even mourning to the grave.’ 

Arthur Ponsonby, author of English Diaries, says this of Pepys and Evelyn: ‘Although the two diarists were contemporaries and friends, and although they came across many common acquaintances in their official and Court experiences, they did not live in the same stratum of society, and their method, their motive, their point of view, their manner and their characters were so completely different that except for the fact that they refer to the same people and the same events, the two celebrated journals that have been handed down to us have very little resemblance, and they seem to call for different moods in the reader.’

Birds and animals in St James’s Park
9 February 1665
Dined at my Lord Treasurer’s, the Earl of Southampton, in Bloomsbury, where he was building a noble square or piazza [London’s first square, or at least one of the earliest], a little town; his own house stands too low, some noble rooms, a pretty cedar chapel, a naked garden to the north, but good air. I had much discourse with his Lordship, whom I found to be a person of extraordinary parts, but a valetudinarian.

I went to St James’s Park, where I saw various animals, and examined the throat of the Onocrotylus, or pelican, a fowl between a stork and a swan; a melancholy waterfowl, brought from Astrakhan by the Russian Ambassador; it was diverting to see how he would toss up and turn a flat fish, plaice, or flounder, to get it right into his gullet at its lower beak, which, being filmy, stretches to a prodigious wideness when it devours a great fish. Here was also a small water-fowl, not bigger than a moorhen, that went almost quite erect, like the penguin of America; it would eat as much fish as its whole body weighed; I never saw so unsatiable a devourer, yet the body did not appear to swell the bigger. The solan geese here are also great devourers, and are said soon to exhaust all the fish in a pond. Here was a curious sort of poultry not much exceeding the size of a tame pigeon, with legs so short as their crops seemed to touch the earth; a milk-white raven; a stork, which was a rarity at this season, seeing he was loose, and could fly loftily; two Balearian cranes, one of which having had one of his legs broken and cut off above the knee, had a wooden or boxen leg and thigh, with a joint so accurately made that the creature could walk and use it as well as if it had been natural; it was made by a soldier. The park was at this time stored with numerous flocks of several sorts of ordinary and extraordinary wild fowl, breeding about the Decoy, which for being near so great a city, and among such a concourse of soldiers and people, is a singular and diverting thing. There were also deer of several countries, white; spotted like leopards; antelopes, an elk, red deer, roebucks, stags, Guinea goats, Arabian sheep, etc. There were withy-pots, or nests, for the wild fowl to lay their eggs in, a little above the surface of the water.

Burning an effigy of the pope
10 June 1673
We went, after dinner, to see the formal and formidable camp on Blackheath, raised to invade Holland; or, as others suspected for another design. Thence, to the Italian glass-house at Greenwich, where glass was blown of finer metal than that of Murano, at Venice.

5 November 1673
This night the youths of the city burned the Pope in effigy, after they had made procession with it in great triumph, they being displeased at the Duke for altering his religion and marrying an Italian lady. [The Duke of York, who later became King James II, had converted to Catholicism, and some weeks prior to this diary entry married a 15 year old Italian princess, Mary of Modena.]

Practising for a siege at Windsor
21 August 1674
In one of the meadows at the foot of the long Terrace below the Castle [Windsor], works were thrown up to show the King a representation of the city of Maestricht, newly taken by the French. Bastians, bulwarks, ramparts, palisadoes, graffs, horn-works, counter-scarps, etc., were constructed. It was attacked by the Duke of Monmouth (newly come from the real siege) and the Duke of York, with a little army, to show their skill in tactics. On Saturday night they made their approaches, opened trenches, raised batteries, took the counter-scarp and ravelin, after a stout defense; great guns fired on both sides, grenadoes shot, mines sprung, parties sent out, attempts of raising the siege, prisoners taken, parleys; and, in short, all the circumstances of a formal siege, to appearance, and, what is most strange all without disorder, or ill accident, to the great satisfaction of a thousand spectators. Being night, it made a formidable show. The siege being over, I went with Mr Pepys back to London, where we arrived about three in the morning.

11 May 1676
I dined with Mr Charleton, and went to see Mr Montague’s new palace, near Bloomsbury, built by Mr Hooke, of our Society, after the French manner [now the site of the British Museum].

From Enfield to Bellsize House in Hampstead
2 June 1676
I went with my Lord Chamberlain to see a garden, at Enfield town; thence, to Mr Secretary Coventry’s lodge in the Chase. It is a very pretty place, the house commodious, the gardens handsome, and our entertainment very free, there being none but my Lord and myself. That which I most wondered at was, that, in the compass of twenty-five miles, yet within fourteen of London, there is not a house, barn, church, or building, besides three lodges. To this Lodge are three great ponds, and some few inclosures, the rest a solitary desert, yet stored with no less than 3,000 deer. These are pretty retreats for gentlemen, especially for those who are studious and lovers of privacy. 

We returned in the evening by Hampstead; to see Lord Wotton’s house and garden (Bellsize House), built with vast expense by Mr O’Neale, an Irish gentleman who married Lord Wotton’s mother, Lady Stanhope. The furniture is very particular for Indian cabinets, porcelain, and other solid and noble movables. The gallery very fine, the gardens very large, but ill kept, yet woody and chargeable The soil a cold weeping clay, not answering the expense.

9 October 1676
I went with Mrs. Godolphin and my wife to Blackwall, to see some Indian curiosities; the streets being slippery, I fell against a piece of timber with such violence that I could not speak nor fetch my breath for some space; being carried into a house and let blood, I was removed to the water-side and so home, where, after a day’s rest, I recovered.

Dining with Pepys at the Tower
18 April 1678
I went to see new Bedlam Hospital, magnificently built, and most sweetly placed in Moorfields, since the dreadful fire in London.

4 June 1679
I dined with Mr Pepys in the Tower, he having been committed by the House of Commons for misdemeanours in the Admiralty when he was secretary; I believe he was unjustly charged.

3 July 1679
Sending a piece of venison to Mr Pepys, still a prisoner, I went and dined with him.

14 September 1681
Dined with Sir Stephen Fox, who proposed to me the purchasing of Chelsea College, which his Majesty had sometime since given to our Society, and would now purchase it again to build a hospital; or infirmary for soldiers there, in which he desired my assistance as one of the Council of the Royal Society.

4 August 1682
With Sir Stephen Fox, to survey the foundations of the Royal Hospital begun at Chelsea.

An innumerable assembly of drinking people 
1 May 1683
I went to Blackheath, to see the new fair, being the first procured by the Lord Dartmouth. This was the first day, pretended for the sale of cattle, but I think in truth to enrich the new tavern at the bowling-green, erected by Snape, his Majesty’s farrier, a man full of projects. There appeared nothing but an innumerable assembly of drinking people from London, peddlars, etc., and I suppose it too near London to be of any great use to the country.

30 October 1683
I went to Kew to visit Sir Henry Capell, brother to the late Earl of Essex; but he being gone to Cashiobury, after I had seen his garden [later to become the famous Kew Gardens] and the alterations therein, I returned home. He had repaired his house, roofed his hall with a kind of cupola, and in a niche was an artificial fountain; but the room seems to me overmelancholy, yet might be much improved by having the walls well painted á fresco. The two green houses for oranges and myrtles, communicating with the rooms below, are very well contrived. There is a cupola made with pole-work between two elms at the end of a walk, which being covered by plashing the trees to them, is very pretty; for the rest there are too many fir trees in the garden.

Streets of booths on the frozen Thames
1 January 1684
The weather continuing intolerably severe, streets of booths were set up on the Thames; the air was so very cold and thick, as of many years there had not been the like. The smallpox was very mortal.

9 January 1684
I went across the Thames on the ice, now become so thick as to bear not only streets of booths, in which they roasted meat, and had divers shops of wares, quite across as in a town, but coaches, carts, and horses passed over. So I went from Westminster stairs to Lambeth, and dined with the Archbishop. [. . .] After dinner and discourse with his Grace till evening prayers, Sir George Wheeler and I walked over the ice from Lambeth stairs to the Horseferry.

24 January 1684
The frost continues more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with booths in formal streets, all sorts of trades and shops furnished, and full of commodities, even to a printing press, where the people and ladies took a fancy to have their names printed, and the day and year set down when printed on the Thames: this humor took so universally, that it was estimated that the printer gained £5 a day, for printing a line only, at sixpence a name, besides what he got by ballads, etc. 

Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stairs to and fro, as in the streets, sleds, sliding with skates, a bull-baiting, horse and coach-races, puppet-plays and interludes, cooks, tippling, and other lewd places, so that it seemed to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water, while it was a severe judgment on the land, the trees not only splitting as if the lightning struck, but men and cattle perishing in divers places, and the very seas so locked up with ice, that no vessels could stir out or come in. The fowls, fish, and birds, and all our exotic plants and greens, universally perishing. 

The air full of the fuliginous steam of sea-coal
Many parks of deer were destroyed, and all sorts of fuel so dear, that there were great contributions to preserve the poor alive. Nor was this severe weather much less intense in most parts of Europe, even as far as Spain and the most southern tracts. London, by reason of the excessive coldness of the air hindering the ascent of the smoke, was so filled with the fuliginous steam of the sea-coal, that hardly could one see across the street, and this filling the lungs with its gross particles, exceedingly obstructed the breast, so as one could scarcely breathe. Here was no water to be had from the pipes and engines, nor could the brewers and divers other tradesmen work, and every moment was full of disastrous accidents.

Building about the city too disproportionate for the nation
12 June 1684
I went to advise and give directions about the building of two streets in Berkeley Garden, reserving the house and as much of the garden as the breadth of the house. In the meantime, I could not but deplore that sweet place (by far the most noble gardens, courts, and accommodations, stately porticos, etc., anywhere about the town) should be so much straitened and turned into tenements. But that magnificent pile and gardens contiguous to it, built by the late Lord Chancellor Clarendon, being all demolished, and designed for piazzas and buildings, was some excuse for my Lady Berkeley’s resolution of letting out her ground also for so excessive a price as was offered, advancing near £1,000 per annum in mere ground rents; to such a mad intemperance was the age come of building about a city, by far too disproportionate already to the nation: I having in my time seen it almost as large again as it was within my memory.

Fire on and in the river for the Queen’s birthday
15 November 1684
Being the Queen’s birthday, there were fireworks on the Thames before Whitehall, with pageants of castles, forts, and other devices of girandolas, serpents, the King and Queen’s arms and mottoes, all represented in fire, such as had not been seen here. But the most remarkable was the several fires and skirmishes in the very water, which actually moved a long way, burning under the water, now and then appearing above it, giving reports like muskets and cannon, with grenades and innumerable other devices. It is said it cost £1,500. It was concluded with a ball, where all the young ladies and gallants danced in the great hall. The court had not been seen so brave and rich in apparel since his Majesty’s Restoration.

7 December 1684
I went to see the new church at St James’s, elegantly built; the altar was especially adorned, the white marble inclosure curiously and richly carved, the flowers and garlands about the walls by Mr Gibbons, in wood: a pelican with her young at her breast; just over the altar in the carved compartment and border environing the purple velvet fringed with I. H. S. richly embroidered, and most noble plate, were given by Sir R. Geere, to the value ( as was said) of £200. There was no altar anywhere in England, nor has there been any abroad, more handsomely adorned.

Buried at Westminster without any pomp
14 February 1685
The King [Charles II had died on 6 February] was this night very obscurely buried in a vault under Henry VII’s Chapel at Westminster, without any manner of pomp, and soon forgotten after all this vanity, and the face of the whole Court was exceedingly changed into a more solemn and moral behavior; the new King [James II] affecting neither profaneness nor buffoonery. All the great officers broke their staves over the grave, according to form.

22 May 1685
Oates [Titus Oates instigated the fictitious Popish plot that led to several executions before being found out], who had but two days before been pilloried at several places and whipped at the cart’s tail from Newgate to Aldgate, was this day placed on a sledge, being not able to go by reason of so late scourging, and dragged from prison to Tyburn, and whipped again all the way, which some thought to be severe and extraordinary; but, if he was guilty of the perjuries, and so of the death of many innocents (as I fear he was), his punishment was but what he deserved. I chanced to pass just as execution was doing on him. A strange revolution!

The Apothecaries’ garden at Chelsea
7 August 1685
I went to see Mr Watts, keeper of the Apothecaries’ garden of simples at Chelsea [now the Chelsea Physic Garden], where there is a collection of innumerable rarities of that sort particularly, besides many rare annuals, the tree bearing Jesuit’s bark, which had done such wonders in quartan agues [fevers/chills]. What was very ingenious was the subterranean heat, conveyed by a stove under the conservatory, all vaulted with brick, so as he has the doors and windows open in the hardest frosts, secluding only the snow.

19 January 1686
This night was burnt to the ground my Lord Montague’s palace in Bloomsbury, than which for painting and furniture there was nothing more glorious in England. This happened by the negligence of a servant airing, as they call it, some of the goods by the fire in a moist season; indeed, so wet and mild a season had scarce been seen in man’s memory.

Shells, insects, animals - all destined for the British Museum
16 December 1686
I carried the Countess of Sunderland to see the rarities of one Mr Charlton in the Middle Temple, who showed us such a collection as I had never seen in all my travels abroad either of private gentlemen, or princes. It consisted of miniatures, drawings, shells, insects, medals, natural things, animals (of which divers, I think 100, were kept in glasses of spirits of wine), minerals, precious stones, vessels, curiosities in amber, crystal, agate, etc.; all being very perfect and rare of their kind, especially his books of birds, fish, flowers, and shells, drawn and miniatured to the life. He told us that one book stood him in £300; it was painted by that excellent workman, whom the late Gaston, Duke of Orleans, employed. This gentleman’s whole collection, gathered by himself, traveling over most parts of Europe, is estimated at £8,ooo. He appeared to be a modest and obliging person. [This collection was later bought by Sir Hans Sloane and formed part of the British Museum.]

16 March 1687
I saw a trial of those devilish, murdering, mischief doing engines called bombs, shot out of the mortar piece on Blackheath. The distance that they are cast, the destruction they make where they fall, is prodigious.

Coronation of King William and Queen Mary 
11 April 1689
I saw the procession to and from the Abbey Church of Westminster, with the great feast in Westminster Hall, at the coronation of King William and Queen Mary [after the flight of James II]. [. . .] The Parliament men had scaffolds and places which took up the one whole side of the Hall. When the King and Queen had dined, the ceremony of the Champion, and other services by tenure were performed. The Parliament men were feasted in the Exchequer chamber, and had each of them a gold medal given them, worth five-and-forty shillings. [. . .]

Much of the splendor of the proceeding was abated by the absence of divers who should have contributed to it, there being but five Bishops, four Judges (no more being yet sworn), and several noblemen and great ladies wanting; the feast, however, was magnificent. The next day the House of Commons went and kissed their new Majesties’ hands in the Banqueting House.

8 July 1689
I sat for my picture to Mr Kneller, for Mr Pepys, late Secretary to the Admiralty, holding my ‘Sylva’ [his book] in my right hand. It was on his long and earnest request, and is placed in his library. Kneller never painted in a more masterly manner.

Buildings destroyed by a storm and a fire
11 July 1689
I dined at Lord Clarendon’s, it being his lady’s wedding day, when about three in the afternoon there was an unusual and violent storm of thunder, rain, and wind; many boats on the Thames were overwhelmed, and such was the impetuosity of the wind as to carry up the waves in pillars and spouts most dreadful to behold, rooting up trees and ruining some houses. The Countess of Sunderland afterward told me that it extended as far as Althorpe at the very time, which is seventy miles from London. It did no harm at Deptford, but at Greenwich it did much mischief.

10 April, 1691
This night, a sudden and terrible fire burned down all the buildings over the stone gallery at Whitehall to the water side, beginning at the apartment of the late Duchess of Portsmouth (which had been pulled down and rebuilt no less than three times to please her), and consuming other lodgings of such lewd creatures, who debauched both King Charles II. and others, and were his destruction.

Great auction of pictures at Whitehall
21 June 1693
I saw a great auction of pictures in the Banqueting house, Whitehall. They had been my Lord Melford’s, now Ambassador from King James at Rome, and engaged to his creditors here. Lord Mulgrave and Sir Edward Seymour came to my house, and desired me to go with them to the sale. Divers more of the great lords, etc., were there, and bought pictures dear enough. There were some very excellent of Vandyke, Rubens, and Bassan. Lord Godolphin bought the picture of the Boys, by Murillo the Spaniard, for 80 guineas, dear enough; my nephew Glanville, the old Earl of Arundel’s head by Rubens, for £20. Growing late, I did not stay till all were sold.

5 October 1694
I went to St Paul’s to see the choir, now finished as to the stone work, and the scaffold struck both without and within, in that part. Some exceptions might perhaps be taken as to the placing columns on pilasters at the east tribunal. As to the rest it is a piece of architecture without reproach. The pulling out the forms, like drawers, from under the stalls, is ingenious. I went also to see the building beginning near St Giles’s, where seven streets make a star from a Doric pillar placed in the middle of a circular area; said to be built by Mr Neale, introducer of the late lotteries, in imitation of those at Venice, now set up here, for himself twice, and now one for the State.

A death, a fire, a storm and a fog
5 March 1695
I went to see the ceremony. Never was so universal a mourning; all the Parliament men had cloaks given them, and four hundred poor women; all the streets hung and the middle of the street boarded and covered with black cloth. There were all the nobility, mayor, aldermen, judges, etc. [Queen Mary II had died of smallpox two months earlier.]

5 January 1698
Whitehall burned, nothing but walls and ruins left. [In fact, Inigo Jones’s Banqueting House survived the fire.]

26 March 1699
After an extraordinary storm, there came up the Thames a whale which was fifty-six feet long. Such, and a larger of the spout kind, was killed there forty years ago (June 1658). That year died Cromwell.

15 November 1699
There happened this week so thick a mist and fog, that people lost their way in the streets, it being so intense that no light of candles, or torches, yielded any (or but very little) direction. I was in it, and in danger. Robberies were committed between the very lights which were fixed between London and Kensington on both sides, and while coaches and travelers were passing. It began about four in the afternoon, and was quite gone by eight, without any wind to disperse it. At the Thames, they beat drums to direct the watermen to make the shore.

The death of Samuel Pepys
26 May 1703
This day died Mr Samuel Pepys, a very worthy, industrious and curious person, none in England exceeding him in knowledge of the navy, in which he had passed through all the most considerable offices. Clerk of the Acts and Secretary of the Admiralty, all which he performed with great integrity. When King James II went out of England, he laid down his office, and would serve no more; but withdrawing himself from all public affairs, he lived at Clapham with his partner, Mr Hewer, formerly his clerk, in a very noble house and sweet place, where he enjoyed the fruit of his labors in great prosperity. He was universally beloved, hospitable, generous, learned in many things, skilled in music, a very great cherisher of learned men of whom he had the conversation. His library and collection of other curiosities were of the most considerable, the models of ships especially.

26-27 November 1703
The effects of the hurricane and tempest of wind, rain, and lightning, through all the nation, especially London, were very dismal. Many houses demolished, and people killed. As to my own losses, the subversion of woods and timber, both ornamental and valuable, through my whole estate, and about my house the woods crowning the garden mount, the growing along the park meadow, the damage to my own dwelling, farms, and outhouses, is almost tragical, not to be paralleled, with anything happening in our age. I am not able to describe it; but submit to the pleasure of Almighty God.

31 October, 1705
I am this day arrived to the 85th year of my age. Lord teach me so to number my days to come, that I may apply them to wisdom!

See also Modesty, prudence, piety, and Virtues and imperfections.

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 27 February 2016.

Sense and senselessness

Today marks the centenary of the birth of Zygmunt Bauman. He published prolifically across the spectrum of sociology and social theory, and is considered one of the world’s most influential sociologists. Not known as a diarist, he did publish a work provocatively called, This is Not a Diary, with entries dated as if it were a diary - each one being a mini-essay on whatever sociology-related subject happened to come to mind that day. The first dated entry is titled, On the sense and senselessness of diary-keeping. Another - On the friends you have and the friends you think you have - is about the evolutionary anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, under whom I, personally, studied many years ago.

Bauman was born to Jewish parents in Poznań, Poland, on 19 November 1925. When the Nazis invaded, in 1939, his family fled to the Soviet Union where he enlisted in the Polish division of the Red Army, working as a political education instructor. He was involved in the battles of Kolberg and Berlin, and in May 1945 was awarded the Military Cross of Valour. In the early post-war years, he served as a political officer in the Internal Security Corps (KBW) formed to combat Ukrainian and Polish insurgents, and as an informer for military intelligence. In parallel, he studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw. In 1948, he married Janina Lewinson, and they had three daughters.

Having risen to the rank of major, Bauman was dishonourably discharged from the KBW, in 1953, when his father - a Zionist - sought permission to emigrate to Israel, even though he, himself, held anti-Zionist views. The following year he became a lecturer at the University of Warsaw. A visit to the London School of Economics led to his first major book, in 1959, on the British socialist movement, some years later translated into English. Other books followed, notably the popular Socjologia na co dzień in 1964, later forming the basis for his English-language text-book Thinking Sociologically in 1990.

By the late 1960s, an orchestrated anti-semitic campaign was leading many Poles of Jewish descent, not least the intellectuals, to emigrate. At the same time, Bauman’s politics had fallen out of line with that of the communist government; so, in 1968, he gave up his Polish citizenship in order to be allowed to leave the country. He went first to Tel Aviv University, but, by 1972, he had taken up a chair in sociology at Leeds University. He retired in 1990, but since then has published over 40 books, on subjects such as globalisation, modernity and postmodernism, consumerism and morality. His wife, Janina, who also wrote a few books on her wartime memories, died in 2009. The following year, the University of Leeds launched The Bauman Institute in Bauman’s honour. Bauman himself died in 2017. There is further biographical information at Wikipedia, University of Leeds, The Guardian, The Culture Society, and The American Task Force on Palestine. The photo was found at Culture.pl.

There is no obvious evidence that Bauman kept a diary through his long life - although he might have done. However, in 2010 and 2011 he took it into his head to keep a kind of journal, with dated entries, but with all the entries more like mini-essays on current issues of interest or concern to him. Some of these were clearly inspired by things he had read, in the news or elsewhere, and so the dates do have some occasional relevance. The collection of mini-essays were published by Polity Press in 2012, and somewhere along the publishing road acquired the playful title: This is Not a Diary. A few pages can be read at Amazon.

Each dated entry starts with its own title, such as On the quandries of believing, On hurting flies and killing people, On glocalisation coming of age, On immoral axes and moral axemen, etc. Each entry is too long to quote in full, and, unfortunately, given the essay structure, any cutting back reduces, in every sense, Bauman’s little essays. Nevertheless, here are extracts from two sections. I’ve chosen the opening entry, partly because it is the first, and partly because it is, ostensibly, about diary keeping (though more about writing in general). I’ve chosen the second because it’s about a Robin Dunbar theory, and Robin was my tutor, some decades ago (when I was preparing an MSc biological anthropology thesis - on paternal care in primates; see my own diaries - November 1989).

3 September 2010
‘On the sense and senselessness of diary-keeping. I confess: as I am starting to write (it is 5 a.m.), I haven’t the slightest idea what, if anything, will follow, how long it will go on and how long I’ll need, feel the urge and wish to keep it going. And the intention, let alone the purpose, is anything but clear. The question ‘what for’ can hardly be answered. At the moment when I sat down at the computer, there was no new burning issue waiting to be chewed over and digested, no new book to be written or old stuff to be revised, recycled or updated, no new interviewer’s curiosity to be satiated, no new lecture to be sketched out in writing before being spoken - no request, commission or deadline . . . In short, there was neither a frame nailed together waiting to be filled, nor a plateful of podgy work in search of a mould and a form.

I guess the question ‘because of what’ is more in order in this case than the question ‘what for’. Causes to write are abundant, a crowd of volunteers line up to be noted, picked and chosen. The decision to start writing is, so to speak, ‘overdetermined’.

To begin with, I’ve failed to learn any other form of life except writing. A day without scribbling feels like a day wasted or criminally aborted, a duty neglected, a calling betrayed.

To go on, the game of words is for me the most heavenly of pleasures. I enjoy that game enormously - and the enjoyment reaches its peak when, after another reshuffle of the cards, the hand I get happens to be poor and I need to strain my brains and struggle hard to make up for the blanks and bypass the traps. Forget the destination; it is being on the move, and jumping over or kicking away the hurdles, that gives life its flavour. [. . .]

What, after all, is the difference between living and reporting life? We can do worse than take a hint from José Saramago, my lately discovered fount of inspiration. On his own quasi-diary he reflects: “I believe that all the words we speak, all the movements and gestures we make . . . can each and every one of them be understood as stray pieces of unintended autobiography, which, however involuntary, perhaps precisely because it is involuntary, is no less sincere or truthful than the most detailed account of life put into writing and onto paper.”

Exactly.’

27 December 2010
‘On the friends you have and the friends you think you have. Professor Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary anthropologist in Oxford, insists that ‘our minds are not designed [by evolution] to allow us to have more than a very limited number of people in our social world’. Dunbar has actually calculated that number; he found that ‘most of us can maintain only around 150 meaningful relationships’. Not unexpectedly, he’s called that limit, imposed by (biological) evolution, the ‘Dunbar number’. This hundred and a half is, we may comment, the number reached through biological evolution by our remote ancestors, and where it stopped, leaving the field to its much nimbler, more agile and dexterous, and above all more resourceful and less patient successor - called ‘cultural evolution’ (that is, triggered, shaped and driven by humans themselves, and deploying the teaching and learning process rather than changing the arrangement of genes). [. . .]

Electronic sustained ‘networks of friendship’ promised to break through recalcitrant, intrepid limitations to sociability set by our genetically transmitted equipment. Well, says Dunbar, they didn’t and will not: the promise can’t but be broken. ‘Yes.’ says Dunbar in his opinion piece for the New York Times of 25 December, ‘you can “friend” 500, 1,000, even 5,000 people with your Facebook page, but all save the core 150 are mere voyeurs looking into your daily life.’ Among those thousands of Facebook friends, ‘meaningful relationships’, whether serviced electronically or lived off-line, are confined as before within the impassable limits of the ‘Dunbar number’. [. . .]

Dunbar is right that the electronic substitutes for face-to-face communication have brought the Stone Age inheritance up to date, adapting and adjusting the ways and means of human togetherness to the requirements of our nouvel age. What he seems to neglect, however, is that in the course of that adaptation those ways and means have also been considerably altered, and that as a result ‘meaningful relationships’ have also changed their meaning. And so must the content of the ‘Dunbar number’ concept have done. Unless it is precisely the number, and only the number, that exhausts its content. . .’

NB: As usual in Diary Review articles, trailing dots enclosed by square brackets (i.e. [. . .] ) indicate text I have left out from the source published text. Trailing dots not enclosed by square brackets are as found in the original text.

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 19 October 2015.

Boglice round the neck

‘At the Crown, Sir Christopher told of killing the wormes with burnt oyle (elsewhere mentiond) and of curing his Lady of a thrush by hanging a bag of live boglice about her neck.’ This is a short extract from the diary of the remarkable polymath, Robert Hooke, born 380 years ago today. He was a scientist, philosopher, architect and inventor, distinguishing himself in many fields. He served as curator of experiments of the Royal Society and was a surveyor to the City of London after the Great Fire, helping his friend Sir Christopher Wren to rebuild St Paul’s Cathedral. For a decade or so, he kept a diary, which is a rich, dense record of that period in his life. In it are mentioned hundreds of taverns and coffee houses where he had meetings, and the names of thousands of people with whom he came into contact. He also describes, in passing, inventions, innovations, discoveries, and potential medical cures (such as Wren’s cure for thrush!).

Hooke was born on 28 July 1635 (18 July Old Style) at Freshwater on the Isle of Wight, the son of a churchman. He was educated at Westminster School and, thanks to a scholarship, at Christ Church, Oxford. He worked as an assistant for the scientist Robert Boyle between 1657 and 1662, and then became curator of experiments at the Royal Society. In 1663, he was made a fellow of the Society. In this mid-1660s period he was lecturing on subjects such as mechanics and geometry, and publishing books such as Micrographia with elaborate drawings of objects viewed through a microscope, and Cometa on the nature of comets.

After the great fire in 1666, Hooke was appointed one of three surveyors of London to supervise rebuilding works, and he himself designed some new buildings, such as Bethlehem Hospital. He was great friends with Christopher Wren, and they collaborated often, for example, on St Paul’s Cathedral, whose dome uses a method of construction conceived by Hooke. In the 1670s, Hooke seems to have been at odds with other scientists, including Newton and Huygens; and he and the Royal Society were the subject of Shadwell’s satirical play The Virtuoso. In 1677, Hooke took over as secretary of the Society. The following year he published Lectures De Potentia Bestitutiva or Of Spring, which described the law of elasticity, later known as Hooke’s Law. He was also responsible for a variety of other important scientific understandings, including phenomenon of diffraction.

In the 1680s, Hooke was involved in a further dispute with Newton over the latter’s Principia which was published without any recognition of Hooke’s contribution to the theories on planetary motions. Hooke never married, but he did have mistresses, including his niece whom he had cared for since she was 11. (In fact, Hooke recorded his sexual activity in the diary - see Felicity Henderson’s blog post for more on this. ) Hooke died in 1703. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Royal Museums Greenwich, Westminster School’s Robert Hooke website, Felicity Henderson’s blog on Hooke, or UCMP’s page on Hooke.

Robert Hooke began keeping a journal (or memorandum book) on 10 March 1672, and continued until May 1683. It’s considered the most important record of Hooke’s life, and is held by Guildhall Library, London. The manuscript was transcribed and published by Henry W. Robinson and Walter Adams as The Diary of Robert Hooke (Taylor & Francis, 1935). The editors explain that the diary has a somewhat tortuous (and partly unknown) history.

For most of the first year, the entries are mainly concerned with the weather, but these give way to more general entries recording notable events and the author’s own activities. Each entry becomes, in fact, a dense record of Hooke’s movements and meetings, often difficult to interpret without further contextual information. By 1679, his stamina in recording the busy days begins to wane, and the entries become noticeably shorter, sometimes just one or two lines. The entry for Monday 28 June 1680, for example, reads: ‘Spent most of my time in considering all matters.’ The editors note that the diary is replete with chaotic punctuation (a full stop after every two or three words, as if, they add, Hooke had rested his pen on the paper while thinking up the next words to write).

Well over 100 taverns and coffee houses are mentioned in the published version of Hooke’s diary, all listed at the back; and there is also a biographical index with around 2,000 names. Dr Felicity Henderson, of Exeter University, who is currently editing the diary for a new edition to be published by Oxford University Press, has already made available, with the Royal Society, an annotated collection of Hooke’s diary entries which were omitted from the Robinson/Adams edition, i.e. from March to July 1672 and from January 1681 to May 1683. 

Here are several samples of Hooke’s diary style, taken from the 1935 publication.

18 May 1675
‘At Sir J. Mores. Player and Oliver Dogs. at Holburne conduit. - in quest of Sir Chr: Wren at Lords house. Mr. Colwall walked with Titus. Gave Grace chocolatt. Discoursed with Sir Chr: Wren. Noe money but to contribute towards his losse by wells and account. Dind with Boyl. Walkd with Scarborough in the park. Met with Montacue. Told Sir Christopher my Longitude inventions. Met the King in the Park. he shewd watch, affirmed it very good.’

25 May 1675
‘At Dr. Busbys. With the King and shewd my watch with a magnet with which he was well pleased and Invited me to come to him. Dind at Busbys. At Dr. Hameys £10. At Dr. Whitakers. Fine children. Mayer and his wife at Storys. Went home. Severall Disputes with Tompion urged him forward with watch - the rest of the week I forgot but I received the Double pendulum Sea clock and had a box made by Coffin for it, I hung it by strings. I shewd it Tompion upon Sunday when I drank Dulwich water. And upon Monday I went to the King. I was introduced by Colonel Titus. The King very well pleased I knew not what to ask. He went into his closet. Tompion and Harry with me I shewd it Sir Chr. Wren. Sir Chr. Wren unwilling to let me have any money though Woodroof had £50, unwilling I should have any room in Gallery at Whitehall, would have thrust me into the park.’

17 June 1675
‘At Mr. Montacues and at the ground with Mr. Russell and Montacue. Noe councell. Society Read Dr. Grew. Outlandish physitian. Oldenburg a Rascall. I propounded my theory about the digestion of liquors, about Putrefaction, about the parts of Liquors working one upon another etc. Received from Brounker order for receiving from Chest. Received it from Collonel Richards. Received also Hay Grains his bowle of silver from him. Gave J. Clay 5 shill.’

23 August 1675
‘R. Smith here about Dr. Hamey. With Andrews to Sir Ch. Wren about sand and rubble for Paules. Delivered back to Martin, Simsons book and Hobbs de mirabilibus Pecci. With Sir Ch: Wren to Lord Mayors to Bedlam. To Physicians Colledge. To Paules wharf. Coles at Hearnes. At Mrs. Mayors. Heard of Bloodworth’s sicknesse at Garaways.’

16 August 1677
‘Smart here about Hold, a note to be at East India house tomorrow. To founders in Bedlam for 2 ballances. Sent Tom to Scowen. At Sir Chr. Wrens. Passd Mr. Marshalls bill for Coleman street. Dind with Marshall and Oliver. to Rowlisons at Miter. At Home, Henshaw, Hoskins, Hill, Hawk, Whistler, Aubery. At the Crown, Sir Christopher told of killing the wormes with burnt oyle (elsewhere mentiond) and of curing his Lady of a thrush by hanging a bag of live boglice about her neck. Discoursed about theory of the Moon which I explained. Sir Christopher told his way of solving Keplers problem by the Cycloeid.’

10 August 1678
‘Received a note from Tillotson to Direct masons at Paules, the Bishop of Londons kindnesse. Directed Lamb about universall map. Calld at Lever Pits to fetch back a bad globe. at Gerrards, Goldsmith at Holburn bridge, Bloomsberry, Sir Ch. Wrens, to Paules. at Childs with Sir Ch. Wren, told him my designes of mapps, my equation of springs. took of Pit book of Education 2sh., borrowd Sansoms 43 mapps. Haak here. Grace bound Bocconi and Oughtred. Began introduction to Atlas from Lamb 4 sheets of the North Col. hemisphere. ill and melancholy.’

The Diary Junction

I was rather incredulous

‘He explained his call to my astonishment that Beadle, Tatum, and I were to be the co-recipients of the Nobel prize in medicine this year. I was rather incredulous: he insisted the AP was quoting the rumors and he was quite sure it would be announced Thursday.’ This is part of Joshua Lederberg’s diary entry on the day he heard he had been awarded the Nobel Prize. Lederberg, who was born a century ago today, was an American scientist who pioneered work in bacterial genetics but who also advanced the influence of science and scientists in public policy development.

Lederberg was born 23 May 1925 in Montclair, New Jersey, the oldest of three sons. His father, a rabbi, and mother had emigrated from Palestine the year before. The family moved to Manhattan when Lederberg was still an infant. He attended Stuyvesant High School, which specialised in science and technology, and went on to Columbia University, where he studied zoology. There he came under the influence of biochemist Francis J. Ryan, who nurtured his passion to ‘bring the power of chemical analysis to the secrets of life’. In 1943, he enrolled in the Navy’s V-12 training program, which combined an accelerated premedical and medical curriculum, and was able to work at the clinical pathology laboratory at St. Albans Naval Hospital, gaining first-hand experience with parasites.

Lederberg returned to Columbia, finished his degree, and began training as a medical student, also continuing research under Ryan. He was soon much inspired by Oswald Avery’s DNA discoveries, and took a leave of absence to work with Edward L. Tatum, at Yale, an expert in bacteriology and the genetics of micro-organisms. At Yale, he made significant discoveries, including a new understanding of how bacteria evolve and acquire new properties, such as antibiotic resistance.

Lederberg then began mapping the E. coli chromosome, to show the exact locations of its genes. With Tatum’s support, he submitted research on genetic recombination in bacteria as his doctoral thesis, receiving a PhD degree from Yale in 1947. A year earlier he married a fellow scientist, Esther M. Zimmer. Instead of returning to finish a medical degree, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin. There, he was soon making breakthroughs, discovering, with Norton Zinder, how genetic material could be transferred from one strain of the bacterium Salmonella typhimurium to another using viral material. In 1954, he was promoted to Professor.

Two years later, the Society of Illinois Bacteriologists simultaneously awarded Joshua Lederberg and Esther Lederberg the Pasteur Medal, for ’their outstanding contributions to the fields of microbiology and genetics’. And in 1958, Lederberg, shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with George Wells Beadle and Edward Lawrie Tatum. Lederberg’s prize was cited ‘for his discoveries concerning genetic recombination and the organization of the genetic material of bacteria’; and his colleagues were cited for ‘their discovery that genes act by regulating definite chemical events’.

Just days before receiving news of the Nobel Prize, Lederberg accepted an offer to become the first chairman of the newly-established Department of Genetics at Stanford University’s School of Medicine where he continued to lead research in bacterial genetics. But his interests also widened, relating genetics to the wider context of human health and biology, winning a place for biologists within the burgeoning US space programme. Beyond biological research, he became involved in expanding the role of computers in scientific research, bringing science into matters of public policy, and advising government on such issues. From 1966 to 1971, he wrote a weekly column - Science and Man - for the Washington Post.

In 1966, Lederberg divorced his wife, with whom he had had no children; two years later he married psychiatrist Marguerite Stein Kirsch. They had one daughter. Lederberg became University Professor Emeritus at Rockefeller University in 1990. There, he resumed his own research, continued to advise government and to lecture widely about science issues as they relate to public policies, such as those concerned with bioterrorism and infectious diseases. He died in 2008, Further information is available online from Wikipedia, Nasa, DNA from the beginning, a New York Times obituary, or the National Library of Medicine’s Profiles in science website.

The National Library of Medicine holds an archive of Lederberg’s papers, some of which it has made freely available online. Among these files are images of, and extracts from, Lederberg’s diaries (which range from 1948 to 1963).

20 January 1945
‘I had the evening all to myself, and particularly the excruciating pleasure of reading Avery ’43 on the deoxyribose nucleic acid responsible for type transformation in Pneumococcus. Terrific and unlimited in its implications. Viruses are gene-type compounds, but they cannot grow on synthetic or even dead media, and their capacity for production is limited to reproduction. The TF of Pneumococcus has every characteristic of a mutation. The obvious questions still to be considered are the fraction of serum that is involved in the reaction system; the induction of mutation in the TF by use of x-ray and more controllable methods; the problems of its antigenic specificity and relations to the specific polysaccharide whose manufacture it regulates or initiates. Also the possibility of activity of TF in vitro or in killed systems must be investigated, although the presence of phosphatases and desoxyribonucleases present a difficult problem. I can see real cause for excitement in this stuff though.’

Lederberg wrote a note on the transcript of the following diary entry as follows: ‘I was not keeping a diary at those days but this particular event led me to make notes on it just at the time.’

26 October 1958
‘[. . .] I was to work at the lab until about 12:30, then pick up Phyllis and Margaret for lunch and then see Phyllis off to her plane: --> Columbus->Denver->SFO->Sydney. At 11:30 + or - there was a call from a Mr. Lindquist of the “Tijding...” newspaper in Stockholm - the New York correspondent. He explained his call to my astonishment that Beadle, Tatum, and I were to be the co-recipients of the Nobel prize in medicine this year. I was rather incredulous: he insisted the AP was quoting the rumors and he was quite sure it would be announced Thursday. It’s no surprise, of course, that Beadle should be honored this way and it is a perceptive courtesy for Tatum but I am still quite astonished (as I was for the NAS last year) to be added on. I just had the impression that this kind of dignification in biology should go to the venerables and veterans and it is a bit of a shock to be classed that way. Of course in physics quite young men, e.g. Willis Lamb have been marked this way too. But I’m worried enough at keeping up a lab career that this kind of stigma has some dreadful connotations: I guess I just don’t believe in memorializing the live and kicking. On the whole I’m a little afraid the fuss and bother more than outweigh the egotistic satisfactions, the cash and the prestige factors that might help in getting my lab going. Perhaps I’m exaggerating the fuss; I was glad enough to be off the cover of Time, however! Anyhow I should have guessed sooner: several clues make some more sense now! - George Klein’s enigmatic correspondence (saying earlier he’d see me this year, then denying he was coming to the U.S.); Leo Goldberg’s request for a photograph; a telephone interview yesterday or Friday by Dag Nystadter reporter; George’s request for a bibliography last spring ( I suppose it did occur to me that George did have something of the sort in his mind then, but hardly this year.) Anyhow the trouble is it is by no means certain and there must be some possibility it is a mistake; I am rather nervously awaiting the AP bulletin to be picked up locally as I’m sure I’ll have no peace after that! I do feel as much as ever that the nonsense ought to be abolished but I don’t have the courage to meet it head on and I’m afraid it would raise even more fuss and perhaps affront Ed and Beadle in a rather nasty way. The best I can do is to be as inconspicuous about it as possible and make some reference to the obsolescence of personal distinction in scientific life.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 23 May 2015.

William Derham - natural philosopher

William Derham, an English clergyman and natural philosopher, died 230 years ago today. He was best known for his works on natural theology - trying to marry science with Christian ideology - and his early calculations of the speed of sound. Though not a diarist, he did keep weather records, moreover, he published commentaries on ‘meteorological diaries’ from as far afield as Naples and Bengal.

Derham was born in 1657 in Stoulton, Worcestershire. He showed an aptitude for learning from a young age, and was educated at Blockley Grammar School before entering Trinity College, Oxford, in 1675. He was ordained in 1681, and the following year became vicar of Wargrave, Berkshire, and from 1689 to 1735 he was Rector at Upminster, Essex. While at Upminster, in 1716, he became a Canon of Windsor - the vestry minutes show that thereafter he divided his time between those two places. His tenure at Upminster saw improvements to the church and its surroundings, and he was noted for his diligence in both pastoral and scholarly duties. 

Derham was deeply interested in natural philosophy and science. In 1696, he published his Artificial Clockmaker, which went through several editions. In 1703, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1713, he published Physico-Theology: or, a Demonstration of the being and attributes of God, from his works of creation (freely available to read at Googlebooks). This was widely read and translated into several languages. Similar books followed: Astro-theology (1714) and Christo-theology (1730) followed. 

One of Derham’s most significant scientific contributions was to calculate the speed of sound by measuring the time lapse between the flash and report of distant cannon fire. He edited and published some of the posthumous works of Robert Hooke, helping to cement Hooke’s legacy as a pioneering scientist. Derham also studied insects and birds and corresponded with leading intellectuals of the age, including Sir Isaac Newton.

Although Derham married and had a family, few details of his personal life have survived time. In Upminster, he was known for his hospitality and engagement with scientific and theological discussions. He died on 5 April 1735. His writings, particularly in natural theology, would later be cited by thinkers such as William Paley, forming part of the intellectual groundwork for discussions on design in nature. His careful empirical studies and theological reflections positioned him as a bridge between the worlds of faith and emerging science in the early 18th century. See Wikipedia and the Barking and District Historical Society for further information.

Although there is no evidence that Derham was a diarist, he did leave behind his own weather records (see The Royal Society for images) as well as commentaries on the ‘meteorological diaries’ of others, such as this one with ‘diaries’ from Naples, Bengal and Christiana in 1727.

An arch-druid was buryed

‘At the Royal Society. Mr. Collison showed me a Druid bead of glass, enameled, found at Henbury, near Macclesfield. Henbury is the old grave, as our Saxon ancestors would call an old long barrow, where an arch-druid was buryed, and I suppose this ornament belonged to one. They wore such hanging from their neck.’ This is from the diaries of William Stukeley, an English antiquarian, physician and Anglican clergyman, who died 250 years ago today. Though trained as a physician, his life’s work - reflected in his diaries - was to explore and study the country’s antiquities. He is credited with pioneering the scholarly investigation of prehistoric monuments such as Stonehenge.

Born in 1687, in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, Stukeley grew up in an era of expanding scientific curiosity. His early education at Stamford School set the stage for a lifetime of intellectual pursuit, and in 1703, he entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he studied medicine and developed a fascination with antiquities. By 1710, he had qualified as a physician, establishing a practice in Boston, Lincolnshire. 

However, Stukeley’s interest in ancient monuments soon drew him away from medicine, and over the next decade he made extensive tours across Britain, meticulously sketching and documenting prehistoric sites. His travels led him to Stonehenge in 1719, where he undertook a first systematic study. After moving to London, he joined the Royal Society and became friends with Isaac Newton. The 1720s marked a period of intense study and fieldwork. He co-founded the Society of Roman Knights, dedicated to the study of Roman Britain, and became increasingly involved in Freemasonry. 

By 1721, Stukeley had been elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, this despite his continuing focus on antiquities rather than medicine. In 1724, he published Itinerarium Curiosum, a richly illustrated account of his travels. His life took a turn in 1726 when he married Frances Williamson (with whom he would have three daughters) and moved to Grantham. In 1739, two years after his first wife’s death, Stukeley married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Gale, dean of York, who brought a substantial marriage portion to the union. In 1740, he published Stonehenge: A Temple Restor’d to the British Druids, proposing that these monuments were built by ancient Druids.

In late 1747, Stukeley became the rector for St George the Martyr, Queen Square, a parish in Bloomsbury, London, and soon after moved permanently to the city. In 1753, he was selected as a trustee to help establish the British Museum, reflecting his standing in London antiquarian circles. He was also involved in the running of the Foundling Hospital. One of his last books, in 1752, was a memoir of Newton in which he mentions how a falling apple inspired the theory of gravitation. He died on 3 March 1765. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the BBC.

Stukeley was an inveterate diary keeper. The Spalding Gentlemen’s Society holds a collection of his papers covering the years 1740 to 1751, and the Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts houses other papers including diaries. Many diary entries can be found in the three volumes of The Family Memoirs of the Rev. William Stukeley as edited by the Surtees Society in the 1880s. These volumes (available at Internet Archive) remain an important source for researchers studying Stukeley’s life and work, as well as for those interested in the development of antiquarian studies and archaeology in 18th-century Britain. Volume 1 contains an autobiographical memoir and some chronological diary extracts from his early life, as well as correspondence. Volumes 2 and 3, however, are not structured as a chronological survey of his life, but by geographical counties (each county chapter including different kinds of texts, inc. diaries).

Here are some diary extracts as found in volume 2.

26 May 1743

‘Mrs. Lepla told me of a Roman urn dug up at Thorney Abby, with the ashes, which they buryed again. She says there’s a high raised gravel road, Roman, from Thorney to Ely, which, I doubt not, belonged to the Carsdike navigation, bringing corn from Cambridg. She says they dig up much antidiluvian oak there, of huge dimensions. They made a maypole of one, together with deers’ horns and nuts.’

4 November 1744

‘Dined with the Archbishop of York in his journey to town. His Grace told me Mr. Roger Gale dyed with a prophecy in his mouth, according to report of the country, viz., that it would be a most excessively wet harvest, for so it proved in the north this year, though with us it was very favourable. Mr. Hill told us he ordered a certain oak tree to be cut down, brought into his yard, and to be sawn into planks, a fortnight before his death. No one knew his purpose till he dyed, and then a paper was found directing they should dig a grave for him in such a place in the churchyard 8 foot deep or deeper if the springs hindered not. They should plank the bottom of it with those oak planks. He ordered his coffin to be made of a certain shape which he drew out upon paper, which being laid upon the planks was to be bricked round the height of the coffin, and a particular large blew stone which he mentioned laid over the whole, then to be filled up with earth and fresh sods laid so as that it might not be discernible where he was laid, that he might be the sooner forgot, as he exprest it.’

December 1748

‘A dog was taken from London in a ship, carried to Newcastle, some victuals given him, and let goe at the same time that a letter was put into the post to his master at London. The dog never had been at Newcastle before, yet was at home before the letter. Many are the instances of this nature, well attested. Therefore I conclude providence has extended some universal principle to all animals, which we are apt to call instinct, like that of attraction, gravitation, cohesion, electricity, &c., imparted to mere matter. This principle overrules animals, and irresistibly draws them on to pursue the ends purposed by them, or to which they are designed by providence, without variation, such as bees making their inimitable combs, birds making the nests peculiar to their kind, &c, whilst man acts spontaneously and of his own free will, and therefore only accountable for his actions. Many like storys are told of cats, a more unlikely creature than dogs, which I know to be true.’

16 February 1749

‘At the Royal Society. Mr. Collison showed me a Druid bead of glass, enameled, found at Henbury, near Macclesfield. Henbury is the old grave, as our Saxon ancestors would call an old long barrow, where an arch-druid was buryed, and I suppose this ornament belonged to one. They wore such hanging from their neck. Henbury is at the head of the river Pever. Henshaw, the next town, old wood. A great forest hard by, and a very open country too.’

24 July 1749

‘My wife, daughters, Mrs. Wade and I, went to Waltham Cross. We saw the two posts remaining which I set down 25 years ago to guard the noble edifice. Nevertheless it has very much suffered since that time. We visited the Abby. The front of the great gate-house remains, and some part of the north side of the abbatial buildings. The present cellar is part of the old cloysters, as thought; ’tis arched at top. At the very end of it, they have fixed up against the wall the side of king Harold’s tomb; ’tis a black stone with a grotesc head carved on it, and some cherubims. We saw the famous tulip tree, now in flower. The east of the present church has exactly the same appearance as that of Crowland. In both places they have pulled down the choir and transept. Crowland first church was exactly the same as what now remains here. They were both magnificent cathedrals of the first style; semicircular arches, great pillars. The building on the south is said to have belonged to the nuns of Cheshunt. We visited the old house at the end of the town, said to have been the house where the famous John Fox the martyrologist lived, whose family still remains in the town. There is his picture; and Archbishop Cranmer lived in the same place; his study remains. Mr. Fowler, the curate, showed me an old town book from the dissolution; mention of the last abbot, Robert Fuller.’

28 January 1752

‘Rode to Cheshunt; observed a Hebrew inscription over a door in Hockley in the hole ; an inscription by Clarkenwel. The two posts remain which I set up at Waltham cross 30 years agoe, and without them this curious fabric had been quite demolished by this time. The lord of the manor, instead of repairing it, as he ought to do, gave leave for the adjacent alehouse to build against it and take part of it away. The 4 Swans there belonged to Waltham Abby. The suit of rooms where the chimnys are were made for the tenants to meet in on court days, and to lodg pilgrims in. I take it that 4 swans with a cross were the arms of king Harold, and he had a mistress, whom he called swan’s neck, who only could find his body out among the slain.’

25 January 1759 

‘At the Antiquarian Society. A pot of English coins of Henry II. found near Southampton, some cut in half for halfpennys, some in quarters for farthings.’

Laws of the world organism

‘Shouldn’t the student of modern subjects learn from geology, physics, chemistry, etc., the laws of the world organism? The perceived unity of the world is the most magnificent event in the study of nature, it is the content of all true philosophy; for even the mind and its development, which philosophy in its narrow sense has considered up until now, is itself a production of nature.’ This is from the diary of Karl August Möbius, an influential German zoologist born two centuries ago today. There are no published diaries kept by Möbius, but an American academic, Lynn K. Nyhart, quotes from the diaries in her celebrated book on the history of natural science in Germany. 

Möbius was born on 7 February 1825 in Eilenburg, Prussia, the only child of Johann Heinrich Möbius, a dancing teacher who died when Karl was just three, and his mother who was a descendant of Martin Luther. He was educated at home until the age of 12-13 when he was sent away to a private training college to prepare for a career in primary school teaching. From 1844 to 1849 he taught at Seesen in the Harz Mountains in Northern Germany. He went to the University of Berlin to study natural sciences under Johannes Muller, then took up teaching again at the Johanneum Grammar School in Hamburg. His continuing studies in the natural sciences gained him a reputation that led to a post at the Hamburg Museum of Natural History. In 1855, Möbius married Helene Meyer, and they had three children. 

In 1863, Möbius cofounded the first German sea water aquarium, in Hamburg. In 1868, shortly after passing his doctoral examination at the University of Halle, he was appointed Professor of Zoology at the University of Kiel. There he devised and opened a zoology institute which would for decades be considered a model for such establishments. Between 1868 and 1870, he was commissioned by the Ministry of Agricultural Affairs in Prussia to conduct research on the Bay of Kiel oyster beds. This led to his groundbreaking work Die Auster und die Austernwirtschaft (The Oyster and Oyster Farming) in 1877. In this, he introduced the concept of ‘biocenosis’ or ‘living community,’ describing the interdependence of species in an ecosystem.

In the mid-1870s, Möbius participated in scientific expeditions, including a journey to Mauritius and the Seychelles in 1874-1875, which resulted in a comprehensive review of the fauna in that area. In 1888, he became the director of the zoological collections of the Natural History Museum of Berlin, and Professor of Systematic and Geographical Zoology at the Kaiser Wilhelm University, also in Berlin, where he taught until he retired in 1905 at the age of 80. He died three years later. More information can be found at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Kiel University

Although there is no evidence of any published diaries, Möbius did keep a diary from 1844 to 1849 while living in the Harz mountains. This is described and quoted from in Modern Nature: The Rise of the Biological Perspective in Germany by Lynn K. Nyhart (University of Chicago Press, 2009). Some pages can be previewed at Internet Archive.

In the book, Nyhart examines various responses that coalesced into the so-called ‘biological perspective’, including: the transformation of natural history practices; changes in museum displays; developments in classroom education; and the emergence of the modern zoo. In particular, she highlights the contributions of key figures such as Karl Möbius, who articulated the concept of the ‘living community’. The work is praised for being wide-ranging, closely argued, and very readable for it goes beyond just tracing the history of a scientific concept, offering insights into the broader cultural and institutional contexts of late 19th-century Germany

Here is one extract about Möbius and his diary.

‘During his time there, from 1844 to 1849, [Möbius] kept a diary that both recorded his love of nature and afforded him a chance to practice his writing - a form of conscious self-improvement and self-cultivation - as he strove tirelessly to prove himself. In the diary’s pages he alternated rhapsodies over his hikes in the mountains with admonishments to himself to be a better man. As he voraciously read history and nature writing, and studied English and the classical languages in his spare hours, he sought to live up to a standard of virtue that would overcome his resentment of his poverty. “Cannot the privation wrought by poverty and the disdain brought on by underestimation and misjudgment lead the spirit [den Geist] to depend on itself and to drive it to be enough for itself?” he agonized in September 1847. “Thoughts, feelings of inspiration, and pure will: these are the opinions that will break through the final barriers to draw us into the inspiring center of the All, into the deity.”

His communion with nature, which offered him considerable spiritual sustenance, was deepened by reading Humboldt. “Great Humboldt!” he gushed a few months later. “With the purest, most warmhearted enthusiasm you [Du] have penetrated into the unity [Zusammenhang] of the world, and in your Kosmos you have given to your race [deinem Geschlechte] the treasure of your spirit, your great knowledge, in clear, poetic language drenched with the warmth of your heart.” The human race “gazes in amazement at your work and wants to thank you on its knees.” 

Reading Shakespeare and Goethe inspired him to similar heights; their works allowed him to imagine himself “on the throne of the world,” with a view of God’s laws of eternal human nature. From this vantage point, he forgot his individual existence and felt part of a larger, God-given order. One route to this sublimation was science: “Science [die Wissenschaft] is the most beautiful bride. He whom she has once kissed is caught in her magic.” 

These youthful yearnings for connection and unity would persist in his private writing as preoccupations with community and self-abnegation and may be viewed as the first, ill-formed inklings of what would emerge in scientific form years later as his living-community concept.’

Here is a second extract.

‘By 1848 he was reading a pedagogical text called Education toward a Public Spirit (Erziehung zum Gemeingeist), whose author argued that philosophy was to play a very minor role in his proposed reformed “Naturgymnasium.” “Here I must object,” Möbius wrote in his diary “Shouldn’t the student of modern subjects [Realschiiler] learn from geology, physics, chemistry, etc., the laws of the world organism? The perceived unity of the world is the most magnificent event in the study of nature, it is the content of all true philosophy; for even the mind and its development, which philosophy in its narrow sense has considered up until now, is itself a production of nature.” ’

And here is a direct quotation by Nyhart from another diary kept by Möbius apparently between 1861 and 1863.

27 February 1863

‘When the son of a craftsman in a small town has come so far through his own work that he is counted among the more capable teachers and research scholars in a large city, he should act content if he is not granted a wished-for highest scientific position. He may keep working on with the accustomed effort, on the side of his practical profession, so that he never forgets his heritage. It is easy for us to consider ourselves more independent of the whole than we are. But our being follows on all sides from our birth, childhood, and course of development. We only want to be taken by others as we are in the present, and yet they always see, as well, how we got here.’

Ampère falling in love

André-Marie Ampère, dubbed the father of electrodynamics, was born 250 years ago today. A child of the enlightenment and Rousseau’s education principles, he became a great scientist without formal training. He left behind one youthful diary, a naive and charming account of his love and courtship of the woman who became his wife, but then died just four years later.

Ampère was born in Lyon, France, on 20 January 1775. His father was a prosperous businessman who admired the teachings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In line with Rousseau’s education ideas, he left his son to educate himself at the family home - with a well-stocked library - at Poleymieux-au-Mont-d’Or near Lyon. Although his father came to be called into public service by the new revolutionary government, he was guillotined in 1793 as part of the so-called Jacobin purges. Ampère, himself, found regular work as a maths teacher in 1799. This gave him enough income to marry his sweetheart, Julie Carron.

In 1802, Ampère was appointed a professor of physics and chemistry at the École Centrale in Bourg-en-Bresse, which meant leaving Julie, by then a sick woman, and his son in Lyon. In Bourg, he produced his first treatise on mathematical probability - Considerations on the Mathematical Theory of Games, which he sent to the Paris Academy of Sciences. Following the death of Julie, he moved to the capital and began teaching at the new École Polytechnique, where, in 1809, he was appointed professor of mathematics.

As well as holding positions at the École Polytechnique through to 1828, Ampère also taught philosophy and astronomy at the University of Paris for a while, and in 1824 was elected to the chair in experimental physics at the Collège de France. He engaged in all kinds of scientific enquiry, but, from 1820, when hearing of a Danish discovery which showed how a magnetic needle can be deflected by an electric current, he began developing theories to understand the relationship between electricity and magnetism.

It is for his work in understanding electromagnetism that Ampère is best remembered. He developed a physical account of electromagnetic phenomena, empirically demonstrable and mathematically predictive, and in 1827 published his major work, Memoir on the Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena, Uniquely Deduced from Experience. This work coined the name of a new science, electrodynamics, while Ampère also gave his name, in time, to Ampère’s Law, and the SI unit of electric current, the ampere, often shortened to amp. He died in 1836. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, NNBD, Encyclopaedia Britannica. James R. Hofmann’s biography - André-Marie Ampère: Enlightenment an Electrodynamics - can also be previewed at Googlebooks.

Although Ampère is not known as a diarist, he did leave behind one published diary, a record of his courtship with his future wife. This was first published, in French, in 1869, as Journal et Correspondance de André-Marie Ampère (freely available in French at Internet Archive or Gallica). An 1875 English review of the book can be found in The North American Review (Vol. 121, No. 249, Oct., 1875), viewable online at JSTOR. The reviewer, T. S. Perry, says the volume is ‘idyllic’ and ‘charming’, and though Ampère was ‘far from being a fool, he certainly shows how foolish an intelligent man can be in the privacy of his diary’. And Perry adds: ‘Although Ampère’s letters and diary lack the historical value of Pepys’s they have a far higher interest in the light they throw upon the private life and character of a great and good man.’ High praise indeed.

An English translation was published by R. Bentley & Son, a few years later, in 1873, with the title The Story of his Love: being the journal and early correspondence of of André-Marie Ampère with his family circle during the First Republic, 1793-1804. The full text of the English version can be read online at Googlebooks.

10 April 1796
‘I saw her for the first time.’

10 August 1796
‘I went to her house, and they lent me ‘Le Nouvelle Morali di Soave’.’

3 September 1796
‘M. Coupier had left the day before. I went to return ‘Le Nouvelle’ and they allowed me to select a volume from the library. I took Mme. Deshoulières. I was a few moments alone with her.’

4 September 1796
‘I accompanied the two sisters after mass. I brought away the first volume of Benardin. She told me that she should be alone, as her mother and sister were leaving on Wednesday.’

9 September 1796
‘I went there, and only Elise.’

14 September 1796
‘I returned the second volume of Bernardin, and had some conversation both her and Jenny. I promised to bring some comedies on the following day.’

17 September 1796
‘I took them, and began to open my heart.’

27 January 1797
‘At length she has arrived from Lyons; her mother did not come into the room at once. Apparently for the sake of looking at some vignettes, I knelt by her side; her mother came in and made me sit down by her.’

9 June 1797
‘I was prevented from giving a lesson on account my cough; I went away rather early, taking with Gresset, and the third volume of the Histoire de France. Julie shows me the trick of solitaire, which I had guessed the evening before; I seated myself near Julie, and remained by her till the end.

Incidentally, referring to some airs and songs, I left C’est en vain que la nature on the table. I ate a cherry she had let fall, and kissed a rose which she had smelt; in the walk I twice gave her my hand to get over a stile, her mother made room for me on the seat between herself and Julia; in returning I told her that it was long since I had passed so happy a day, but that it was the contemplation of nature which had charmed me the most; she spoke to me the whole day with much kindness.’

21 May 1803
‘Walk in the garden. Julie very ill.’

9 July 1803
‘Julie very ill in the morning. I begged M. Mollet to take my place at the Lyceum. M. Pelotin continued the same treatment, in spite of the new symptom.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 20 January 2015.