The Hookers of Kew

Sir William Jackson Hooker, one of the most important British botanists of the 19th century, died 150 years ago today. The anniversary is being celebrated by Kew Gardens - Hooker was its first official director, and he did much to expand and develop the royal botanic gardens. His son, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker became an even more eminent botanist, a close of friend of Charles Darwin, and the successor to his father at Kew. Although father and son were not diarists as such, journals of their botanical expeditions have been published.

Hooker was born in Norwich, England, in 1785. His father, Joseph, was a confidential clerk and amateur botanist. William was educated at Norwich grammar school and then attended Startson Hall to study estate management. Aged 21, he inherited the estate of his godfather, a wealthy brewer and farmer. By this time, he had already become a keen botanist and entomologist, an obsession that his inheritance would help finance. As early as 1805, he found a species of moss not previously recorded in Britain. The following year he was elected to the Linnean Society, and a year or two later he made his first foreign botanical expedition, to Iceland. Although his notes and drawings were destroyed by fire on the way home, he still managed to produce, and circulate a privately printed journal of the tour.

Hooker invested considerably in a planned tour to Ceylon with Sir Robert Brownrigg, but the project was abandoned. In 1814, he spent nine months on excursion in France, Switzerland and Italy. The year after, he married Maria Dawson Turner (sister-in-law of the historian Francis Palgrave), and they settled at Halesworth, Suffolk, where he built an herbarium that, in time, gained an international reputation. Various scientific publications followed in the 1810s: British Jungermanniae, a new edition of William Curtis’s Flora Londinensis, for which he wrote the descriptions, and Muscologia, an account of the mosses of Britain and Ireland, prepared in conjunction with Thomas Taylor.

In 1820, Hooker became the regius professorship of botany in the University of Glasgow, and he worked with the botanist Thomas Hopkirk to establish the Royal Botanic Institution of Glasgow and to develop the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. He also published Flora Scotica. Hooker was able to convince the British government that botanists should be appointed to expeditions, and subsequently his herbarium profited from samples brought back from all parts of the globe.

In 1836, he was made a Knight of Hanover, and in 1841 he was appointed the first full-time director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Under his direction the gardens expanded to 75 acres, with an arboretum of 270 acres, and many new glass-houses erected. He died on 12 August 1865; and was succeeded at Kew by his son Joseph Dalton, who had already become famous as a botanist and botanical explorer, and who, like his father, would be knighted. In accordance with William Hooker’s will, his herbarium and library were offered for sale to the nation, and were purchased for Kew in 1866; they contained over one million herbarium specimens, 4,000 volumes of publications, and about 29,000 letters from over 4,400 correspondents. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia, Parks and Gardens UK, or Kew’s website.

Hooker published extensively through his life. One of his early books, in the first instance printed and circulated privately in 1811, was called Journal of a Tour in Iceland in the Summer of 1809. However, as most of his papers (and all but a few weeks of his journal) had been lost in a fire on board the return vessel, the book is mostly based on his recollections. He put together Niger Flora, ‘an enumeration of the plants of western tropical Africa, collected by the late Dr. Theodore Vogel’ in 1841, which includes Vogel’s diary of the voyage. Hooker was very keen on publishing academic botanic journals. There was The Journal of Botany (1830-1842), The London Journal of Botany (1842-1848), and Hooker’s Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany (1949-1857).

Most of the very first volume of the latter (Hooker’s Journal of Botany - Kew Garden Miscellany Vol 1, Reeve, Benham, and Reeve, 1849) is taken up with a diary kept by his son, Joseph, and sent as letters, during his long expedition to India and the Himalayas in 1847-1851. This was later published as Himalayan Journals in 1854. Here are a couple of extracts from Joseph Hooker’s diary as found in Hooker’s Journal of Botany.

7 March 1848
‘Left my kind friend Mr. Felle’s house for Amoee, en route for Miraapore, myself mounted on an elephant of the Rajah’s, and my goods on Mr. Felle’s camels. Passed through Goorawul, a large village twelve miles due west of Shahgung. The road to it lay over a very flat monotonous country. Thence turning north, in a direction crossing the table-land, the country began to undulate and become more barren, with noble Mahoua trees and a few Fici, the former resembling oaks; and with the sandstone cropping out on the surface, I was occasionally much reminded of scenery in the forest of Dean. Sterile tracts, with their typical trees, alternate with cultivated fields, whose accompaniments are the Tamarind and Mango.

Many of the exposed slabs of sandstone are beautifully waved with the ripple-mark, like small specimens seen at Rotas.

Amoee, where I arrived at nine p.m., was an open grassy flat, about twenty miles from the Ganges, along whose course the dust clouds were coursing.

Mr. Monney, the magistrate of Mirzapore, kindly sent a mounted messenger to meet me here, the finest-looking fellow I had seen for a long time, wearing a brilliant scarlet surtout and white turban. He was a very active fellow, equally proud of his master (with good reason) and his horse; but he had vast trouble in getting bearers for my Palkee, which, after being carted for so long, was now to take its turn in carting me. Those he did procure (eight) carried me (for the greater part of the way) and the Palkee the whole twenty-two miles in eight hours, over very bad and stony paths, and down the ghaut, which is, however, an excellent road.

To the top of the ghaut the country was nearly level (and here called the Bind hills). There I saw for the first time the Ganges, rolling along the plains, through a forest of green trees, among which the white houses, domes, and temples of Mirzapore were scattered in every direction.

Unlike the Dunwah pass, this, to the level of the Ganges, is wholly barren. At the foot the sun was intensely hot, the roads rocky or smothered with dust by turns, the villages crowded with a widely different looking race from those of the hills, and the whole air of the outskirts, in a sultry afternoon, far from agreeable.

Mirzapore is, however, an exceedingly pretty, a moderately cool, and very pleasant station, especially the geographically east, but socially speaking west-end, which runs along the banks of the Ganges, and whither I proceeded to the house of my friend Mr. Claude Hamilton, where I received a most cordial welcome.

Mirzapore is celebrated for its manufactory of carpets (of a kind like our dining-room one), which are admirable looking, and in all respects save durability I am told are equal to the English. Indigo seed from Bundelkund is also a most extensive article of commerce, the best coming from the Doab, and lac. For cotton, sugar, and saltpetre, it is the greatest mart in India. Bundelkund indigo seed is good and larger but not equal to the Doab. The articles of native manufacture are brass washing and cooking utensils, and stone deities worked out of the sandstone.

There is little native vegetation, the country being covered with cultivation and extensive groves of Mango, and occasionally of Guava. English vegetables are abundant and excellent, and the strawberries rival in size the European fruit, but hardly in flavour.

The atmosphere is extremely dry and electrical, the hair constantly crackling when combed. Further west, where the country is still drier, the electricity of the air is even greater. Griffiths mentions that in filling his barometer tubes in Affghanistan, he constantly experienced a shock.

Here I had the pleasure of meeting Lieut. Ward, one of the assistant suppressors of Thugge (Thuggee, in Hindostan, signifying a deceiver, fraud, not open force being employed). This gentleman kindly showed me the approvers or king’s evidence, of his establishment, belonging to those three classes of human scourges, the Thug, Dakoit, and Poisoner. Of these the first was the Thug, a mild-looking man, who was born and bred to the profession: he has committed many murders, sees no harm in them, and feels neither shame nor remorse. His organs of observation and destructiveness were large, and the cerebellum small. He explained to me how the gang waylay the unwary traveller, enter into conversation with him, and have him suddenly seized, when the superior whips off his own linen girdle, throws it round the victim’s neck and strangles him, pressing the knuckles against the spine. Taking off his own cummerbund, he passed it round my arm (not neck) and showed me the turn as coolly as a sailor once taught me the hangman’s knot. The Thug is of any caste, and belongs to any part of India. The profession have particular stations, where they generally murder, throwing the body into a well. The Dakoit (dakhee, a robber) is one of a class who rob in gangs, but never commit murder - arson and housebreaking are also their profession. These are all high-class Rajpoots, originally from Guzerat, who, on being conquered, vowed vengeance on mankind. They talk both Hindostanee and the otherwise extinct Guzerat language. This latter the Dakoit spoke to me: it was guttural in the extreme, and very singular in sound. These are a very remarkable people, found all over India, and called by various names, as Buddacks (butchers), Sear Marwa, or Shighal Khof (jackall-eaters in pure Persian, i.e., a barbarian with no prejudice against the unclean). The women dress peculiarly, and are utterly devoid of modesty. The specimen I examined was a short, square, but far from powerful Nepalese, with high arched eye-brows, and no organs of observation. These people are great cowards. The poisoners all belong to one caste of Pasie, or dealers in toddy: they go singly or in gangs, haunting the travellers’ resting places, where they drop half a rupee weight of pounded or whole Datura seeds into his food, producing a twenty-four hours’ intoxication, during which he is robbed, and left to recover or sink under the stupifying effects of the narcotic. He told me that the Datura seed is gathered at any time, place, or age of the plant. He was a dirty, ill-conditioned looking fellow, with no bumps behind his ears, or prominence of eyebrow region, but an undeniable cerebellum.

As you may care to hear more of these celebrated Thugs, I will give you what information I picked up. (All this and better, too, you will find in Sleeman’s Reports). Though now all but extinct (except in Cuttack), through ten or fifteen years of increasing vigilance on the part of our Government, and incredible activity and acuteness on the officers employed, they were till then a wonderfully numerous body, who abstained from their vocation solely in the immediate neighbourhood of their own villages. These villages, however, were not exempt from the visits of other Thugs; so that, as Major Sleeman says, “The annually returning tide of murder swept unsparingly over the whole face of India, from the Sutledge to the sea-coast, and from the Himalaya to Cape Oomorin. One narrow district alone was free, the Concan, beyond the ghauts, whither they never penetrated.” In Bengal, river Thugs, of whom I shall tell you hereafter, replace the travelling practitioner. Khandush and Bohilcund alone harboured no Thugs as residents, but they were nevertheless haunted by the gangs.

Their origin is uncertain, but supposed to be very early, soon after the Mahommedan conquest. They now claim a divine original, and are supposed to have supernatural powers, and to be the emissaries of the divinity, like the wolf, the tiger, and the bear. It is only lately that they have swarmed so prodigiously, - seven original gangs having migrated from Delhi to the Gangetic provinces about 200 years ago, and from these all the rest have sprung. Many belong to the most amiable, intelligent and respectable classes of the lower and even middle ranks: they love their profession, regard murder as sport, and are never haunted with dreams, or troubled with pangs of conscience during hours of solitude, or in the last moments of life. The victim is an acceptable sacrifice to the Goddess Davee, who by some classes is supposed to eat the lifeless body, and thus save her votaries the necessity of coucealing it.

They are extremely superstitious, always consulting omens, such as the direction in which a hare or jackall crosses the road; and even far more trivial circumstances will determine the fate of a dozen of people, and perhaps an immense treasure. All worship the pick-axe, which is symbolical of their profession, and an oath sworn on it binds closer than on the Koran. The consecration of this weapon is a most elaborate ceremony, and takes place only under certain trees. They rise through various grades to the highest of strangler; the lowest are scouts; second, sextons; the third are holders of the victims’ hands.

Though all agree in never practising cruelty, or robbing previous to murder, - never allowing any but infants to escape, and these are trained to Thuggee, - and never leaving a trace of such goods as may be identified, - there are several variations in their mode of conducting operations. Some tribes spare certain castes, others none: murder of woman is against all rules; but the practice crept into certain gangs, and this it is which led to their discountenance by the Goddess Davee, and the consequent downfall of tbe system. Davee, they say, allowed the British to punish them, because a certain gang had murdered the mothers to obtain their daughters to be sold to prostitution. [. . .]’

16 March 1848
‘We arrived at Benares. The Ganges is here a broad stream, and rises 43 feet during the rains, with a current of eight miles an hour, and, I am informed, carries along one-quarter per cent, of sediment. The fall from hence is 300 feet to the junction of the Ganges and Hooghly, which is one foot to every hundred miles. My observations make the fall from Mirzapore to Benares very much greater.

Benares is the Athens of India. The variety of buildings along the bank is incredible. There are temples of all shapes, in all stages of completeness, and at all angles of inclination; for the banks give way so much that many of these edifices are fearfully out of the perpendicular. It is a most quaint river-frontage; and perhaps, to a long resident in India, it may look magnificent; but I was much disappointed. As an eastern city it is incomparably inferior to Cairo. [. . .]

The general appearance of an oriental town is always more or less ruinous; and here there was nothing to be seen of architecture but crumbling house-tops beyond the banks of the river. The eye is fatigued with pigeons, parrots, pots, plaster, pan-tiles, the ear with prayer-bells and Poojahs; whilst the Peepul and Parkimonia are the only green things to be seen on this side of the bright meadows and green trees which adorn the European residents’ dwellings, some four miles back from the river. The streets are so narrow, that it is difficult to ride a horse through them; and the houses are often six stories high, with galleries crossing above, from house to house. These tall, gaunt edifices sometimes give place to clumps of cottages, and a mass of dusty ruins, the unsavoury retreats of vermin and filth.’

Along the Rocky river

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edward John Eyre, a rather extraordinary character who travelled to Australia when still a teenager, tried out sheep farming, but then made a name for himself as an explorer and by managing relations between settlers and aborigines. Determined on a career as a colonial administrator, he moved from minor post to minor post but proved rather incompetent. During his final posting in Jamaica, his government was responsible for quashing a rebellion and causing hundreds of deaths in the process. These events led to a huge controversy in Britain, with some calling for Eyre to be prosecuted for murder, and others believing he had saved Jamaica for the empire. There is no evidence he was a diarist by nature, but he did keep a journal on his most important expedition across South Australia from Adelaide to Albany.

Eyre was born into a religious family in Bedfordshire on 5 August 1815, although soon after his family moved to Hornsea, Yorkshire. He was schooled at Louth and Sedbergh, but left at 16 intent on joining the army. Before his papers came through, however, his father suggested Australia as an alternative. He travelled there, when still only 17, with £400 capital, and took work with a sheep farmer in New South Wales (NSW). He tried to establish his own sheep farm but when this failed he turned to overlanding, i.e. driving sheep and cattle from NSW to new settlements in South Australia. This gave him a thirst for exploring. His first expedition lasted six months, and the second, from Adelaide to Albany in Western Australia, a year.

Although this last expedition ruined him financially, Eyre returned to Adelaide something of a hero, and with considerable experience of aborigines. The governor of South Australia, appointed him magistrate and protector of the aborigines. Unlike many settlers, he believed that it was possible for Europeans to co-exist with the aborigines, and he proved a great success in the job. In 1845, he published Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of Australia. That same year, he returned to England and found appointment as lieutenant-governor of the South Island of New Zealand. He sailed for New Zealand at the beginning of 1847, and remained until 1853. However, he was not particularly suited to public office, socially shy and physically awkward, according to biographers; and he was hindered by difficult relations with the settlers and with the governor, Sir George Grey. Adelaide Ormond, who he had met in England, sailed out to marry him in 1850. They would have five children.

In late 1854, Eyre became lieutenant-governor of the island of St Vincent. The couple returned to England on leave in 1857, but Adelaide stayed behind when her husband went back. In 1859, he was appointed temporary governor of Leeward Islands, based in Antigua, before once again returning home the following year. His next appointment was as acting governor of Jamaica, and then, in 1864, as governor-in-chief. The following year, he was faced with a serious riot by hundreds of black people at Morant Bay, and responded by declaring martial law in parts of the country. Government forces dealt with the unrest forcefully, killing or executing over 500 people in the process. George William Gordon, a coloured local politician who had long been a pain in Eyre’s side, was considered responsible for the rebellion, and was soon arrested, tried and hanged. While Eyre was hailed as a hero among the whites in Jamaica, in England he was heavily criticised. A royal commission was set up to look into the rebellion and subsequent events. It proved highly critical of Eyre, and he was dismissed from his post.

On returning home, Eyre’s role in the Morant Bay Rebellion and its aftermath caused great controversy. Some (including Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley) called for him to be indicted for murder; others (such as Charles Dickens and John Ruskin), however, believed he had saved Jamaica for the empire. He managed to avoid prosecution by the government; and he was exonerated in a case brought against him in civil court. Although not offered another post, he did eventually secure a pension, and retired to live a quiet life in Devon. He died in 1901. Further information is available from Wikipedia, the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Excellent Explorers, or from The Life of Edward John Eyre by Hamilton Hume (1867) available at Internet Archive.

Encyclopaedia of New Zealand (1966), which bizarrely gives Yorkshire as Eyre’s place of birth and death, gives this assessment of the man: ‘Eyre was stubborn, obstinate, and unteachable. These qualities, however necessary for the explorer of parched continents, were positive disqualifications for an administrator. In New Zealand he could not do much harm - in fact, he was merely a rather pathetic figure of fun - but in Jamaica nemesis overtook him and he played out his tragedy with the world for his audience. But Carlyle’s view of him as a “hero” possibly penetrates further to the truth than his opponents' conception of him as simply the villain of the piece.’

During his time as an explorer in Australia, Eyre kept diaries, and he prepared them for publication while en route to London by ship in 1844. They were published in two volumes by T & W Boone in 1845 under the title Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, and Overland from Adelaide to King George’s Sound, in the years 1840-1. The volumes are freely available at Project Gutenberg or the University of Adelaide website. Here are several extracts.

27 June 1840
‘In crossing the southern extremity of these large plains, we came suddenly upon a small party of natives engaged in digging yams of which the plains were full; they were so intent upon their occupation that we were close to them before they were aware of our presence; when they saw us they appeared to be surprised and alarmed, and endeavoured to steal off as rapidly as they could without fairly taking to their heels, for they were evidently either unwilling or afraid to run; finding that we did not molest them they halted, and informed us by signs that we should soon come to water, in the direction we were going. This I knew to be true, and about three o’clock we were in front of a water-course, I had on a former journey named the “Rocky river,” from the ragged character of its bed where we struck it.

We had been travelling for some distance upon a high level open country, and now came to a sudden gorge of several hundred feet below us, through which the Rocky river wound its course. It was a most singular and wild looking place, and was not inaptly named by the men, the “Devil’s Glen;” looking down from the table land we were upon, the valley beneath appeared occupied by a hundred little hills of steep ascent and rounded summits, whilst through their pretty glens, flowed the winding stream, shaded by many a tree and shrub - the whole forming a most interesting and picturesque scene.

The bed of the watercourse was over an earthy slate, and the water had a sweetish taste. Like most of the Australian rivers, it consisted only of ponds connected by a running stream, and even that ceased to flow a little beyond where we struck it, being lost in the deep sandy channel which it then assumed, and which exhibited in many places traces of very high floods. Below our camp the banks were 50 to 60 feet high, and the width from 60 to 100 yards, its course lay through plains to the south-west, over which patches of scrub were scattered at intervals, and the land in its vicinity was of an inferior description, with much prickly grass growing upon it.

Upwards, the Rocky river, after emerging from the gorges in which we found it, descended through very extensive plains from the north-north-east; there was plenty of water in its bed, and abundance of grass over the plains, so that in its upper parts it offers fine and extensive runs for either cattle or sheep, and will, I have no doubt, ere many years be past, be fully occupied for pastoral purposes.’

19 September 1840
‘This morning I unloaded the dray of every thing except the water casks, and pitching my tent among the scrub took up my quarters alone, whilst I sent back the man, the native boy, the dray, and all the horses with Mr. Scott to Baxter’s range. As they made an early start, I gave them instructions to push on as rapidly as possible, so as to get the range that night, to rest the horses next day and fill the casks with water, and on the third day, if possible, to return the whole distance and rejoin me.

Having seen them fairly away, I occupied myself in writing and charting during the day, and at night amused myself in taking stellar observations for latitude. I had already taken the altitude of Vega, and deduced the latitude to be 32 degrees 3 minutes 23 seconds S.; leaving my artificial horizon on the ground outside whilst I remained in the tent waiting until Altair came to the meridian, I then took my sextant and went out to observe this star also; but upon putting down my hand to take hold of the horizon glass in order to wipe the dew off, my fingers went into the quick-silver - the horizon glass was gone, and also the piece of canvass I had put on the ground to lie down upon whilst observing so low an altitude as that of Vega. Searching a little more I missed a spade, a parcel of horse shoes, an axe, a tin dish, some ropes, a grubbing hoe, and several smaller things which had been left outside the tent, as not being likely to take any injury from the damp.

It was evident I was surrounded by natives, who had stolen all these things during the short time I had been in my tent, certainly not exceeding half an hour. The night was very windy and I had heard nothing, besides I was encamped in the midst of a very dense brush of large wide-spreading tea-trees and other bushes, any of which would afford a screen for a considerable number of natives. In daylight it was impossible to see many yards in distance, and nothing could be discerned at night. The natives must have watched the dray go away in the morning, and waited until dark for their opportunity to rob me; and most daringly and effectually had they done it. At the time that I lay on the ground, taking the star’s altitude, they must have been close to me, and after I went into the tent, they doubtless saw me sitting there by the light of the candle, since the door was not quite closed, and they had come quite in front to obtain some of the things they had stolen. The only wonder with me was that they had not speared me, as they could scarcely have been intimidated by my individual presence.

As soon as I missed my horizon glass, and entertained the suspicion of natives being about, I hurried into the tent and lighting a large blue light, run with it rapidly through the bushes around me. The effect of this was very beautiful amidst the darkness and gloom of the woods, and for a great distance in every direction objects could be seen as well as by day; the natives, however, were gone, and I could only console myself by firing a couple of balls after them through the underwood to warn them of the danger of intruding upon me again; I then put every thing which had been left outside, into the tent, and kept watch for an hour or two, but my visitors came no more. The shots, or the blue light, had effectually frightened them. They had, however, in their turn, produced as great an effect upon me, and had at least deprived me of one night’s rest.’

20 September 1840
‘Rising very early I set to work, with an axe, to clear away the bushes from around my tent. I now discovered that the natives had been concealed behind a large tea-tree not twenty yards from the tent; there were numerous foot-marks there, and the remains of fire-sticks which they had brought with them, for a native rarely moves at night without fire.

By working hard I cleared a large circle with a radius of from thirty to forty yards, and then piling up all the bushes outside and around the tent, which was in the centre, I was completely fortified, and my sable friends could no longer creep upon me to steal without my hearing them. I spent great part of the day in charting, and took a few angles from the tent, but did not dare to venture far away. At night, when it was dark, I mounted guard with my gun for three hours, walking round outside the tent, and firing off my gun before I lay down, which I did with my clothes on, ready to get up at a moment’s notice. Nothing, however, disturbed me.’

21 September 1840
‘I had been occupied during the greater part of the day in charting, and in the evening was just shouldering my gun to mount guard again, when I was delighted to see Mr. Scott returning with the dray, and the party all safe. They had executed the duty entrusted to them well, and had lost no time in rejoining me; the horses were, however, somewhat fatigued, having come all the way from the range in one day. Being now reinforced, I had no longer occasion to mount guard, and for the first time since the natives had stolen upon me, enjoyed a sound sleep.’

18 May 1841
‘This morning we had to travel upon a soft heavy beach, and moved slowly and with difficulty along, and three of the horses were continually attempting to lie down on the road. At twelve miles, we found some nice green grass, and although we could not procure water here, I determined to halt for the sake of the horses. The weather was cool and pleasant. From our camp Mount Ragged bore N. 35 degrees W., and the island we had seen for the last two days, E. 18 degrees S. Having seen some large kangaroos near our camp, I sent Wylie with the rifle to try and get one. At dark he returned bringing home a young one, large enough for two good meals; upon this we feasted at night, and for once Wylie admitted that his belly was full. He commenced by eating a pound and a half of horse-flesh, and a little bread, he then ate the entrails, paunch, liver, lights, tail, and two hind legs of the young kangaroo, next followed a penguin, that he had found dead upon the beach, upon this he forced down the whole of the hide of the kangaroo after singeing the hair off, and wound up this meal by swallowing the tough skin of the penguin; he then made a little fire, and laid down to sleep, and dream of the pleasures of eating, nor do I think he was ever happier in his life than at that moment.’

The slurs of vessel owners

‘The trial comes on this week. I am to defend the mate; and that I can do with a clear conscience, for I believe him innocent even of an unjustifiable assault; but to stand by in silence and see a guilty man escape, when the weapon to convict him is in my own hand, is hard indeed.’ This is the American lawyer Richard Henry Dana Jr, born 200 years ago today, writing in his diary about the case of a ‘poor negro’ who had died from flogging on board a ship. Although the ship’s mate, being defended by Dana, had told him who was guilty he refused to testify to this in court. The diaries are said to provide one of the fullest portrayals available of the social life of a well-connected Boston family of the time.

Dana was born on 1 August 1815 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, into a distinguished New England family. His father - also Richard Henry - was a lawyer and a pioneer of American literature. Dana Jr was first schooled in Cambridgeport, then in a private school overseen by Ralph Waldo Emerson. In 1831, he enrolled at Harvard College, where he was given a six-month suspension for taking part in a protest. He contracted measles, followed by ophthalmia. Thinking it would help his failing vision to go to sea, he enlisted as a merchant seaman, on a brig called Pilgrim leaving Boston and bound for Alta California, then part of Mexico. On witnessing floggings, he vowed to try to help improve conditions for seamen. For much of the time in California, he was curing hides and loading them onto ships. He returned two years later on another vessel, the Alert, experiencing terrifying weather conditions.

Dana then enrolled in Dane (now Harvard) Law School, and was admitted to the bar in 1840. That same year he succeeded, after various attempts, to publish a book - Two Years Before the Mist - based on diaries he had kept during his experience as a merchant seaman. The book (available at Internet Archive) has become a classic of American literature. Essayist Morris Wright wrote, in a 1960s edition of the book, that it was ‘conceived as a protest and written to improve the lot of the common sailor’; and he also claims it influenced Herman Melville (who was born on the same day as Dana but four years later, and who would write Moby Dick a decade after Dana’s book). In 1841, Dana published The Seaman’s Friend, an authoritative guide to the legal rights and duties of sailors. The same year he married Sarah Watson; they had four daughters and one son.

Dana went on to specialise in maritime law, but also to become involved in the abolition movement, helping to found the anti-slavery Free Soil Party in 1848, and to offer free legal aid to black people captured under the Fugitive Slave Law. In 1859, he travelled to Cuba, while the US was trying to decide whether to annex it or not, and subsequently published To Cuba and Back. During the Civil War, he served as a US Attorney, and successfully argued before the Supreme Court that the US government could rightfully blockade Confederate ports. In the late 1860s, he was a member of the Massachusetts legislature; and he also acted as a US counsel in the trial of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In 1976, President Ulysses S. Grant named him ambassador to Great Britain, but the Senate refused to confirm the appointment, partly because of a lawsuit for plagiarism brought against him concerning a legal textbook he had edited.

Dana retired from his law practice in 1878, and spent much of the rest of his life travelling. In 1881, he moved with his family to Rome, where he died the following year. Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, The Maritime Heritage Project, Mark Winthrop’s web pages, and Tom Tylers web pages.

Dana kept a diary for much of his life, extracts of which are liberally sprinkled through a two volume biography, edited by Charles Francis Adams and published, in two volumes in 1890, by Houghton, Mifflin. These are freely available at Internet Archive. In the 1960s, though, Harvard University Press (HUP) published a three volume edition of Dana’s journals, annotated by Robert F. Lucid. These contain, according to HUP, Dana’s diaries, begun in 1841 and continued through to 1860, in their ‘entirety’. (However, Dana clearly kept diaries before this date, since it is well known he used those he kept during his 1934-1936 seaman days to write Two Years Before the Mist.) According to HUP: ‘the Journal provides graphic descriptions of Dana’s important legal cases, political and social activities and, in the process, one of the fullest portrayals available of the social life of a well-connected Boston family of the time.’

Here are a few extracts from Dana’s diaries taken from the first volume of Adams’ 1890 biography.

18 January 1842
‘Nothing talked of but Dickens’ arrival. The town is mad. All calling on him. I shan’t go unless sent for. I can’t submit to sink the equality of a gentleman by crowding after a man of note.’

26 January 1842
‘Letter from T. Colley Grattan (“High-ways and By-ways”) saying that Dickens wishes to see me, and is surprised that I have not called before, and fixing two P. M. for a call. At two P. M. call at Tremont House and am told that he is engaged. Send up name and am shown up. Kept disengaged on purpose to see Longfellow and myself. Talk a few minutes when Longfellow comes in with Sumner. Disappointed in D.’s appearance. We have heard him called “the handsomest man in London,” etc. He is of the middle height (under if anything), with a large, expressive eye, regular nose, matted, curling, wet-looking black hair, a dissipated looking mouth with a vulgar draw to it, a muddy olive complexion, stubby fingers, and a hand by no means patrician, a hearty, off-hand manner far from well-bred, and a rapid, dashing way of talking. He looks “wide awake,” “ up to everything,” full of cleverness, with quick feelings and great ardor. You admire him, and there is a fascination about him which keeps your eyes on him, yet you cannot get over the impression that he is a low-bred man. Tom Appleton says, “Take the genius out of his face, and there are a thousand young London shop-keepers about the theatres and eating-houses who look exactly like him. He has what I suppose to be true Cockney cut.

He inquires for father, and wonders he has not been to see him. Offers to call on him if he is unwell.’

27 January 1842
‘Dine with Dickens at F. C. Gray’s. [. . .] Like Dickens here very much. The gentlemen are talking their best, but Dickens is perfectly natural and unpretending. He could not have behaved better. He did not say a single thing for display. I should think he had resolved to talk as he would at home, and let his reputation take care of itself. He gave a capital description of Abbotsford [the mansion built by Walter Scott]. It was enough to make you cry. He described the hat Scott wore in his last illness, and the dents and bruises there were in it from his head falling against his chair when he lost the power of his muscles. It was heart-sickening. “And to think of a man’s killing himself for such a miserable place as Abbotsford is,” adds Dickens.

C. P. Curtis asks him if there were any such magistrates in London as Fang in “Oliver Twist.” Dickens says, “One just such, and many more like him,” and tells us that his Fang is a portrait of a magistrate named Tang, who was sitting when the book appeared, and that he was removed by the Home Department in ten weeks after the publication, upon a thorough inquiry. . .’

5 February 1842
‘Called on Dickens at 10.30 A. M. by appointment, as he leaves at one. He was at breakfast. Sat down with him. He was very agreeable and full of life. He is the cleverest man I ever met. I mean he impresses you more with the alertness of his various powers. His forces are all light infantry and light cavalry, and always in marching order. There are not many heavy pieces, but few sappers and miners, the scientific corps is deficient, and I fear there is no chaplain in the garrison.

Mrs. Dickens appears to be an excellent woman. She is natural in her manners, seems not at all elated by her new position, but rests upon a foundation of good sense and good feeling.’

14 December 1842
‘I had sued Captain Perkins and his brother the mate of the bark Clarissa Perkins for assaulting two seamen named Singleton and Parsons. Singleton is likely to die of his wounds, so I made complaint, and had the captain bound over criminally. I was obliged to do this because the district attorney declined acting. I can conceive of no reason except that in arguing against Bryant he got his feelings settled in favor of the officers. Dehon, who defended Perkins, alluded to my forwardness in urging the complaint against the master as an interference. I took him to task for this, and we had a long talk which resulted in my feeling more affection and respect for Dehon than before. He is a good fellow and has honorable feelings.

I often have a good deal to contend with in the slurs or open opposition of masters and owners of vessels whose seamen I undertake to defend or look after. It is more unpleasant when this is retailed by the counsel. Young lawyers are apt to take up the excitement and prejudice of the clients, which they ought to allay and keep free from. I never have trouble with the upper class of merchants, but only with the small grinding machines and petty traders who save by small medicine chests and poor provisions.’

3 April 1843
‘Spent the forenoon in court hearing Choate and Dexter in United States v. Le Crow, indicted for withholding provisions from his crew. Choate made a good argument, but flowery, overstrained and extravagant. Dexter was admirable. That man always seeks to come down upon his case. He seems to be a gentleman practising law, and not a mere lawyer. Calm, courteous, liberal and high-minded man.

A very troublesome case of professional difficulty has been harassing me for a week or two. A captain and mate of a merchant vessel were complained of for causing the death of the steward, a poor negro. The facts, as testified to by the men at the preliminary examination, were these: That the master and mate flogged the steward badly about four P. M. for insolence, etc. That the steward then went about his business for an hour or two. That he was again, about eight P. M., flogged, kicked and beaten badly by the master alone, so badly as would have caused the death of many men, as the crew believed. That after this last beating the captain ordered the mate to assist in taking the steward into the cabin. The mate did so. They lifted him in, he groaning like a dying man. After this the crew saw no more. There were no passengers, and no one in the cabin but the master and officers. The second mate was in his state-room, and swore that he knew nothing of the matter. The next morning, when the cook went to call the steward, he found him dead. The cook told the master and officers, and they went to his berth, and there found a glass stopple. They then went to the medicine chest, and the laudanum bottle was missing. They then said that the steward poisoned himself. The crew doubted this story.

The preliminary examination took place, and the master and mate were bound over to appear before the Grand Jury. In the interval the mate came to me and told me that he wished to ask my advice and to retain me as his counsel. He said he had a distinct defence from his captain, and must have separate advice and defence. He then told me confidentially, as his counsel, the whole story. When he had assisted the master in taking the steward into the cabin, they set him in a chair and found him dead. The captain then said, “Then I am in difficulty. You must assist me.” They then took the steward, laid him in his berth, the captain got the laudanum bottle from the medicine chest, poured out the laudanum, and placed the empty bottle and stopple by the side of the berth, and then they went to bed.

This was the case. All the facts testified to by the crew sustained its probability. It was stated solemnly, and was somewhat unfavorable to the communicator of it. Here then was, as I could not doubt, a case of manslaughter, if not of murder. Yet my knowledge of the facts came to me in the sacred character of a professional communication. I could not use them against my client. The law, as well as my own sense of justice and of the reason grounded in the policy of the profession, would forbid my divulging it. Unless a man can be safe in making a communication to his counsel, there would be an end of defences against every charge. I had received it, too, from a man who had a right and was able to keep his own secret under the implied, if not express, promise of secrecy. On the other hand, unless some use was made of the mate’s testimony, the master would go unpunished. I did all in my power to persuade the mate to go to the prosecuting officer and divulge the story, and promised him my assistance, and assured him that he would be safe; but he would not become state’s evidence, and he said it would ruin him with his employers, who were connected with the master, and being a foreigner he had nowhere else to look for support.

In this state I had to stand by and see the case changed from a charge of homicide to one of mere assault and battery for want of sufficient evidence. I did, several times, in conversation, express a strong opinion to a prosecuting officer, grounded on the evidence in court alone, however, that an indictment for manslaughter would be sustained against the master. But he would not risk it.

The trial comes on this week. I am to defend the mate; and that I can do with a clear conscience, for I believe him innocent even of an unjustifiable assault; but to stand by in silence and see a guilty man escape, when the weapon to convict him is in my own hand, is hard indeed. I have struggled against a desire to divulge, in some secret manner, the truth and the means of getting at it to the prosecuting officer. But I feel it would be wrong. I am merely unfortunate in possessing this painful knowledge.’

Finally, it is worth noting that Dana’s only son, also called Richard Henry, kept a diary. He married the daughter of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and made a name for himself as a lawyer and civil service reformer. Part of his diary was published in 1921 by Houghton Mifflin as Hospitable England in the Seventies: A Diary of a Young American 1875-1876, and can be read online at Internet Archive.

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, Rob Martin’s Isle of Wight pages, City of London website, 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

Wall Street palpitating

It is 140 years today since the death of George Templeton Strong, a New York lawyer remembered for his remarkable diary, which provides a near-daily description, a living history, of his city during the mid-19th century. He was as keen on writing about fire emergencies, financial panic (‘Wall Street has been palpitating uneasily all day’), and riots in the streets as he was about the nuisance of organ-grinders outside his house. Some say Strong’s is the greatest American diary in the nineteenth century.

Strong was born in his father’s house in Manhattan in 1820, and was educated at Columbia College. He trained as a lawyer, and joined his father’s firm, practicing as a real estate attorney. He married Ellen Ruggles in 1848, both of them keen amateur musicians, and moved into a house near Gramercy Park. They had one son (also George, but not born until 1856), who became a composer and painter and spent most of his adult life in Europe.

In the 1860s, and through the Civil War, Strong took on various public service roles, serving on the executive committee of the Sanitary Commission (a precursor of the American Red Cross), helping found the Union League Club of New York, and acting as a trustee of Columbia College. He was also a vestryman at Trinity Episcopal Church, and, from 1870 to 1874, president of the New York Philharmonic. He died relatively young, on 21 July 1875. A little further biographical information is available at Greenwich Village History, Mr Lincoln and New York, or Wikipedia.

Strong is mostly remembered for the daily diary he kept from the age of fifteen and for the next 40 years - amounting to some four million words. The manuscript diaries are held by the New-York Historical Society, and have been edited twice for publication. The first time was by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas (four volumes, Macmillan, 1952). This version was abridged into one volume in 1988 for publication by University of Washington Press. According to Nevins: ‘Strong was an artist who was consciously trying to render his own city, his own time, his own personality in such form that later generations could comprehend them.’ The diaries were also edited by Vera Brodsky Lawrence for her three volumes: Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong (University of Chicago Press, 1988-1999).

A few extracts from Strong’s diary (taken from the originals at the New-York Historical Society) can be found online at The New York Times. Other extracts (taken from the Nevins/Thomas volumes) can be found at Googlebooks in The Civil War - The Third Year Told By Those Who Lived It, edited by Brooks D Simpson; and in Writing New York - a literary anthology, edited by Phillip Lopate. Lopate says Strong’s diary is ‘the greatest American diary in the nineteenth century’, remarkable not only for its length but for ‘the flavoursome precision of the writing’.

Here are several extracts culled from Writing New York.

23 November 1851
‘Fearful calamity at a public school in Ninth Ward Thursday afternoon, a false alarm of fire, a panic, a stampede downstairs of 1,800 children, and near fifty killed on the spot and many more wounded - a massacre of the innocents. The stair banisters gave way, and the children fell into the square well round which the stairs wound, where the heap of killed and wounded lay for hours before help could reach them. The doors opened inwards. The bodies were piled up to the top of the doors; they did not dare burst them open and had to cut them slowly away with knives.’

5 July 1852
‘Have been at home all day writing. Tonight went on the roof awhile. It’s a beautiful sight the city presents. In every direction one incessant sparkle of fire balls, rockets, roman candles, and stars of all colors shooting thick into the air and disappearing for miles around, with now and then a glare of coloured light coming out in some neighbourhood where fireworks on a large scale are going off. A foreigner would put it in his book of travels as one of the marvels of New York, and compare it to a swarm of tropical fireflies gleaming in and out through a Brazilian forest.’

23 November 1855
‘I must ascertain whether the mighty bug-destroyer Lyons has no modification of his cockroach powder that will exterminate organ-grinders. We suffer peculiarly here, for the street is very quiet, and they play all round the square before they leave it and are more or less audible at each successive station. I have been undergoing the performances of one of the tribe for an hour and a half and have heard “Casta Diva,” “Ah, Non Giunge,” the first chorus of Ernani, and some platitude from the Trovatore languidly ground out six times each. It makes me feel homicidal. If Abel had gone about with hand organs, I shouldn’t censure Cain so very harshly. There goes “Casta Diva” for the seventh time!’

14 October 1857
‘We have burst. All the banks declined paying specie this morning, with the ridiculous exception of the Chemical, which is a little private shaving-shop of the Joneses with no depositors but its own stockholders.

Wall Street has been palpitating uneasily all day, but the first effect of the suspension is, of course, to make men breathe more freely. A special session is confidently expected, and the meeting of merchants at the Exchange at 3:30 P.M. appointed a committee that has gone to Albany to lay the case before Governor King. He ought to decline interference, but were I in his place I dare say my virtue would give way.

My great anxiety has been for the savings banks. Saw the officers of the two in which I feel a special interest (the Bleecker Street and Seaman’s). Both were suicidally paying specie and thus inviting depositors to come forward to get the gold they could get nowhere else and could sell at a premium. The latter changes from specie to bills tomorrow; the former did so this afternoon. All the savings banks are to do so tomorrow. The run has been very formidable; some say not so severe as it was yesterday, but bad enough. I think they will get through.’

14 July 1863
‘Eleven P.M. Fire bells clanking, as they have clanked at intervals through the evening. Plenty of rumours throughout the day and evening, but nothing very precise or authentic. There have been sundry collisions between the rabble and the authorities, civil and military. Mob fired upon. It generally runs, but on one occasion appears to have rallied, charged the police and militia, and forced them back in disorder. The people are waking up, and by tomorrow there will adequate organization to protect property and life. Many details come in of yesterday’s brutal, cowardly ruffianism and plunder. Shops were cleaned out and a black man hanged in Carmine Street, for no offence but that of Nigritude. Opdyke’s house again attacked this morning by a roaming handful of Irish blackguards. Two or three gentlemen who chanced to be passing saved it from sack by a vigorous charge and dispersed the popular uprising (as the Herald, World, and News call it), with their walking sticks and their fists.

Walked uptown perforce, for no cars and few omnibi were running. They are suppressed by threats of burning railroad and omnibus stables, the drivers being wanted to reinforce the mob. Tiffany’s shop, Ball & Black’s, and a few other Broadway establishments are closed. (Here I am interrupted by a report of a fire near at hand, and a great glare on the houses across the Park. Sally forth, and find the Eighteenth Ward station house, Twenty-second Street, near First Avenue, in full blaze. A splendid blaze it made, but I did not venture below Second Avenue, finding myself in a crowd of Celtic spectators disgorged by the circumjacent tenement houses. They were exulting over the damage to “them bloody police,” and so on. I thought discretion the better part of curiosity. Distance lent enchantment to that view.)

At 823 with Bellows four to six; then home. At eight to Union League Club. Rumor it’s to be attacked tonight. Some say there is to be a great mischief tonight and that the rabble is getting the upper hand. Home at ten and sent for by Dudley Field, Jr., to confer about an expected attack on his house and his father’s, which adjoin each other in this street just below Lexington Avenue. He has a party there with muskets and talks of fearful trouble before morning, but he is always a blower and a very poor devil. Fire bells again again at twelve-fifteen. No light of conflagration is visible. [. . .]

A good deal of yelling to the eastward just now. The Fields and their near neighbour, Colonel Frank Howe, are as likely to be attacked by this traitor-guilded mob as any people I know. If they are, we shall see trouble in this quarter, and Gramercy Park will acquire historical associations. O, how tired I am! But I feel reluctant to go to bed. I believe I dozed off a minute or two. There came something like two reports of artillery, perhaps only falling walls. There go two jolly Celts along the street, singing a genuine Celtic howl, something about “Tim O’Laggerty,” with a refrain of pure Erse. Long live the sovereigns of New York, Brian Boroo redivivus and multiplied. Paddy has left his Egypt - Connaught - and reigns in this promised land of milk and honey and perfect freedom. Hurrah, there goes a strong squad of police marching eastward down this street, followed by a company of infantry with gleaming bayonets. One A.M. Fire bells again, southeastward, “Swinging slow with sullen roar.” Now they are silent, and I shall go to bed, at least for a season.’

The Diary Junction

Diary briefs

Goebbels’ family wins royalty battle - The Guardian, Newsweek

WW1 diary of Royal Engineer online - Maynooth University, The Irish Times

Kolkata’s house of horror - Times of India, Zee News

Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary - Granta, Amazon

The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt - The Bookseller, Amazon

The wartime story of Wally Layne - Wally’s war website, Grantham Journal

Mystery traveller’s diary found in NZ - Otago Daily Times, Manchester Evening News

Extracts from Qin Geng’s prison diary - Radio Free Asia

Michael Palin on his diaries - The Guardian

Diary of an Aussie speechwriter - ABC.net

Japanese soldier’s wartime diary - The Asahi Shimbun

Dodgson in wonderland

‘Went to Macmillan’s and wrote in 20 or more copies of Alice to go as presents to various friends.’ This is Charles Dodgson, otherwise known as Lewis Carroll, writing in his diary exactly one hundred and fifty years ago today. Although there are widespread celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the first edition due for publishing in July 1865, was actually pulped - at least all but about 23 copies were. The reprinted work was not available for sale until several months later, with a formal publishing date of 1866.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born into a large family in 1832 in Daresbury, Cheshire. When he was 11, the family moved to Yorkshire, where his father, a clergyman, had been given the living at Croft-on-Tees. Charles was schooled at Richmond Grammar, and Rugby, before entering Christ Church, Oxford, where he excelled in maths and classics, gaining a degree in the former (in 1854). Thereafter, he stayed at the college, as a librarian and holding a lectureship. From early in life, Dodgson suffered from various ailments: he was deaf in one ear, he had a weak chest, and he had a significant stammer.

Settled in Oxford, Dodgson’s social, artistic and intellectual life began to flourish. He was charming and ambitious, it is said, and began to move in pre-Raphaelite circles, with the likes of John Ruskin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He took up photography in a serious way, often taking portraits of young girls. Having written poems and short stories since his boyhood days, he now began to publish them - mostly humorous or satirical works - to some acclaim. In 1856, a poem called Solitude appeared in The Train under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll - the first time he used the name. As a condition of residency at Christ Church, he was expected to become ordained as a deacon and then a priest. He delayed becoming a deacon, and, almost uniquely, managed to flout college rules and not take the final step to priesthood.

In the latter half of the 1850s, Dodgson became close friends with Henry Liddell, dean of the college, and his family, including a son and three daughters, one of them named Alice. In July 1862, while out boating with Alice and others, he made up the outline of a story that Alice then begged him to write down. More than two years later, he gave her a hand-written manuscript, with his own illustrations, called Alice's Adventures Under Ground. This is now held by the British Library, and can be viewed online. Other children also loved the story, and so, with support from the publisher Macmillan, Dodgson developed the manuscript into a book for publication. He commissioned John Tenniel for the illustrations, and it was published under Dodgson’s pseudonym. It enjoyed huge commercial success and made Lewis Carroll famous.

Dodgson published a sequel to Wonderland in 1871, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and, five years later, his other famous work, The Hunting of the Snark, a fantastical nonsense poem. He also continued to publish books on mathematical subjects; and he was keen on inventing gadgets and games and tricks. Dodgson never married, but he is known to have had several relationships, some thought to be scandalous, with adult women. He retired from his Christ Church lectureship in 1881, but was appointed Curator of Common Room. He died in Guildford in 1898. Further information is readily available online, at Wikipedia, The Lewis Carroll Society, The Victorian Web, an online exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center, an article in The Smithsonian, St Andrew’s University MacTutor archive, CliffsNotes etc.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - currently the focus of many 150th anniversary events - is also readily available online in different formats, at Internet Archive, for example, or as an ebook from the University of Adelaide website. And the internet is awash with information about, and articles on, the book, at Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Independent, The Guardian, for example, or Lenny’s Alice in Wonderland website.

However, it is worth noting that most copies of the book’s first print run, in July 1865, were withdrawn by Carroll because Tenniel thought his illustrations had been reproduced poorly. A new printer was commissioned and the first books available for the public appeared in late 1865 (though dated 1866). Only 23 copies of the original print run are known to exist (called ‘the 1865 Alice’) and remain among the rarest and most sought after books in publishing history. In mid-1866, Carroll sold some of the unbound first print run to Appleton’s in New York which replaced the title page before selling them (these are called ‘the Appleton Alice’).

Dodgson kept a fairly detailed diary throughout his adult life. Nine volumes are extant (with a few missing pages), the first is numbered 2, and the last 13 (covering the years 1855 to 1897), but four are considered missing (i.e. nos. 1, 3, 6 and 7). Following his death, the manuscript diaries were kept by members of the Dodgson family, and then by his estate until purchased by the British Library in 1969.

In 1953, Dodgson’s trustees commissioned Roger Lancelyn Green to edit sections of the journals. About two-thirds of the entire journal was included in this edition - The Diaries of Lewis Carroll (two volumes, Cassell, 1953) - with selections designed to emphasise Dodgson’s literary exploits. Much more recently, between 1993 and 2007, the full text of all nine surviving volumes has been edited by Edward Wakeling and published by The Lewis Carroll Society in 10 volumes (with many annotations and index). A full description and breakdown of these volumes’ contents can be found on the Lewis Carroll Society website.

The fifth volume of this modern edition consists of Dodgson’s ninth journal, from September 1864 to January 1868 (and includes the so-called Russian Journal - which had, in fact been published as early as 1935, by Dutton, New York). The Society provides this description of its contents: ‘The period covered by this ninth volume of Dodgson’s private journal covers the publication of the book which made him internationally famous. The journal begins with an entry for 13 September 1864 in which Dodgson records the completion of the illustrations drawn into his manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, prepared as a gift for Alice Liddell. Already, Dodgson’s decision to publish the book had been taken. He anticipated that its publication would be a significant event in his life, and he left space in his journal to record the chronological development of the book, adding subsequent entries to show the progress from manuscript to the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865.’

The Society’s description continues: ‘Dodgson, now in his early thirties, is revealed in his journal as a confident member of society, at ease in travelling around the country, enjoying the opportunities that life has for a young adult making his way in the world. He is now established as a senior member of Christ Church in the important position of mathematical lecturer with a string of mathematical publications to his name. He makes regular visits to London taking advantage of the art galleries and theatrical productions in which he is greatly interested. His photography, of which he has become very proficient, opens doors to the famous celebrities of his day. Yet there is a thread which runs through his journals which shows a man who is not entirely at ease with himself. The prayers grow in intensity. Self-doubts and his lack of ability to maintain the very high standards he has set for himself return to trouble him.’

Here are several entries from Dodgson’s diary number nine (to be found in the modern edition’s fifth volume) which refer specifically to the story/book that would bring him such fame.

13 September 1864
‘At Croft. Finished drawing the pictures in the MS copy of “Alice’s Adventures.” It was first told July 4, 1862. Headings written out (on my way to London) July 5, 1862. MS copy begun Nov 13, 1862. Text finished before Feb 10, 1864 [. . .]’

12 October 1864
‘Help me, oh God, to serve Thee better. For Jesus Christ’s sake.

Called on Macmillan, and had some talk about the book, but settled little. Then to Terry’s, to say that I have given up photographing in town this time. I found Mr. Terry (whom I had not seen before), Charlie and Tom. Florence is pretty, but not so fascinating as Polly: both will probably grow up beautiful. Thence I went to Tenniel’s who showed me one drawing on wood, the only thing he had, of Alice sitting by the pool of tears, and the rabbit hurrying away. We discussed the book, and agreed on about 34 pictures.’

8 April 1865
‘University Boat Race (it always is on the day before Palm Sunday, according to the Evening Herald), which Oxford won by 10 lengths. I did not go to it, but gave the day to Macmillan, Tenniel (who is doing the 30th picture), Holman Hunt, whom I found working at a very large picture (life size or nearly so) of Mrs. Fairbairn and children. Thence I went to the MacDonalds, and had a game of croquet with them.’

26 May 1865
‘Received from Macmillan a copy (blank all but the first sheet) of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, bound in red cloth as specimen.’

15 July 1865
‘Went to Macmillan’s and wrote in 20 or more copies of Alice to go as presents to various friends. This took so long that I did not get to Terry’s till 12½, where I photographed till about 4½, and took a large one of Miss Terry in fancy costume, Tom, a Miss Martin, a friend of theirs, and finally a family group of all but the baby.

Then I had a game of “Castle Croquet’ with Miss Terry, Mrs. Watts, and Polly. I made a sort of dinner at their tea, and ended by escorting Polly to the Olympic to see The Serf. We had Miss Terry’s season-ticket, and got good places in the dress-circle. After The Serf I took Polly round to the stage-door to join her sister and went back to see Glaucus, a very pretty burlesque. I mark these last three days with a white stone.’ [See Contrariwise for a detailed discussion of Dodgson’s ‘white stone’ references.]

20 July 1865
‘Called on Macmillan, and showed him Tenniel’s letter about the fairy-tale, he is entirely dissatisfied with the printing of the pictures, and I suppose we shall have to do it all again. (Millais recommends keeping back the 2000 printed at Oxford for future edition). Thence to Thomas’, the man there thinks the lamp is the cause, as I found when I tried yellow calico round it and got some first-rate negatives of Mrs. Millais, Effie, and Mary. Spent the evening again at Putney.’

2 August 1865
‘Finally decided on the re-print of Alice, and that the first 2000 shall be sold as waste paper. Wrote about it to Macmillan, Combe and Tenniel. The total cost will be: drawing pictures 138; cutting pictures 142; printing (by Clay) 240; binding & advertising (say) 89 = 600, i.e. 6/- a copy on the 2000. If I make £500 by sale, this will be a loss of £100, and the loss on the first 2000 will probably be £100 leaving me £200 out of pocket.

But if a second 2000 could be sold it would cost £300, and bring in £500, thus squaring accounts: and any further sale would be a gain: but that I can hardly hope for.’

9 November 1865
‘Received from Macmillan a copy of the impression of Alice, very far superior to the old, and in fact a perfect piece of artistic printing.’

An intriguing diary-related snippet about Dodgson is that he kept a short diary for and about Isa Bowman, 14 years old at the time. They had met when she was performing in a stage version of Alice in 1886, and then reprised the role in 1888 (when the diary was written). For a few years, she continued to visit and stay with him. His last novel - Sylvie and Bruno - was dedicated to her in 1889. A year or so after his death, Bowman published The Story of Lewis Carroll told for young people by The Real Alice in Wonderland (J. M. Dent, London, 1899). And in this book, Bowman includes a facsimile of the diary Carroll wrote for her. It is freely available to read online at Internet Archive.

Better than Proust’s madeleine

Happy birthday Timothy Garton Ash, historian and journalist. I sometimes read your articles in The Guardian, but, on seeing that your 60th birthday was upcoming, I raced to the library, yesterday in fact, to borrow The File: A Personal History. This is a book you wrote in the 1990s partly based on a Stasi report of your earlier life in Berlin (which you describe as ‘better than Proust’s madeleine’) and your own diaries - hence this article. Unfortunately, I can only find one mention of you in my own diaries - concerning something you wrote in 2005 about decivilisation, which chimed so well with a novel I’d just written that I couldn’t resist making a note of it.

Garton Ash was born on 12 July 1955. His father, John, had been a Royal Artillery officer, one of the first to land in Normandy on D-Day, and later a finance expert advising schools in the independent sector. Timothy himself was schooled at Sherborne, and then studied modern history at Oxford University. He moved to Berlin, in the early 1980s, to further his postgraduate research, and then travelled widely through Eastern Europe reporting on the emancipation of Central Europe from communism. He was appointed foreign editor of the Spectator, but also wrote for The Times and The Independent.

Since 1990, Garton Ash has been a Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, and, since 2000, Professor of European Studies. He is also the Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow. In the US, he maintains a part-time residence at the Hoover Institution (Stanford University). There is very little personal information about Garton Ash readily available on the internet, other than that he is married to Danuta, has two children, and is based in Oxford. More readily available is information on his fellowships (Royal Society of Literature, Royal Historical Society, and Royal Society of Arts) and awards (the Somerset Maugham Award, for example, the George Orwell Prize, and Orders of Merit from Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic).

Garton Ash’s most recent books are Facts Are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name and Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West. He writes a weekly column for The Guardian and is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. His current research is listed as being on global free speech in the age of the internet and mass migration.

After authoring, in the 1980s and early 1990s, several books on the recent history of central Europe, Garton Ash turned his attention to a more personal story. He discovered that the Stasi had kept a detailed file on his activities and movements while living in Berlin, and he returned to the city to look into the file, and, ultimately to write and publish a book on his findings - The File: A Personal History (HarperCollins 1997, republished by Atlantic Books in 2009, with a new afterword).

‘In this memoir,’ the publisher says, ‘Garton Ash describes what it was like to rediscover his younger self through the eyes of the Stasi, and then to go on to confront those who actually informed against him to the secret police. Moving from document to remembrance, from the offices of British intelligence to the living rooms of retired Stasi officers, The File is a personal narrative as gripping, as disquieting, and as morally provocative as any fiction by George Orwell or Graham Greene. And it is all true.’

Of interest to me, to this web site, is that Garton Ash kept a diary during his Berlin years, (I’ve no idea whether he has continued to keep one in the 30 odd years since - I hope so), and used that diary to inform and colour his literary and moral adventures in Stasi-land. Unfortunately, however, he rarely quotes from his diary at any length, preferring to cite it as the source of some piece of information about his whereabouts or feelings or thoughts. However, here are a few short extracts, as quoted in The File directly from his diary.

In the first pages of the book, Garton Ash reproduces a Stasi observation report on him for 6 October 1979 when he made a trip to East Berlin. He follows this by describing the contents of his own diary for that day, which has Claudia ‘cheeky in red beret and blue uniform coat’. ‘Over Friedrichstrasse,’ his diary continues, ‘searched down to the soles of my shoes (Duckers. Officer very impressed.)’ He then continues with memories of the day before quoting this, also from his diary of that day: ‘Becoming yet more intimate . . . The torchlit procession. The cold, cold east wind. Our warmth. The maze - encircled. Slipping through the columns, evading the policemen. Finally to ‘Ganymed’. Tolerable dinner. C. re. her ‘Jobben’. Her political activity. We cross back via Friedrichstr. To Diener’s . . . c.0300 at Uhlandstr. Daniel, desperate and pale-faced before the flat door - locked out!’

At the end of this introductory chapter Garton Ash writes: ‘The Stasi’s observation report, my own diary entry: two versions of one day in a life. The ‘object’ described with the cold outward eye of the secret policeman and my own subjective, allusive, emotional self-description. But what a gift to memory is a Stasi file. Far better than Proust’s madeleine.’

Garton Ash’s diary continues to inform and enrich his story in the book, part memoir, part analysis, part drama (in the sense that he confronts several of the people who had informed on him years earlier, and considers at length whether to mention their real names or not). But, as I’ve said, he rarely quotes more than a few words. Here’s some further, very brief, extracts from later in the book when he’s heading for Poland to cover the rise of Solidarity.

- ‘Poland,’ he writes in The File, ‘was what journalists call a ‘breaking story’. To follow such a story is like being lashed to the saddlestraps of a racehorse at full gallop: very exciting, but you don’t get the best view of the race. Yet I tried to achieve a view from the Grandstand, even an aerial view, and to understand the story as part of history. The history of the present. For me, Poland was also a cause. ‘Poland is my Spain,’ I wrote in my diary on Christmas Eve 1980.’

- ‘On the day I left East Berlin, my diary records: ‘It seems to me now odds-on that the Russians will march into Poland. (And the Germans? Dr D. today says Ja.)’ ’

- ‘I am startled to find that on the last page of my diary for 1980 I myself wrote: ‘There will be a nuclear war in the next decade.’ And then in capital letters, as if the lower case formulation was still inadequate: ‘WE WILL SEE A NUCLEAR WAR IN THIS DECADE.’ ’

As mentioned above, Garton Ash appears once only in my own diaries. This was in September 2005, and I was much taken up with my failure to get any attention for a novel I’d published, Kip Fenn - Reflections (more recently re-self-published in three volumes under the title Not a Brave New World - a trilogy in three wives). I had been very excited about this novel - the fictional memoir of an international diplomat, but one set in the future, spanning the whole of the 21st century, and very much focused on political and social issues, particularly the rich-poor divide. Despite its original format and story-line, I’d been unable to get anyone in the publishing industry to even glance at it, let alone take it seriously. That particular day, I noted in my diary several stories in The Guardian, all of which related directly to themes in my novel, in particular Garton Ash’s: Decivilisation is not as far away as we like to think.

Garton Ash concluded that article as follows: ‘In political preaching mode, we may take [hurricane] Katrina as an appeal to get serious about addressing these challenges, which means the great blocs and the great powers of the world [. . .] reaching for a new level of international cooperation.’ This is precisely, but precisely, the main and urgent theme of my novel.

I also note in my diary that day how the media was giving a lot of attention to the UN’s 60th birthday, and calling for an increase in the amount of aid to the developed world - again this is a major theme in my novel, one that dovetails with the need for a new level of international cooperation. Indeed, the career of the narrator, Kip Fenn, in my novel leads him to become head of a major new UN agency designed to fund sustainable development in developing countries to counteract the worst effects of climate change.

What I could not understand then, I still cannot understand today, is why the publishing world - by which I mean publishers, agents, reviewers etc. which effectively guard the gateway to both supply and demand - showed absolutely no interest in considering a serious novel, about our political and social future. As far as I can tell, nothing like it had been published before, or has been since - and yet I personally yearn for such novels, ones that have something to say beyond the emotional landscape of individuals or nirvanas of descriptive paradise.

So, once again Timothy Garton Ash, happy birthday, and if your interest is at all peaked by the idea of my novel, I’d be more than happy to send it to you - I’ve plenty lying around the house.

The rock and roll life

‘Today is my birthday and it’s the first one I ever spent on a train. Arrived Chicago at 1pm. Had a three-hour layover then caught the 4pm train for home. Should be there at 6.35 tomorrow morning. Happy birthday Bill. What a life.’ This is Bill Haley, the great - and some say forgotten - rock and roll star of the 1950s writing in a diary he kept for a few months at the height of his fame. Today also would have been his birthday - his 90th!

Bill Haley was born on 6 July 1925, into a musical family - his father played the banjo, and his mother keyboards. They moved from Highland Park, Michigan, to near Chester, Pennsylvania, during the Great Depression, but, by the age of 15, Bill had left home and was making money where he could by playing guitar. At some point during the 1940s, he was considered one of the top cowboy yodelers, known as Silver Yodeling Bill Haley.

For six years, Haley was a DJ and then musical director of Radio Station WPWA in Chester, Pennsylvania. He married his first wife, Dorothy Crowe, in 1946, and had two children with her. He led his own band - Bill Haley’s Saddlemen - which played at clubs around Philadelphia as well as on the radio. In 1951, the group made its first recordings on Ed Wilson’s Keystone Records. These included a cover of Rocket 88, a rhythm and blues song first recorded by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats earlier the same year in Memphis, Tennessee (considered by some to be the first ever rock and roll record). The following year, the Saddlemen changed its name to Bill Haley and the Comets. Success soon followed, with many top 20 hits over the next few years. Already divorced, Haley married his second wife, Barbara Joan Cupchack, with whom he had two children, though only one survived through infancy.

Crazy Man, Crazy and a cover version of Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle and Roll were the group’s first big hits; and the latter was the first rock and roll song to enter the British singles charts (December 1954). Rock Around the Clock, said to have been written for Haley, released in 1954, did not become a number one single, on both sides of the Atlantic, until a year later, after it appeared as the theme song for Blackboard Jungle starring Glenn Ford. History has settled on Rock Around the Clock, and specifically Haley’s recording of it, as the key record that brought rock and roll into mainstream culture around the world, thus in time displacing the jazz and pop standards performed by singers such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Bing Crosby.

Bill Haley and the Comets continued to record hits through the later 1950s, and Haley starred in the first rock and roll musical films Rock Around the Clock and Don’t Knock the Rock, both in 1956. It wasn’t long, though, before Elvis Presley arrived on the scene, eclipsing Haley, whose life, by the early 1960s, was falling apart: the Comets were in trouble, as was his marriage, and he had problem with tax debts. He fled to Mexico where he married his third wife, Martha Velasco, a dancer. They had one child together. There, he also signed up with a domestic record label, Orfeon, and his group released many songs recorded in Spanish.

As the 1960s progressed, Haley toured in Europe with fans keen to discover rock music’s roots, and the Sonet label giving him a lucrative deal. In the US, so-called revival concerts, first staged by promoter Richard Nader in 1969, brought Haley back into the limelight. By the early 70s, Rock Around the Clock was again a hit: re-recorded by Haley for a popular TV show, while the original recording appeared on the soundtrack of American Graffiti. Having been dogged by alcohol problems, Haley’s health deteriorated quickly. After performing in front of Queen Elizabeth II in late 1979 at a Royal Variety Performance, he went on tour to South Africa where he gave his very last performances - a tour to Germany was cancelled. He may, or may not, have had a brain tumour, but his mental and physical health collapsed in the months following, and he died in early 1981. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Further biographical information can be found at Wikipedia, in a Guardian re-assessment of Haley as a forgotten pioneer of rock and roll, Rik Hull’s fan site, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, or the Pennsylvania Center for the Book.

At the height of his early fame, Bill Haley decided to keep a daily diary. Edited extracts were first published (as far as I know) in three editions of the Now Dig This magazine (Nos. 154 and 155 in 1996, covering Haley’s 1956 diary, and No. 166 in 1997, covering Haley’s 1957 diary). Although these diary entries are not available anywhere online, they are quoted extensively in Otto Fuchs’s biography - Bill Haley - The Father of Rock and Roll. This was first published in German, and then in an English language version (900 pages) by Wagner Verlag in 2011. Here are some extracts from Haley’s diary as quoted by Fuchs from Now Dig This.

7 January 1956
‘Started second day on picture at 9.30 am. Everything going well. Saw some re-runs on first scenes. I look terrible I think, but everyone is giving me compliments. Hope we get through this. Quite an experience. Glad to have Cuppy with me.’ [Bill Haley and His Comets were with a large entourage in Hollywood to star in a film named after their greatest hit - Rock Around The Clock.]

9 January 1956
‘Reported at 9.30 am for third day at Colombia lot. Shot more scenes on the picture. Today did ‘Rock Around The Clock’ and ‘Rudy’s Rock’. That makes 5 songs so far we’ve done in the picture. So far the picture is going great. This is a big break for us. Keeping my fingers crossed. To bed early and up at them tomorrow at 7.30 am.’

13 January 1956
‘Finished picture. $20,000 for picture. Started 7.30 am on sixth day of picture. Had my big talking scenes today. Finished work on picture at 3 pm. Now it’s up to the public whether we’re movie stars or not. Worked in El Monte, California tonight - $1,500. Poor crowd. Promoter says disc jockeys are mad at me because I haven’t been able to see them. You can’t win. Hope I can straighten things out. Met Harry Tobias today. He gave me some songs for our firm.’

21 January 1956
‘Salt Lake City, Utah. Rainbow Rondeau - $1,900. Spent day doing D.J. promotion. Treated us like royalty here. Very nice hotel. Worked two shows tonight. Drew over 2,500 people. Very good crowd, Record of ‘Later Alligator’ already in Top 10 here. Looks like we have a big hit. This has been a good day.’

26 January 1956
‘Got my new 1956 Fleetwood Cadillac today. It’s pink and the most gorgeous car I’ve ever seen. Everyone loves the car. The sad part is I leave tomorrow morning for a 10-day tour of one-nighters. I hate to leave home again. But maybe soon we can slack off work.’

22 April 1956
‘3rd day [of 45 day tour]. Weather good so far. All the acts are behaving. Mosque Theatre, Richmond, Virginia. $1,430. Both shows sold out and turned thousands away. 9,600 people for two shows. This tour is like sitting on a keg of dynamite. The show is all coloured but our act. With the racial situation in the south broiling plus the newspapers and magazines like ‘Variety’ stirring up everyone about rock and roll, anything can happen. I hope my nerves hold up.’

28 May 1956
‘Left Miami at 9.30am on Eastern Railroad for Savannahm Georgia where we are tonight. Arrived Savannah at 7.25pm Sports Arena, Savannah, Georgia $1,420. 2,500 people here. Segregation problem is strong here as we expected. This time the negroes refused to come to the second show. Results: 2,500 people first show, second show cancelled. This race problem is not mine. I’ll be glad to finish this tour and let the south alone for now.’

6 July 1956
‘Today is my birthday and it’s the first one I ever spent on a train. Arrived Chicago at 1pm. Had a three-hour layover then caught the 4pm train for home. Should be there at 6.35 tomorrow morning. Happy birthday Bill. What a life.’

The diary entries for 1957 cover tours to Australia and Europe (inc. England), but Haley’s commitment to the diary is waning by then, and his entries get briefer and briefer.