The towne took on fire

William Whiteway died all of 380 years ago today. He played a significant role in the historic English market town of Dorchester during a period when it was undergoing remarkable civic improvement. He is particularly remembered, however, because of his diary, which records much of that development as well as giving, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), ‘a valuable impression of the mental world of a well-educated, moderately puritan, seventeenth-century provincial townsman’.

Whiteway was born in 1599, the son of a wealthy Dorchester merchant. He was educated at the Dorchester Free School, but did not go to university. He married Elinor in 1620, and although they had several children only two survived childhood. According to the ODNB (log-in required) Whiteway held most of the civic offices in Dorchester, capital burgess in 1624, governor of the Freemen’s Company, and an MP from 1626 parliament (after the death of Dorchester’s previous MP, Michael Humphreys). He was steward of the hospital in 1626, overseer of the Poor for Holy Trinity parish from 1628, and bailiff in 1629 and 1633. He died on 21 June 1635, having suffered some kind of trauma earlier in year when running up a steep hill.

Whiteway kept a meticulous diary, from 1618 until his death, in a leather-bound volume containing 121 parchment folios (with 222 pages of diary entries). Selections from this were first published by the Revd W. Miles Barnes in 1892 in Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club (available at Internet Archive). It was not until 1991, however, that a fuller text was published - William Whiteway of Dorchester: his diary 1618 to 1635 - by Dorset Records Society. The book’s introduction states: ‘His diary provides a window into the mental world of a prosperous and well educated provincial townsman. Far from being merely localist, it illustrates the interaction between the various circles of its author’s existence: circles of family and kin; of town and region; of country and kingdom; and of the wider world beyond its shores.’

According to the ODNB biography, Whiteway grew up in Dorchester during a period of remarkable civic improvement, and his diary records the various projects which transformed Dorchester into one of the most puritan towns in England. (See this Ancestry.com page for many citations from the diary detailing Members of the Dorchester Company 1624-1626.) Entries about his own life are brief, usually matter-of-fact, and otherwise buried among his reporting of the news, whether local or national. Here are several extracts, taken from the 1991 edition of the diary (which reproduces the original spelling, unlike the 1892 edition for which the spelling was modernised!).

14 June 1620
‘I William Whiteway was married to Elinor Parkins by mr John White in the Church of the holy Trinity in Dorchester, in the presence of the greatest part of the Towne.’

30 January 1623
‘This day about one a clocke in the afternoone this towne tooke on fire in the house of mr John Adin in the higher parish, burnt 27 houses in that parish thereabouts, to the value of £3500 sterling. One man was burnt in William Shepherds house, to wit Edmond Benvenue, who running home, all blacke and deformed by the fire, and being followed by some friends, they Laboured to stay him to have him drest, was met by mr Cokers man Jaspar Arnold. He thinking him to be some felon, had a pole in his hand, and beate him with it greivously, and stroke him downe. He died within two daies. The Kings Majestie granted for it a Collection over all England.’

15 November 1623
‘This day about 10 a clocke at night Squire Williams stabd the Tapster of the George to the heart and killd him. Whereupon he fled into Holland, and from thence to France, where he lived at Caen. Some 8 moneths after he returned, have a pardon for £1500.’

4 October 1624
‘This night there was an extraordinary storme of wynd and rayne, which blew downe many houses, overthrew many great trees, cast away many ships in all ports, amongst the rest 4 at Melcombe in the hole, of which one was mr Pits, one mr Royes and 2 french men. There were 11 french men drowned in the same.’

5 June 1625
‘This day at 11 a clocke at night, god took unto his mercy, my eldest daughter Mary, being fower yeares old within 6 or 7 diaes.’

26 October 1625
‘The weekely fast on Wednesdays begun on the 20th July, ended in Dorchester this day with a contribution to the releife of Excester, which was in great distress, many dying for want and many weeke 100 and 150 of the sickenes. The collection that day was £23 16s to which was added £16 4s to mak up to £40 and sent to Mr Ignatius Jordan who was left alone in Exon, of all the Magistrats, all the rest having forsaken them.’

2 February 1626
‘This day king Charles was crowned at Westminster, with great solemnity. The Queen refused to be Crowned by any Protestant Bishop, without dispensation from the Pope. There were now Created 8 Earles and 80 knights of the Bath. The solemnity of the kings riding through London in State is put of to the 1st May next coming.’

15 August 1626
‘The sickenes began to breake out in Blandford, very dangerously, and within 10 daies after at Bridport, and spread into many parishes thereabouts. At Blandford there died in all some 20 person. In Bridport 70. It was suspected also againe to be in Weymouth.’

12 March 1627
‘This day my Unkle John Pit of Bridport died, being 80 yeares old. He died of age, and of the Stone. This day my Cousin James Gould and I did ride to London, to Joine with the merchants of Exeter, in petitioning the king and the Counsell, that we might have as much french goods delivered us as we had arrested in france.’

17 August 1634
‘Two men being at bowles near to Bridport on a Sunday, one beat out his fellowes braines with a bowle.’

13 October 1634
‘This day I rode towards London with Mr Onecipherous Bond, Roger Cole, and my brother Sam Whiteway. We took in Oxford in our way, and viewed all the Colleges, as also Windsore Castle and Eaton Colledge, and from thence went to Hampton Court, where wee saw the King and Queene dine. At lambeth wee saw the rarityes of Tredescant. And in Morefields I saw a woman delivered of a child. I returned home 31 October.’

The Diary Junction

Roar of 400 cannon

It is the bicentenary today of the famous Battle of Waterloo, Napoléon Bonaparte’s final defeat, which brought to an end over 20 years of warring between France and other countries. It was fought a few miles south of Brussels between, on the one side, Napoleon’s army, consisting of around 72,000 troops, and, on the other, an Anglo-allied grouping of 68,000 British, Dutch, Belgian and German forces, led by the Duke of Wellington, alongside a Prussian army, 45,000 strong, under the command of Gebhard von Blücher.

Many original sources survive to tell the story of the Napoleonic Wars in general and of the Battle of Waterloo in particular - official reports, letters, memoirs. Many of these are listed on the excellent Napoleon Series website. However, it seems, where so-called diaries or journals have been published they have, sometimes, been embellished at a later date. Two of the (four) sample diarists below, for example, include a large number of statistics in their account for 18 June even though these cannot have been known until some time later.

William Gavin (71st Highland Regiment)
18 June 1815
‘The sun rose beautifully. The artillery of both armies had commenced the work of death. The men were ordered to dry their clothes and accoutrements and put their firelocks in order, and the writer was sent with a party to a farm house, to seize on all the cattle that could be found about it. This was soon performed. Cows, bullocks, pigs, sheep and fowls were put into requisition and brought to camp. Butchers set to work, fires made by pulling down houses for the wood, camp kettles hung on, and everything in a fair way for cooking, when the word ‘fall in’ put everything to the route. Men accoutring, cannon roaring, bugles sounding and drums beating, which put a stop, to our cooking for that day. Our Brigade were ordered to advance to the brow of a hill and lie down in column. A brigade of the enemy’s artillery got our range and annoyed us very much. One shot made an avenue from the first company to the tenth, which killed and wounded sixty men. During this period, not being attached to any company, I rode down the line to the left, to where Sir Thomas Picton was stationed, and came up just as he received his mortal wound. About two o’clock a squadron of the enemy’s cavalry charged down on us, when the General ordered us to form square, which was instantly performed, and soon repulsed them. We were several times attacked in our advance by the enemy’s cavalry. At one time we had only the front of the square formed when a squadron charged us, but we soon had it complete, with Lord Wellington in the centre. In the confusion my hat fell off, and on recovering it put it on front part to the back, and wore it like this for the remainder of the day, not knowing it was so. In this charge Ensign Todd was killed, also Lieutenant Elwes mortally wounded. Lieutenant Lawe, who acted as adjutant to the left wing, and was mounted, was hit by a cannon ball, which passed through the calf of his right leg, through the horse’s body, and wounded his left leg.

The enemy began to retreat about seven in the evening. We followed them to Nivelles and took a great number of cannon. The road was actually blocked up with cannon and wagons deserted by the French.

We bivouacked this night outside the village, up to our knees in mud.

Our loss during the day was: 3 officers killed, 7 wounded; 24 rank and file killed, 160 wounded; 3 missing - loss of 71st at Waterloo.’

Source: The Campaign Diary of William Gavin of the 71st Highland Regiment - 1806-1815
(originally published in 1921, and more recently by Ken Trotman in 2013)

***

Captain James Naylor (1st King’s Dragoon Guards)
18 June 1815
‘We continued our retreat until we took position in front of Waterloo for the night, where we bivouacked during an incessant rain and without any refreshment or forage. Before daybreak we were on the alert but remained inactive till 11 o’clock when we formed in column of Squadrons. At 12 a general cannonade commenced by which we experienced some loss. We deployed and (I think) about 2 o’clock a charge was made by the Heavy Brigades through a line of the enemy supported by a line of Cuirassiers and a reserve of Lancers. Our attack was most completely successful, but our men were too sanguine in the pursuit of the fugitive Cuirassiers and at the moment our horses were blown we were attacked by a multitude of Lancers who did us considerable injury. Our attack was made under a very [heavy] fire of Artillery and Musketry. It was some time before we could collect our men. Turner with about thirty men joined the Brigade, he was wounded soon after by a cannon shot in the arm and I took the command of the King’s Dragoon Guards. A short time after Colonel Lygon’s horse being wounded he left the field and I remained (under Lord Edward Somerset) in command of the Brigade which at this time did not consist of more than a hundred men. About 7 o’clock I received a wound which compelled me to retire to Brussels where I met Macauly. I slept at the Hotel Grand Mirror.’

Source: 1st Queen’s Dragoon Guards

***

Daniel John Edgecombe (Commissariat Department of the Army)
18 June 1815
‘[. . .] By this time the field of battle at all points had assumed a horrid aspect, the hills and ravines in every direction (but particularly the slopes of the hills along the front of our position) were so covered with the mangled corpses of friends and foes, that neither man nor horse could in some places pass without treading upon them. Those of the wounded who could not crawl from the groaning field, were in perpetual danger of being struck by the showers of shot firing over them, or trodden to death by the charging squadrons. The cries of these poor fellows were lost amid the clashing of arms, and roar of 400 pieces of cannon which spread death in every direction, and absolutely shook the ground: in some quarters the shots flew so thick that many of them must have struck each other before they reached the ground. The defeat which Buonaparte had just sustained had so deranged his plans as to cause a temporary suspension from these murderous attacks, during which however preparations were obviously making for a renewal of them, and the cannonade was continued without intermission. Not more than half an hour had elapsed before another terrible struggle commenced; the enemy’s infantry advancing in solid columns with their flanks protected by a large force of cuirassiers and lancers and an immense artillery, once more attacked the whole extent of our line, but after some terrific charges both of cavalry and infantry they were again sent reeling back upon their reserves. This dreadful work of destruction had now continued for the space of six hours, and on a space of ground not exceeding two miles in length, were heaped the bodies of more than twenty thousand victims: the loss of human life was, as usual, no consideration with Buonaparte, who knowing that his all was at stake had sent upwards of seventy thousand men into action at once, a force calculated to overwhelm all resistance: but every acre of ground was to be covered with slain before it was yielded, and then disputed for again. [. . .]’

Source: Journal of An Officer in the Commissariat Department of the Army comprising a Narrative of the Campaigns Under His Grace the Duke of Wellington (over 30 pages written on/about 18 June 1815)

***

William Tomkinson (16th Light Dragoons)
18 June 1815
‘[. . .] At about half-past eleven they began an attack on Hougoumont with the advance of their corps under Jerome Buonaparte, whilst their light troops attacked and carried Papellotte on our left, which was not intended to be held. The attack on Hougoumont was very sharp. The wood in front of the chateau was carried by the enemy after considerable loss, and more than a common resistance on our part, from light troops holding a wood in front of a position. The enemy proceeded to attack the chateau and garden, in which they failed, and retired unsuccessful. The defence, as well as the attack, was gallant.

We (11th, 12th, and 16th Light Dragoons) moved from our bivouac about eleven, and were stationed on the left of the line, below the hill occupied by the infantry; the 6th brigade of cavalry was stationed further on our left, the 2nd brigade on our right, near the Charleroi road, possibly half-way to that point from the situation we occupied. The 1st brigade was immediately on the other side that road, with its left on it, the 3rd brigade a little further to the right, and the 5th brigade on the right again of the 3rd. We moved to the ground assigned for our brigade, and all being quiet on our front, dismounted.

We had not been long on our ground before the cannonade opened and became general along the whole line. Colonel Ponsonby, myself, and some others (my brother Henry was of this party) rode out in front to see what was going on, and standing together near a hedge, attracted a few of the enemy’s round shot. The enemy’s fire was directed against our whole line, and we lost a few horses in the brigade whilst dismounted. Having for some time remained in this position during the attack on Hougoumont on the right, we were ordered to mount, and moved in front of the position to check the enemy’s cavalry in pursuit of the 2nd brigade of cavalry, which had charged in advance of the position, and was on its return to our line. It appeared that the enemy, with the 2nd and 3rd Divisions of their 1st corps, under Count d’Erlon, had moved to the attack of the left centre of our position. They advanced in good order, coming close up to our line; at this moment they were attacked by the 5th Division with the bayonet, under Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton, and driven back on their support in confusion. To repulse this attack, the 2nd brigade of cavalry moved to the charge; they went out of the position, charged, and completely upset everything opposed to them. It consisted of 1st (Royals) Dragoons, 2nd Dragoons (Scottish Greys), 6th Dragoons (Inniskillings). It was one of the finest charges ever seen. [. . .]’

Source: The Diary of a Cavalry Officer in the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns 1809-1815 (over 30 pages written on/about 18 June 1815, inc. maps and tables of figures)

The poet’s labour

‘Am I going against nature in my constant attempt to fill my life with work? Is my mind as rich as in idle days? Is not perhaps the poet’s labour a mere rejection? If he seeks purity - the ridding of his life of all but poetry - will not inspiration come? Can one reach God by toil?’ This is none other than William Butler Yeats, a literary giant of the 20th century, born 150 years ago today. The quote is taken from one of only two short diaries the poet is known to have kept, both of which were published in very limited editions.

Yeats was born on 13 June 1865 in Sandymount, County Dublin, Ireland. His father was a barrister though he had ambitions to be a painter, and the family moved to England in 1867 for him to further those ambitions. At first William was schooled at home, but in 1877 he entered Godolphins school, Hammersmith. In 1880, the family returned to Dublin for financial reasons, where William went to Erasmus Smith High School, spending spare time at his father’s studio, meeting artists and writers. He was writing poetry by this time, and some of his poems were published in the Dublin University Review. Between 1884 and 1886, Yeats attended the Metropolitan School of Art (now the National College of Art and Design). Although his early poems were much influenced by Shelley, he soon became inspired by John O’Leary, an Irish revolutionary patriot who was encouraging young writers to work with Irish themes.

In 1887, Yeats returned to London with his family, and began to publish poems in British and US magazines; and he co-founded the Rhymers’ Club. His first significant works - such as The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889) - date from this period. His circle of friends, by this time, included William Morris, George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. In 1889, he met and fell in love with the Irish nationalist, Maud Gonne. Although she turned down his offers of marriage, their relationship remained an important part of his life. A growing interest in matters spiritual and even occult led him to the Theosophical Society and to join the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Yeats continued to publish his own works such as John Sherman and Dhoya (1892), The Countess Kathleen (1892), The Celtic Twilight (1893) and The Land of Heart’s Desire, but he also edited an anthology of Irish verse in 1895. In 1896, Yeats was introduced to Lady Gregory, a Irish playwright, ten years his senior, and together with another poet/playwright, John Millington Synge, they helped establish, what became known as, the Irish Literary Revival movement, as well as the Irish National Theatre Society. With Synge (most famous for his play The Playboy of the Western World) and others, Yeats acquired a property in Dublin which opened as the Abbey Theatre on 27 December 1904: on the bill were three plays, On Baile’s Strand and Cathleen Ní Houlihan (by Yeats) and Spreading the News (by Lade Gregory). Yeats was also involved in setting up Dun Emer Press (Cuala Press from 1904) to publish work by writers associated with the Revival. The press, run by Yeats’s sisters, produced over 70 titles until its demise in 1946, most of them by Yeats himself.

In 1909, the US poet Ezra Pound came to London to meet Yeats, and over the next few years the two of them spent much time together. In 1916, Yeats renewed his courtship of Maud, whose husband had been executed by the British. Biographers say, however, his proposal was half-hearted, and on being rejected he proposed to Maud’s daughter Iseult. She, too, turned him down in 1917. Only weeks later, though, he married Georgie Hyde-Lees, half his own age; and they would have two children. That same year, The Wild Swans at Coole, a collection of poems, helped to establish Yeats as a major poet. A year earlier he had written, what would become, one of his most famous poems, Easter, 1916, though it was not published until 1921: Yeats was committed politically to the Irish nationalist movement, but the bloody Easter Rising and the British executions that followed left him with unsettled views on violence.

Nevertheless, in later years, Yeats continued to be politically active. He was appointed to the first Irish Senate in 1922, and re-appointed for a second term in 1925. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, ‘for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation’. The publicity helped increase sales of his works, and gave him more financial independence. Further books of poetry followed, including The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair (1929). In 1934, he underwent a Steinach operation (a now-discredited procedure that was supposed to increase overall vigour and sexual potency); coincidentally or not he also had several romantic affairs. Despite illness, he took on the editorship of the Oxford Book of Modern Verses in 1936. He died in 1939 in Menton, France. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, The Poetry Foundation, The Noble Prize, The New York Times, Ricorso, or Spartacus.

There is no evidence that Yeats was a diarist, but he did leave behind two short diary texts, both published by the Cuala Press (one posthumously) with very limited print runs (a few hundred): The Death of Synge, and Other Passages from an Old Diary (1928); and Pages from a Diary Written in Nineteen Hundred and Thirty (1944).

The Death of Synge contains a sequence of 41 sections, mostly a paragraph each (some long, some short) numbered in Roman numerals. Most of these are not dated, but some, towards the end are dated like a diary. Here are several extracts.

I
‘Why does the struggle to come at truth take away our pity, and the struggle to overcome our passions restore it again?’

X
‘March 23d. McDonagh called to-day. Very sad about Ireland. Says that he finds a barrier between himself and the Irish-speaking peasantry, who are “cold, dark and reticent” and “too polite”. He watches the Irish-speaking boys at his school, and when nobody is looking, or when they are alone with the Irish-speaking gardener, they are merry, clever and talkative. When they meet an English speaker or one who has learned Gaelic, they are stupid. They are a different world. Presently, he spoke of his nine years in a monastery and I asked what it was like, “Oh” he said, “everybody is very simple and happy enough. There is a little jealousy sometimes. If one brother goes into town with a Superior, another brother is jealous.” ’

XI
‘Molly Allgood came to-day to ask where I would be to-morrow, as Synge wishes to send for me if strong enough. He wants “to make arrangements.” He is dying, They have ceased to give him food. Should we choose the Abbey or keep it open while he still lives? Poor Molly is going through her work as always. Perhaps that is best for her. I feel Synge’s coming death less now than when he first became ill. I am used to the thought of it and I do not find that I pity him. I pity her. He is fading out of life. I felt the same when I saw M_ in the mad house. I pitied his wife. He seemed already dead. One does not feel that death is evil when one meets it, - evil, I mean, for the one who dies.’

XII
‘March 24th. Synge is dead. In the early morning he said to the nurse “It is no use fighting death any longer” and he turned over and died.’

XXXV
‘Am I going against nature in my constant attempt to fill my life with work? Is my mind as rich as in idle days? Is not perhaps the poet’s labour a mere rejection? If he seeks purity - the ridding of his life of all but poetry - will not inspiration come? Can one reach God by toil? He gives himself to the pure in heart. He asks nothing but attention.’

XXXIX
‘May 25th. At Stratford-on-Avon “The Playboy” shocked a good many people, because it was a self-improving, self-educating audience, and that means a perverted and common-place audience. If you set out to educate yourself you are compelled to have an ideal, a model of what you would be; and if you are not a man of genius, your model will be common-place and prevent the natural impulses of the mind, its natural reverence, desire, hope, admiration, always half unconscious, almost bodily. That is why a simple round of religious duties, things that escape the intellect, is often so much better than its substitute, self-improvement.’

XLI
‘October. A good writer should be so simple that he has no faults, only sins.’

And here are extracts from the first and last paragraphs in Pages from a Diary Written in Nineteen Hundred and Thirty (which has the same structure as The Death of Synge).

I
‘Portofino Vetta April 7th. I have been ill for five months since I bled from the lung in London, four out of the five of Malta fever, and a couple of weeks ago the doctor told me it would be three months before I had received strength. But eight days ago we came from Rapallo to this hotel at Portofino Vetta some fifteen feet above the sea and I am almost well again. I work at the new version of The Vision every morning, then read Swift’s Letters and only take to detective stories in the evening, and would be wholly well if my legs were stronger. Here I can slip in and out as I please, free from the stage fright I had at Rapallo whenever George brought me to the little Café by the sea. After all there may be something in climate which I have always denied. Here no mountains shut us in; I think three weeks should make well as ever.’

XLI
‘[. . .] November 18th. Science, separated from philosophy, is the opium of the suburbs.’

Quite a historic occasion

‘I also informed the Council that May and I had decided some time ago that our children would be allowed to marry into British families. It was quite a historic occasion.’ This is King George V, born 150 years ago today, showing a rare touch of excitement in his diary on the day he changed the royal family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. George, like his grandmother Queen Victoria, was a keen diarist, but, by all accounts, his diary style is rather flat.

George Frederick Ernest Albert of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the second son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), and Alexandra of Denmark, was born on 3 June 1865. In his early years, he was educated alongside his older brother, Albert. Both were enrolled in the naval training academy in their teens. For three years, from 1879, the brothers served on HMS Bacchante visiting many parts of the world. While Albert went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, George remained in the Royal Navy, intending to make it his career.

In 1892, Albert’s death from pneumonia left George second in line to the throne (after his father). He left the Nayv, for more specialised training as the royal heir, and was soon created Duke of York by Queen Victoria. A year or so later he married Princess Victoria Mary of Teck (May), a German cousin who had been engaged to Albert. (See also The Diary Review article Princess Mary’s marathon.) The couple settled at York Cottage on the royal Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, living a fairly quiet life, though carrying out various public duties. During their marriage they had five sons and a daughter.

In 1901, after Edward VII had ascended the throne, George and his wife embarked on a long tour of the British Empire. This was devised by the government to reward Britain’s dominions for support in the South African War. The Duke and Duchess of York also spent the winter of 1905/1906 in India, and then went to Spain for the wedding of King Alfonso XIII to Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg. Edward died in 1910, and George became King George V on 6 May, with his coronation on 22 June the following year. Also in 1911, he revisited India for the Delhi Durbar so he and his wife could be formally acknowledged as the Emperor and Empress of India.

Public respect for King George V increased during World War One, during which he made many visits to the front line, hospitals, factories and dockyards. He also pressed for proper treatment of German prisoners-of-war and for more humane treatment of conscientious objectors. In 1917, anti-German feeling led him to adopt the family name of Windsor, replacing the Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Across Europe, monarchies were falling, and though George sent help to royals in Austria and Greece, for example, he took the pragmatic decision, on advice, to keep his distance from the autocratic Russian royal family, and denied political asylum to his cousin, the Tsar Nicholas II, and his family after the Bolshevik Revolution.

After the war, King George played an active role in the country’s politics, choosing Stanley Baldwin, rather than Lord Curzon, to form a government in 1923 when Andrew Bonar Law resigned, and by persuading the Conservative government not to take an unduly aggressive attitude towards the unions during the General Strike. Then, in an attempt to achieve national harmony during the economic crisis of 1931, he persuaded Ramsay MacDonald to lead a coalition government. The following year, he introduced the idea of broadcasting a Christmas message to the country. Dogged by ill-health in his later years, he continued to spend much time on his favourite hobby - collecting stamps. In May 1935, the country celebrated his silver jubilee, and he died the following year. See Wikipedia, English Monarchs, The British Monarchy, or Spartacus Educational for more biographical information.

Like his grandmother, Queen Victoria, George kept a diary - from 1880 to 1935. The manuscripts are held by the Royal Archives. As far as I can tell, though, no parts have been published in their own right (unlike Victoria’s - see Victoria’s diary online and The crown hurt me). However, George’s diaries have been mined extensively by biographers, such as Harold Nicolson in King George the Fifth: His Life and Reign, London (Constable and Co, 1952), and Kenneth Rose in King George V (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983). See, for example, The Diary Review article on the anniversary of George V’s coronation - A terrible ordeal.

‘I am deeply grateful to Her Majesty the Queen,’ Rose says in his biography’s acknowledgements, ‘for gracious permission to publish documents of which she owns the copyright. These include many extracts from the Royal Archives made by Sir Harold Nicolson when writing his biography of King George V but not included in the completed work.’ He goes on to say that among these transcripts, ‘previously unpublished passages from the King’s diaries and from the correspondence of his private secretaries have proved particularly valuable to the present writer.’ Rose also includes a large number of quotes from several prominent diarists of the age - notably Harold Nicolson himself, ‘Chips’ Channon, Cynthia Asquith, Beatrice Webb. Here, though, are a few extracts of George’s own diary as taken from Rose’s biography.

[George V was in Madrid to attend the wedding of Princess Ena of Battenberg to the reigning king Alfonso XIII; the royal procession was heading back to the Royal Palace, when there was an assassination attempt.]
31 May 1906
‘Just before we reached the Palace, we heard a loud report and thought it was the first gun of the salute. We soon leaned however that when about 200 yards from the Palace in a narrow street, the Calle Mayor, close to the Italian Embassy, a bomb was thrown from an upper window at the King and Queen’s carriage. It burst between the wheel horses and the front of the carriage, killing about 20 people and wounding about 50 or 60, mostly officers and soldiers. Thank God! Alfonso and Ena were not touched although covered with glass from the broken windows . . .

Of course the bomb was thrown by an anarchist, supposed to be a Spaniard and of course they let him escape. I believe the Spanish police and detectives are about the worst in the world. No precautions whatever had been taken, they are most happy go lucky people here. Naturally, on their return, both Alfonso and Ena broke down, no wonder after such an awful experience. Eventually we had lunch about 3. I proposed their healths, not easy after the emotions caused by this terrible affair.’

[George V went to India in December 1911 for the so-called Delhi Durbar, a huge and spectacular event to commemorate his coronation and allow his proclamation as Emperor of India. It was the last of only three such Durbars, and the only one attended by the sovereign. ‘Even the King himself,’ writes Kenneth Rose, ‘who shunned hyperbole, described the Durbar as “the most beautiful and wonderful sight I ever saw”. The rest of his account is inimitably homespun.’

12 December 1911

‘Reached the Camp at 3.0. Rather tired after wearing the crown for 3½ hours, it hurt my head, as it is pretty heavy . . . Afterwards we held a reception in the large tent, about 5,000 people came, the heat was simply awful. Bed at 11.0 & quite tired.’

9 August 1914

‘Warm, showers and windy. At work all day . . . I held a Council at 10.45 to declare War with Germany, it is a terrible catastrophe but it is not our fault. An enormous crowd collected outside the Palace; we went on the balcony both before and after dinner. When they heard that War had been declared, the excitement increased and May and I with David went on to the balcony; the cheering was terrific. [. . .]

Please God it may soon be over, and that He will protect dear Bertie’s life.’ [He is referring to his second son, the future George VI]

17 July 1917

‘I also informed the Council that May and I had decided some time ago that our children would be allowed to marry into British families. It was quite a historic occasion.’ [This came after the Privy Council meeting which established the House of Windsor and renounced German titles.]

22 January 1924

‘I held a Council, at which Ramsay MacDonald was sworn in a member. I then asked him to form a government, which he accepted to do. I had an hour’s talk with him, he impressed me very much; he wishes to do the right thing. Today 23 years ago dear Grandmama died. I wonder what she would have thought of a Labour Government.’

27 October 1931

‘May and I dined alone. We listened to the returns of the election on the wireless, which made us happy as the National Government have won seats everywhere.’

17 January 1935

[An illegible reference to snow and wind.] Dawson arrived this evening. I saw him and feel rotten.’ [King George V’s last diary entry.]

Riddell and Lloyd George

George Allardice Riddell, the early 20th century press baron and key adviser to David Lloyd George during the First World War, was born 150 years ago today. He left behind several unremarkable books, but his diaries, by contrast, are interesting and considered by historians to contain rich and entertaining pickings, especially about Lloyd George.

Riddell was born in London, on 25 May 1865, the son of a photographer. He became a clerk in a solicitor’s office, and qualified as a solicitor in 1888. That same year, he married Grace Edith Williams, though they were divorced in 1900, and, thereafter, Riddell refused to acknowledge this first marriage. Soon after the divorce, he married his cousin Annie Molison Allardice.

Having acted as legal consultant to a consortium purchasing the ailing News of the World, he became interested in the media business, and began buying shares in the newspaper. By 1903, he was its managing director; and, in subsequent years, he acquired further publishing businesses, such as George Newnes Ltd and Country Life.

In 1909, Riddell was awarded a knighthood by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. This came about thanks to Riddell’s friendship with Lloyd George (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) and the acknowledgement by Asquith that News of the World support would be valuable to the Liberals. Riddell continued to make himself indispensable to Lloyd George, providing press gossip, holidays, a golfing partner, and carefully shrewd support in his newspaper. He also took on political tasks for his friend: in 1912, he drafted the memorandum that settled the miners’ strike; and, during the First World War, Riddell liaised between government and press. As Prime Minister, Lloyd George sent Riddell to represent the British press at the peace conferences.

Riddell was raised to the peerage as baronet in 1918, but not without a fight. At first, King George V rejected Riddell’s nomination because he had been the guilty party in a divorce action (the divorce having been made public by a rival publisher during a spat with Riddell). But Lloyd George continued to lobby on behalf of Riddell; and letters from other press barons finally won the king round - thus Riddell became the first divorced peer to enter the House of Lords.

After the Paris Peace Conference, a political rift developed between Lloyd George and Riddell, which would last the rest of their lives. Thereafeter, Riddell concentrated on his business interests, charitable activities (for hospitals and the printing industry - he founded the London School of Printing). He died in 1934. There is not much further information readily available online, other than at Wikipedia or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (which requires a log-in).

Riddell wrote a few unmemorable books, but his diaries - he published three volumes before his death - are considered ‘a valuable guide to the politics of the period generally and to the career of Lloyd George in particular’. Indeed, the ODNB goes on to say that his detailed recording of conversations ‘has provided rich and entertaining pickings for historians’ - though not until recently. Riddell deposited 14 diary manuscripts (and 22 volumes he had typed from the originals) with the British Library under instructions that they were not to be opened until long after his death (50 years).

Thus, in the last years of his life, Riddell published: Lord Riddell's War Diary, 1914-1918 (Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1933); Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and after, 1918-1923 (Victor Gollancz, 1933); and More Pages from my Diary (Country Life, 1934). Following derestriction of the diary manuscripts, John M. McEwen edited them anew as The Riddell Diaries 1908-1923 (The Athlone Press, 1986). McEwen says, in his introduction, it was a huge task to compare the published versions with the originals and typescripts.

22 April 1915
‘Long talk with Kitchener, who said that LG’s alleged statement as to the number of troops in France was inaccurate and that what LG had really said was that the number of troops ‘overseas’ amounted to thirty-six divisions. I referred to the speech, in which the words were ‘over there’. K said, ‘Well, if he said that he was wrong, and the speech must be put right in Hansard.’ He asked Brade to see that this done.

K commented upon what he called ‘Newspaper embroidery’ and complained of the criticisms as to the inconsistencies between his statements and those of the PM as to the efficiency of our output of munitions of war. He asked my opinion. I replied that they seemed inconsistent and that this was the general opinion. K said, ‘The Times has been the most virulent critic, I am told, but I never read it.’ He asked me to look up the speeches, which I did subsequently, and wrote to him setting out the two passages. He said that Northcliffe was acting very badly and that it was difficult to know how to deal with him.’

25 December 1918
‘Played golf in the morning with LG and then with him to mid-day Xmas dinner, he carving the turkey in great style. After dinner sat and talked for some time and listened to the pianola. LG slept for three hours. . .

We talked of the elections . . . He said that next week he proposes to take a short holiday to consider the reconstruction of the Government. The difficulty is that there are so few men available. He is very doubtful about a Minister of Labour and a Minister of Agriculture. Addison is to do the Housing. He doubts Lord Lee at the Board of Agriculture. He thinks him too unpopular with the landlords. I said, ‘Of course you will find a place for Sir Robert Horne. He is a clever fellow.’

LG: Yes, I think I shall put him in the Cabinet. He is an able man . . .
R: Winston is a difficulty.
LG: Yes, a great difficulty.
R: How about the Colonies for him?
LG: There will be nothing doing in that department. It would be like condemning a man to be head of a mausoleum. He would just have to see that it was kept clean.
R: I don’t agree. The Colonies will offer many problems. The Office wants bucking up and it would be a splendid thing if the Minister were to make a tour of the Empire.
LG: Yes, I agree about that. The Colonial office might be a good place for Winston.
R: Will Beaverbrook be in the Ministry?
LG: No, I think not. His health is bad. He is clever, but absolutely without scruple of any sort. Not a very desirable sort of politician.
Mrs LG: It is a pity that the PM accepted any assistance from Beaverbrook and Rothermere at the election. I am sure he did not need it. I don’t trust them or like their ways. The PM does best when he goes his own way and keeps clear of all these wire-pullers and people who want nothing but to grind their own axe.’

1 October 1919
‘Strange happenings. For the first time in history the printers in the newspaper offices have objected to print matter of which they disapproved - to wit, attacks on the railway men. This caused consternation amongst proprietors and editors, who held their ground with considerable firmness . . . This movement is more important than it looks, and is capable of quaint developments. One novel feature of the strike is an advertising campaign in which both the Government and the men are stating their case. . .

There can be no doubt that LG was wrong in describing the strike as a Bolshevist movement, as he did in his published message. This has been the key-note of the Government campaign run by Sir William Sutherland and others on the usual party lines of misrepresentation and deception. Use the note that is like to please and convince. Truth and accuracy are immaterial.’

Insurrection in Paris

‘Firing is heard. The houses are in turmoil. Doors and casements open and shut violently. The women-servants chat and laugh at the windows. It is said that the insurrection has spread to the Porte Saint-Martin. I go out and follow the line of the boulevards. The weather is fine; there are crowds of promenaders in their Sunday dress. Drums beat to arms.’ This is the French literary giant, Victor Hugo, who died 160 years ago today, writing in his diary about the day a riot exploded on the streets of Paris in 1839.

Victor was the third son of Joseph-Léopold-Sigisbert Hugo, a major and, later, general in Napoleon’s army. As a child, he was constantly on the move as his father travelled with the imperial army, to Elba, for example, Naples or Madrid. His parents became increasingly estranged, his father loyal to successive governments and his mother a staunch royalist. Victor, often brought back to Paris by his mother, absorbed her royalist views. He was able to study for a while at the Pension Cordier and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, after which he entered the law faculty in Paris.

Hugo’s mother died in 1821, and the following year he published his first book of poems, Odes et poésies diverses, some of which displayed royalist sentiments and won him a pension from Louis XVIII. The new income allowed him to marry his childhood sweetheart, Adèle Foucher, with whom he went on to have five children, although the first died in infancy.

By 1824, Hugo was already associated with a group of Romantics, Cénacle, which was moving against the domination of classical literature. And, as he published further collections of poems, so these seemed to reflect a growing dispassion for his youthful royalist sentiments. He emerged, biographies say, as a true Romantic with his verse dramas Cromwell, in 1927, and Hernani in 1930. Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) brought him much wider fame and influence, and made him rich. Further poems (some glorifying Napoleon) and plays followed. In the early 1830s, he began a liaison with a young actress, Juliette Drouet, who remained his secretary and discreet companion for the rest of his life.

Hugo’s literary achievement was recognised in 1841 by his election to the Académie française, but, after the death of his daughter Léopoldine and her husband by drowning in 1843, his creative energy seemed to fade in favour of political interest (a change that affected other Romantic figures who were becoming more concerned about social issues than beautiful art). He was nominated in 1845 to the upper house of the French parliament (Chamber of Peers) but this was disbanded following the Revolution of 1848 and the creation of the Second Republic.

After Napoleon III’s coup d’état against the Second Republic in 1851, Hugo went into exile, first in Brussels briefly, then in the Channel Islands, Jersey (1852–1855) and Guernsey from 1855. During this period, he finally published, in 1862, Les Misérables, a work which had taken more than a decade to write, but which would go on to become one of the most famous of French novels, and one of the greatest 19th century novels in any language.

Although Napoleon III proclaimed a general amnesty in 1859, and Hugo could have returned to France, he stayed in exile, only returning when Napoleon III was forced from power in 1870. He lived again in Guernsey from 1872 to 1873, before finally returning to France. His last years, with Juliette in Paris, were rather sad, partly because of illness and the loss of two sons. He died on 22 May 1855, and was given a hero’s funeral. Further information is available online at Wikipedia, Famous People, CliffsNotes, Notable Biographies, etc.

Excerpts from Hugo’s diaries were first issued along with other essays and random jottings in two series (1887 and 1900) in the original French under the title Choses vues, and soon translated into English as Things Seen. Further editions followed, including a fresh translation by David Kimber in a 1964 Oxford University Press edition. Some extracts from Things Seen can be found at Victor Hugo Central, but the full text of an English version, by The Colonial Press Co., can also be read at Internet Archive.

Joanna Richardson concludes her introduction to Oxford University Press’s edition as follows: ‘But perhaps Things Seen is best considered as a web into which Hugo has drawn ‘all the gilded and glittering flies’ [a quote from Hugo himself] of contemporary history. It is a far slighter work than the Goncourt Journal [see The Diary Review]; it lacks the Goncourts’ malice and wit, and it cannot for a moment compete with the Journal as a record of the social and intellectual scene. But for all its limitations, and whether or not it opens a window on to infinity, Things Seen remains one of the few examples in French literature of sporadic observations that are literary works in their own right. These random jottings have become a classic.’

The following is most of the text from one chapter in Things Seen, entitled Diary of a Passer-by During the Riot of Twelfth of May.

12 May 1839
‘At three o’clock I return to my study.

My little daughter, in a state of excitement, opens my door and says, “Papa, do you know what is going on? There is fighting at the Pont Saint-Michel.”

I do not believe a word of it. Fresh details. A cook in our house and a neighbouring wine-shop keeper have seen the occurrence. I ask the cook to come up. It is true; while passing along the Quai des Orfèvres he saw a throng of young men firing musket-shots at the Prefecture of Police. A bullet struck the parapet near him. From there the assailants ran to the Place du Châtelet and to the Hôtel de Ville, still firing. They set out from the Morgue, which the good fellow calls the Morne.

Poor young fools! In less than twenty-four hours a large number of those who set out from there will have returned there.

Firing is heard. The houses are in turmoil. Doors and casements open and shut violently. The women-servants chat and laugh at the windows. It is said that the insurrection has spread to the Porte Saint-Martin. I go out and follow the line of the boulevards. The weather is fine; there are crowds of promenaders in their Sunday dress. Drums beat to arms.

At the beginning of the Hue du Pont-aux-Choux are some groups of people looking in the direction of the Rue de l’Oseille. There are a great crowd and a great uproar close to an old fountain which can be seen from the boulevard, and which forms the angle of an open space in the old Rue du Temple. [. . .]

Upon the Boulevard du Temple the cafés are closing. The Cirque Olympique is also closing. The Gaîté holds out, and will give a performance.

The crowd of promenaders becomes greater at each step. Many women and children. Three drummers of the National Guard - old soldiers, with solemn mien - pass by, beating to arms. The fountain of the Château d’Eau suddenly throws up its grand holiday streams. At the back, in the low-lying street, the great railings and doorway of the Town Hall of the 5th Arrondissement are closed one inside the other. I notice in the door little loop-holes for muskets.

Nothing at the Porte Saint-Martin, but a large crowd peacefully moving about across regiments of infantry and cavalry stationed between the two gate-ways. The Porte Saint-Martin Theatre closes its box-office. The bills are being taken down, on which I see the words Marie Tudor. The omnibuses are running.

Throughout this journey I have not heard any firing, but the crowd and vehicles make a great noise.

I return to the Marais. In the old Rue du Temple the women, in a state of excitement, gossip at the doorways. Here are the details. The riot spread throughout the neighbourhood. Towards three o’clock two or three hundred young men, poorly armed, suddenly broke into the Town Hall of the 7th Arrondissement, disarmed the guard, and took the muskets. Thence they ran to the Hôtel de Ville and performed the same freak. As they entered the guard-room they gaily embraced the officer. When they had the Hôtel de Ville, what was to be done with it? They went away and left it. If they had France, would they be less embarrassed with it than they were with the Hôtel de Ville? There are among them many boys, fourteen or fifteen years old. Some do not know how to load their muskets; others cannot carry them. One of those who fired in the Rue de Paradis fell upon his hind-quarters after the shot. Two drummers killed at the head of their columns, are placed in the Royal Printing Establishment, of which the principal doorway is shut. At this moment barricades are being made in the Rue des Quatre Fils, at the corner of all the little Rues de Bretagne, de Poitou, de Touraine, and there are groups of persons listening. A grenadier of the National Guard passes by in uniform, his musket upon his back, looking about him with an uneasy look. It is seven o’clock; from my balcony in the Place Royale platoon-firing is heard.’

12 May 1839, 8 pm
‘I follow the boulevards as far as the Madeleine. They are covered with troops. National Guards march at the head of all the patrols. The Sunday promenaders intermingle with all this infantry, all this cavalry. At intervals a cordon of soldiers quietly empty the crowd from one side of the boulevard to the other. There is a performance at the Vaudeville.’

13 May 1839, 1 am
‘The boulevards are deserted. There remain only the regiments, who bivouac at short distances apart. Coming back, I passed through the little streets of the Marais. All is quiet and gloomy. The old Rue du Temple is as black as a furnace. The lanterns there have been smashed.

The Place Royale is a camp. There are four great fires before the Town Hall, round which the soldiers chat and laugh, seated upon their knapsacks. The flames carve a black silhouette of some, and cast a glow upon the faces of the others. The green, fresh leaves of the spring trees rustle merrily above the braziers.

I had a letter to post. I took some precautions in the matter, for everything looks suspicious in the eyes of these worthy National Guards. I recollect that at the period of the riots of April, 1834, I passed by a guard-house of the National Guard with a volume of the works of the Duke de Saint-Simon. I was pointed out as a Saint-Simonian, and narrowly escaped being murdered.

Just as I was going in-doors again, a squadron of hussars, held in reserve all day in the courtyard of the Town Hall, suddenly issued forth and filed past me at a gallop, going in the direction of the Rue Saint-Antoine. As I went upstairs I heard the horses’ foot-falls retreating in the distance.’

13 May 1839, 8 am
‘Several companies of the National Guard have come and joined the Line regiments encamped in the Place Royale.

A number of men in blouses walk about among the National Guard, observed and observing with an anxious look. An omnibus comes out upon the Rue du Pas-de-la-Mule. It is made to go back. Just now my floor-polisher, leaning upon his broom, said, “Whose side shall I be on?” He added a moment afterwards, “What a filthy government this is! I have thirty francs owing to me, and cannot get anything out of the people!”

The drums beat to arms.

I breakfast as I read the papers. M. Duflot arrives. He was yesterday at the Tuileries. It was at the Sunday reception: the king appeared fatigued, the queen was low-spirited. Then he went for a walk about Paris. He saw in the Rue du Grand-Hurleur a man who had been killed - a workman - stretched upon the ground in his Sunday clothing, his forehead pierced by a bullet. It was evening. By his side was a lighted candle. The dead man had rings on his fingers and his watch in his fob-pocket, from which issued a great bunch of trinkets.

Yesterday, at half-past three o’clock, at the first musket-shots, the king sent for Marshal Soult, and said to him, “Marshal, the waters become troubled. Some ministers must be fished up.”

An hour afterwards the marshal came to the king, and said, as he rubbed his hands, in his Southern accent, “This time, Sire, I think we shall manage the business.”

There is, in fact, a ministry this morning in the “Moniteur.” ’

13 May 1839, 12 midday
‘I go out. Firing can be heard in the Rue Saint-Louis. The men in blouses have been turned out of the Place Royale, and now only those persons who live there are allowed to enter the street The rioting is in the Rue Saint-Louis. It is feared that the insurgents will penetrate one by one to the Place Royale, and fire upon the troops from behind the pillars of the arcades.

Two hundred and twelve years, two months and two days ago to-day, Beuvron, Bussy d’Amboise, and Buquet, on the one hand, and Boutteville, Deschapelles, and Laberthe, on the other, fought to the death with swords and daggers, in broad daylight, at this same time and in this same Place Royale. [. . .]

The approaches to the Place Royale are deserted. The firing continues, very sustained, and very close at hand.

In the Rue Saint-Gilles, before the door of the house occupied in 1784 by the famous Countess Lamothe-Valois, of the Diamond Necklace affair, a Municipal Guard bars my passage.

I reach the Rue Saint-Louis by the Rue des Douze-Portes. The Rue Saint-Louis has a singular appearance. At one of the ends can be seen a company of soldiers, who block up the whole street and advance slowly, pointing their muskets. I am hemmed in by people running away in every direction. A young man has just been killed at the corner of the Rue des Douze-Portes.

It is impossible to go any farther. I return in the direction of the boulevard.

At the corner of the Rue du Harlay there is a cordon of National Guards. One of them, who wears the blue ribbon of July, stops me suddenly. “You cannot pass!” And then his voice suddenly became milder: “Really, I do not advise you to go that way, sir.” I raise my eyes; it is my floor-polisher.

I proceed farther.

I arrive in the Rue Saint-Claude. I have only gone forward a few steps when I see all the foot-passengers hurrying. A company of infantry has just appeared at the end of the street, near the church. Two old women, one of whom carries a mattress, utter exclamations of terror. I continue to make my way towards the soldiers, who bar the end of the street. Some young scamps in blouses are bolting in every direction near me. Suddenly the soldiers bring down their muskets and present them. I have only just time to jump behind a street-post, which protects, at all events, my legs. I am fired upon. No one falls in the streets. I make towards the soldiers, waving my hat, that they may not fire again. As I come close up to them they open their ranks for me, I pass, and not a word is exchanged between us.

The Rue Saint-Louis is deserted. It has the appearance which it presents at four o’clock in the morning in summer: shops shut, windows shut, no one about, broad daylight. In the Rue du Roi-Doré the neighbours chat at their doorways. Two horses, unharnessed from some cart, of which a barricade has been made, pass up the Rue Saint-Jean-Saint-François, followed by a bewildered carter. A large body of National Guards and troops of the Line appear to be in ambush at the end of the Rue Saint-Anastase. I make inquiries. About half an hour ago seven or eight young workmen came there, dragging muskets, which they hardly knew how to load. They were youths of fourteen or fifteen years of age. They silently prepared their arms in the midst of the people of the neighbourhood and the passers-by, who looked on as they did so, then they broke into a house where there were only an old woman and a little child. There they sustained a siege of a few moments. The firing in my direction was aimed at some of them who were running away up the Rue Saint-Claude.

All the shops are closed, except the wine-shop where the insurgents drank, and where the National Guard are drinking.’

13 May 1839, 3 pm
‘I have just explored the boulevards. They are covered with people and soldiers. Platoon-firing is heard in the Rue Saint-Martin. Before the windows of Fieschi I saw a lieutenant-general, in full uniform, pass by, surrounded by officers and followed by a squadron of very fine dragoons, sabre in hand. There is a sort of camp at the Chateau d’Eau; the actresses of the Ambigu are on the balcony of their greenroom, looking on. No theatre on the boulevards will give a performance this evening.

All signs of disorder have disappeared in the Rue Saint-Louis. The rioting is concentrated in the great central markets. A National Guard said to me just now, “There are in the barricades over there more than four thousand of them.” I said nothing in reply to the worthy fellow. In moments like this all eyes are overflowing vessels.

[. . .] A man has just been killed in the Rue de la Perle. In the Rue des Trois-Pavillons I see some little girls playing at battledore and shuttlecock. In the Rue de l’Echarpe there is a laundryman in a fright, who says he has seen cannon go by. He counted eight.’

13 May 1839, 8 pm
‘The Marais remains tolerably quiet. I am informed that there are cannon in the Place de la Bastille. I proceed there, but cannot make out anything; the twilight is too deep. Several regiments stand in silent readiness, infantry and cavalry. A crowd assembles at the sight of the wagons from which supplies are distributed to the men. The soldiers make ready to bivouac. The unloading of the wood for the night-fires is heard.’

13 May 1839, 12 midnight
‘Complete battalions go the rounds upon the boulevards. The bivouacs are lighted up in all directions, and throw reflections as of a conflagration on the fronts of the houses. A man dressed as a woman has just passed rapidly by me, with a white hat and a very thick black veil, which completely hides his face. As the church clocks were striking twelve, I distinctly heard, amid the silence of the city, two very long and sustained reports of platoon-firing.

I listen as a long file of carts, making a heavy iron clatter, pass in the direction of the Rue du Temple. Are these cannon?’

14 May 1839, 9 am
‘I return home. I notice from a distance that the great bivouac fire lighted at the corner of the Rue Saint-Louis and the Rue de l’Echarpe has disappeared. As I approach I see a man stooping before the fountain and holding something under the water of the spout. I look. The man looks uneasy. I see that he is extinguishing at the fountain some half-burned logs of wood; then he loads them upon his shoulders and makes off. They are the last brands which the soldiers have left on the pavement on quitting their bivouacs. In fact, there is nothing left now but a few heaps of red ashes. The soldiers have returned to their barracks. The riot is at an end. It will at least have served to give warmth to a poor wretch in winter-time.’

Tears instead of ink

Sir John Oglander, an aristocrat and politician associated with the Isle of White, died all of 430 years ago today. He is as much remembered for his diaries as he is for the relatively minor administrative and political appointments he held, not least because, having started as account books, they became more personal over time. For example on the death of his beloved son, George, he wrote: ‘With my tears instead of ink I write these last lines.’

Oglander was born at Nunwell, on the eastern side of the Isle of Wight, on 12 May 1585. He was schooled at Winchester, and entered Balliol College, Oxford, for three years but left without a degree. Thereafter, he entered the Middle Temple, though was not called to the bar. He married Frances, the youngest daughter of Sir George More of Losely, and sister to the wife of the poet John Donne. They had four sons and three daughters.

After residing for a while in Winchester with his father, Oglander moved to take up residence at the old family home in Nunwell, aiming to live a life, he wrote, of ‘ardent and unbroken devotion to the public service’. Little is known of that life, however, until around 1620 (though he was knighted in 1615 by James I). From 1620 to 1624, he acted as deputy governor of Portsmouth, before selling the position and returning to the Isle of Wight to be deputy governor there instead.

In 1625, Oglander was elected to Parliament as member for Yarmouth. He held other appointments, such as High Sheriff of Hampshire in the late 1630s. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642, Oglander - a true Royalist - found himself imprisoned, firstly for a short time, and then for three years. Later, he helped Charles I while on the Isle of Wight, but, as the king became confined at Carisbrooke Castle so it became dangerous for his friends, such as Oglander, to continue their support for him. Oglander was arrested one more time, in 1651, but was released within weeks. He died in 1655, a man broken by the war, his estate having been diminished and having lost his wife and a son. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, the History of Parliament website, or The Gentry.

For much of his life Oglander kept ‘Bookes of Accoumpts’ in which he wrote down his business affairs. However, over time they became more diary-like with entries of a personal nature. The diaries are considered valuable, particularly with regard to the history of the Isle of the White. Indeed, during Oglander’s lifetime he copied out some parts for use by his friend Sir Richard Worsley, who was then compiling what would be published in 1781 as The History of the Isle of Wight. Later, in 1888, the notebooks were also used by W. H. Long for his book The Oglander Memoirs.

It was not until 1936, however, that Oglander’s diary was published in its own right as A Royalist’s Notebook - The Commonplace Book of Sir John Oglander Kt of Nunwell, transcribed and edited by Francis Bamford (Constable, 1936). Cecil Faber Aspinall-Oglander says in his introduction: ‘The numerous tattered volumes of faded manuscripts from which this book has been compiled have lain for three hundred years in the house where Sir John Oglander wrote them in the days of James I and Charles I, their slumber only disturbed by the reverent fingers of his descendants in search of information. And here indeed their slumber might have continued had it not been for Mr. Bamford asking my wife’s permission to look through the Nunwell papers in search of local colour for a historical novel on which he was then engaged.’

Bamford’s book divides Oglander’s writings into various chapters, viz: His observations 1622-1639; His observations 1642-1652; His neighbours; His rules for husbandry; Some of his recipes; Some of his accounts; His advice to his descendants. Here are a few samples from the first chapter (the language has been modernised by Bamford).

‘The 20th February, 1626, I put into the pond by Whitefield House 200 young carp.’

‘May the 30th, 1627. On Wednesday in the afternoon on Granger, captain of a small man-of-war belonging to Mr. James of Portsmouth, being on the south side of the Island, spied a fleet of Hollanders of 22 sail, whereof Sir Lawrence Reoll was Admiral. He presently took them for Spaniards and came into the Island, sent intelligence to Sir Edward Dennys that he had espied a fleet of Spaniards at sea, the copy of which letter is in my box. Whereupon Sir Edward sent the very letter to Portsmouth, whither when it came, a Wednesday by 4 of the clock, the town rose all in arms and apprehended as much fear as if an enemy had been at the gates. Higham, Master Gunner, hasted away post with this intelligence to my Lord Steward, which came to the Council and my Lord Duke’s knowledge by 2 the same night. He presently commanded down all the colonels to their charges: hither came Brett and Spry by Friday morning. The Duke himself posted to the Downs, vowing he would not stay but would fight them with those ships that were then ready.’

‘King Charles came into our Island the 20th of June 1627, being Wednesday. He came ashore at Ryde, where only myself was to attend him: he was landed by 9 in the morning, sooner than the gentlemen expected. We had notice of it but the night before, yet I took such order of it that my coach was there, and some 40 horses. I waited on him from Ryde to Arreton Down and was his guide. On the Down, he saw Sir Alexander Brett’s regiment train, which was the motive that brought him over. I had the honour to kiss His Majesty’s hand, being presented unto him by the Lord Chamberlain, and at his going away again, which was about 3: all the gentlemen with myself had the like honour. [. . .]

His Majesty neither ate nor drank in our Island. On our complaint unto him, he promised we should have Sandham Castle repaired (which I showed afar off unto him, together with the consequences thereof), a fort of St Helens, munitions for our country, and 10 or 20 ships of his to be still resident in Portsmouth Harbour. So much, and so happy we, if performed.’

‘On the 8th of December, 1631, my shepherd’s wife, Good Greenwood, going to my windmill with a gust coming from thence, she went so near to the vanes of the mill that one of them took her in the head and beat out her brains. She was a very good woman and had been nurse to my son William, and dry nurse to most of my other children.’

‘Here is set down the most sorrowful story that was ever written by the hand of a distressed father. On the 21st of July, 1632, being at Newport [. . .] the Mayor, Sir Richard Dillington and Sir Edward Dennys came unto me and told me of a flying report, brought by a bark off Weymouth lately come from Caen, that my eldest son George, that was then at Caen, was very sick - if not dead.

Let those judge, who have had a hopeful young son aged 22 years, well brought up and learned in all the arts, dutiful, wise, sober, discreet and given to no vice, but tall, handsome, judicious and understanding - yea, far above the capacity of his young years, what a case I was in and how deeply stricken, insomuch as I had much ado to get home.

With my tears instead of ink I write these last lines. O George, my beloved George, is dead and with him most of my terrestrial comforts, although I acknowledge I have good and dutiful sons left. He died of the smallpox at Caen in Normandy, the 11th of July, 1632. Only with my tears and a foul pen was this written.’

The Diary Junction

He loves me so much

Seventy years ago today, Adolf and Eva Hitler - married just 40 hours earlier - committed suicide in the so-called Führerbunker, Berlin - Adolf by shooting himself and Eva by biting into a cyanide capsule. Hitler, himself, left behind no diaries, although 60 volumes, purportedly by Hitler but later established as fakes, emerged in 1983, creating a huge media furore - see The Diary Review. Eva, maiden name Braun, though, did leave behind some diary material - 22 pages of a journal kept in 1935. Although the authenticity of this document has been questioned, Braun’s biographers have generally used it as a key source.

Eva Braun was born in Munich in 1912, the middle daughter of three, to a school teacher and his seamstress wife. She was educated at a Catholic lyceum, and then, for a year, at a business school in a convent. Aged 17, she was employed by Heinrich Hoffmann, the official photographer for the Nazi Party, working as a shop assistant and sales clerk. In October 1929, Hitler visited Hoffman’s shop, and was introduced to the young Eva. Thereafter, a furtive love affair developed between the two.

However, Eva eventually came to find the liaison so difficult and frustrating that she attempted suicide (by gunshot) in the autumn of 1932. Heike B. Görtemaker, author of Eva Braun: Life with Hitler (Allen Lane, 2011, translated from the German original by Damion Searls), says ‘although precise details remain unknown, witnesses and historians agree that Eva Braun felt abandoned and calculatedly acted to make the perpetually absent Hitler notice her, and to tie him more closely to her.’ Görtemaker notes that Hitler’s step niece, Geli Raubal, with whom he was living at the time, had committed suicide just a year earlier. Braun undertook a further suicide attempt, this time with pills, in 1935, again because she felt Hitler was not paying her enough attention.

Although her relationship with Hitler remained secret beyond his inner circle, Braun continued to advance her status, in that Hitler provided various residences for her: an apartment, then a villa, in Munich, where Eva lived with her sisters, an apartment at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, and accommodation at Berghof, near Berchtesgaden, whenever Hitler was there. She attended the Nuremburg rally for the first time in 1935; and, increasingly, she took photographs and films of the inner circle which she was able to sell to Hoffman. In time, Braun was given the nominal role of Hitler’s private secretary which allowed her to visit the Chancellery without comment.

In early April 1945, Braun journeyed from Munich to Berlin, to join Hitler in the Führerbunker, an air-raid shelter and bunker complex near the Chancellery. By this time, the Soviet army was already making major advances on the city. On 22 April Hitler declared the war lost, and announced he would stay in Berlin until the end, and then kill himself. During the night of 28-29 April, he and Eva were married, as witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann. During the morning of 30 April, Hitler was advised that their situation in Berlin was now hopeless - ammunition was running out, and the Soviets were closing in. At 3:30pm, witnesses heard a gunshot, and within a few minutes Mr and Mrs Hitler were found dead. Adolf had shot himself in the head, and Eva had bitten into a cyanide capsule. The bodies were burned, and, a few days later, the charred remains were found by the Russians and buried secretly in Magdeburg, along with the bodies of Goebbels and his wife and children.

Further information on Eva can be found at Wikipedia, a Danish fan site run by Louis Bülow, or in reviews of Görtemaker’s biography (at The New York Times, Der Speigel, or The Guardian). However, as Görtemaker notes, it is very difficult to reconstruct a full and accurate picture of Eva’s life and of her relationship with Hitler. This is partly because of the obsessive way Hitler kept the affair hidden, and partly because so few original sources - letters in particular - have survived. Görtemaker goes to some lengths, indeed, to describe the efforts that have been made to find letters that may or may not have been hidden/destroyed by Eva or her sister. In any case, Görtemaker explains that, in the context of so little information, ‘only’ a 22-page diary fragment in Eva Braun’s papers, written in old-style German handwriting, ‘sheds light on the character of their relationship’. Although she acknowledges that the document’s authorship remains controversial, she trusts it sufficiently to analyse and interpret its contents thoroughly.

The 22-page diary fragment is held by the National Archives, Washington D. C., with other Braun papers. I am not sure when it first appeared in English, though Nerin E. Gun includes it in his Eva Braun: Hitler’s Mistress, published in German in 1968, then in English in 1969 (Leslie Frewin). Several extracts can be found online at Bülow’s Eva Braun website (from where the following extracts have been taken).

18 February 1935
‘Yesterday he came quite unexpectedly, and we had a delightful evening.

The nicest thing is that he is thinking of taking me from the shop and - but I had better not get excited about it yet - he may give me a little house. I simply must not let myself think about it. It would be marvelous. I wouldn’t have to open the door to our “beloved customers,” and go on being a shopgirl. Dear God, grant that this may really happen not in some far-off time, but soon. [. . .]

I am so infinitely happy that he loves me so much, and I pray that it will always be like this. It won’t be my fault if he ever stops loving me.

I am so terribly unhappy that I cannot write to him. These notes must serve as the receptacle of my lamentations.

He came on Saturday. Saturday evening there was the Town Ball. Frau Schwarz gave me a box, so I absolutely had to go after I had accepted. Well, I spent a few wonderfully delightful hours with him until 12 o’clock and then with his permission I spent two hours at the ball.

On Sunday he promised I could see him. I telephoned to the Osteria and left a message with Werlin to say that I was waiting to hear from him. He simply went off to Feldafing, and refused Hoffmann’s invitation to coffee and dinner. I suppose there are two sides to every question. Perhaps he wanted to be alone with Dr. G., who was here, but he should have let me know. At Hoffmann’s I felt I was sitting on hot coals, expecting him to arrive every moment.

In the end we went to the railroad station, as he suddenly decided he would have to go. We were just in time to see the last lights of the train disappearing. Once again Hoffmann left the house too late, and so I couldn’t even say good-bye to him. Perhaps I am taking too dark a view, I hope I am, but he is not coming again for another two weeks. Until then I’ll be miserable and restless. I don’t know why he should be angry with me. Perhaps it is because of the ball, but he did give his permission.

I am racking my brains to find out why he left without saying good-bye to me.

The Hoffmanns have given me a ticket for the Venetian Night this evening, but I am not going. I am much too miserable.’

28 May 1935
‘I have just sent him the crucial letter. Question: will he attach any importance to it?

We’ll see. If I don’t get an answer before this evening, I’ll take 25 pills and gently fall asleep into another world.

He has so often told me he is madly in love with me, but what does that mean when I haven’t had a good word from him in three months?

So he has had a head full of politics all this time, but surely it is time he relaxed a little. What happened last year? Didn’t Roehm and Italy give him a lot of problems, but in spite of all that he found time for me.

Maybe the present situation is incomparably more difficult for him, nevertheless a few kind words conveyed through the Hoffmanns would not have greatly distracted him.

I am afraid there is something behind it all. I am not to blame. Absolutely not.

Maybe it is another woman, not the Valkyrie - that would be hard to believe. But there are so many other women.

Is there any other explanation? I can’t find it.

God, I am afraid he won’t give me his answer today. If only somebody would help me - it is all so terribly depressing.

Perhaps my letter reached him at an inopportune moment. Perhaps I should not have written. Anyway, the uncertainty is more terrible than a sudden ending of it all.

I have made up my mind to take 35 pills this time, and it will be “dead certain.” If only he would let someone call.” ’

It is worth noting that as far back as 1949 a book appeared entitled The Diary of Eva Braun. This was edited by Alan F. Bartlett, and published by Aldus (republished by Spectrum in 2000). It was based on a typed manuscript, covering the years 1937-1944, that was given, apparently, by Eva Braun to Luis Trenker, a film-maker. Some discussion of this book can be found at the Axis History Forum. However, whereas biographers appear to take the 1935 diary fragment seriously, they rarely - if ever - mention the Bartlett book.

Finally, there is another - and major - diary source for information about Eva Braun - the published diaries of Joseph Goebbels. He committed suicide, with his wife, (after killing all six of his children), a day after the Hitlers, on 1 May 1945. Extracts from Goebbels’s diaries have already appeared in The Diary Review - see The Reichstag on fire - but more will follow tomorrow, on the 70th anniversary of his death.

How bloody corrupt

In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the end of the 1984-1985 miners’ strike in the UK, the Mirror, a daily newspaper, recently published extracts from the diary of John Lowe, a miner who spent his entire working life in the industry, but who only became politicised during that famous coal industry dispute.

Lowe was born in Whiston, Yorkshire, in 1931, spending his early childhood year there, and then in Danesmoor, Derbyshire. He left school at 14, and went to work at the Clay Cross Companies coking plant and then at the Parkhouse Colliery. In 1953, he married Elsie, and they would have two sons and three daughters.

In the early 1960s, Lowe moved to work at the Rufford Colliery in Nottinghamshire, and a few years later moved to Clipstone Colliery. After 40 years a miner, 30 years of which were at the coalface, he was made redundant in 1987. Thereafter, he suffered from various physical ailments which restricted his mobility in retirement. He died in 2005.

In 2011, Wharncliffe Books (part of Pen & Sword Books) published the diary of John Lowe as If Spirit Alone Won Battles: The 1984-1985 Miners’ Strike in Nottinghamshire. It was edited by Jonathan Symcox, Lowe’s grandson, with a foreword by Dennis Skinner, a well-known and outspoken left-wing Member of Parliament. Son of a miner himself, Skinner was a strong supporter of the National Union of Mineworkers strike, in 1984, against Prime Minister Thatcher’s plan to close coal mines. The stand-off between the Conservative government and the miners came to be dubbed as ‘the most bitter industrial dispute in British history’ - see Wikipedia.

Last month, on 2 March, the Mirror published a series of extracts from the diary to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the end of the 1984-1985 miner’s strike (on 3 March 1985) that had so divided the country. The Mirror noted: ‘Despite never having been a political activist, the Clipstone picket manager kept a detailed diary throughout the dispute. It captures the moments of frustration, pride, desperation and drudgery of that critical time. It details the booking of buses to transport pickets, instructions to them if they were arrested or stopped by police and the coded lists for the flying pickets which were changed every day to stay one step ahead.’

The following extracts are taken from the Mirror article, but further extracts from Lowe’s book can be found at the Miner’s Advice website.

2 January 1985
‘Back to the grind with the alarm set for 4.15am. We must be bloody crackers. Seven of us turned up for the first picket and we were disappointed to find only one policeman on duty, the idle swines.’

3 January 1985
‘Tried this afternoon to talk to some of the afternoon shift – as distasteful as it feels, it’s the only fresh tack left open to us. One of the lads talked for fifteen minutes and was really sick of it – he would only promise to think about rejoining us and to talk to his wife. If we could get two or three out again, it would really boost the lads; unfortunately it would take a bloody miracle.

Board and media campaign getting into gear now, with figures of six hundred returns given for the last two days. F***** liars!’

21 January 1985
‘Nationally, men are returning to work and this is very sad. They are not going back because the cause is wrong; after all this time the poor buggers are being forced back by all sorts of reasons: debt, a lack of money, food and fuel, and domestic and personal problems. Two of ours lost this week.

The case of the Transits in Mansfield: our initial findings were a ‘scab van’ picking up in Pleasley and going on towards Clowne, and police patrol cars patrolling the supposedly closed office block near the dole office, which showed signs of activity with many lights on inside and three wire-mesh Transits still in the closed-off yard. We then found that the vans were certainly driving into Yorkshire and taking part in the ‘scab runs’ there, with police escorts all the way – but that Notts men were not taking part.

What surprised us was that the drivers were Yorkshiremen, some of them from the pit villages they were driving to: I was very saddened to think that such treachery could be enacted by working class people against what were, perhaps, members of their own families.’

23 February 1985
‘Used the last of our coal today. We’ve been lucky right through, managing to get the odd bag given and burning it sparingly with logs; our good neighbour has helped out us and others and we owe him gratitude.

The kids on holiday in Belgium are due home this evening; another set are due to go to France shortly and at Easter yet another lot go to Amsterdam. We must never forget our brothers over the Channel.

The Board are offering an immediate advance of £100 to those returning now. How bloody corrupt are they prepared to be.’

Although few and far between, there are other published diaries by miners. Pen & Sword have published, for example, The Miners’ Strike Day by Day, the diary of Arthur Wakefield, and Yorkshire’s Flying Pickets based on the diary of Bruce Wilson, both edited by Brian Elliott.