EDITORIAL
I am not
entirely convinced of the truth of the quotation from Frances Partridge’s diary
which appears on the inside front cover of this issue of the Journal. Fanny
Burney and Benjamin Haydon, for example, combined diarizing with creativity,
but of James Woodforde’s lack of imagination I’m not sure that any of us will
need persuading. What he is interested in, and what would have made his diary
as dull as ditchwater to any
unacquainted contemporary, are facts. What did he do? Who did he see? What did
he buy? How much did it cost? What was the weather like? These are the
quotidian questions which he answers; the fascinating facts of everyday life in
the eighteenth century which no one else supplies with such clarity and in such
abundance.
We’re lucky
to have them. As Margaret Bird has shown so brilliantly in her twin essays on
the Norfolk Parish Clergy, successive bishops were unable to wring much by way
of facts from our reluctant returner. And, of course, we’re lucky that the
diaries survived at all. They may have been among those letters, diaries and
notebooks , carefully collected by Nephew Bill’s grandson Alexander, which immediately after his death in 1909 were
sold as waste paper! I was reminded of this chilling piece of information,
recorded by Dorothy Heighes Woodforde – Alexander’s grand-daughter – when
reading a book by Bodley’s Librarian, Richard Ovenden. Burning the Books,
subtitled ‘A History of Knowledge under Attack’, tells of how, over the
centuries, through malice, thoughtlessness or stupidity, written material has
been destroyed. More happily, the archives of many of our great houses have
survived and David Sharp, who has worked on those of the Townshend family at
Raynham, is here able to give us a thoroughly absorbing account of Norfolk Politics
in Woodforde’s Day.
Country
house archives were also the source for our President, Richard Wilson’s fine
book Creating Paradise: the Building of the English Country House, 1660-1880,
co-authored with his colleague Alan Mackley. Richard, who joined the Society in
the year of its creation, and our
President since succeeding Suzanne Custance in 2014, has announced that he
feels he must now step down. He will be much missed, for knowledge, wisdom and
humanity are rarely so felicitously combined. His contributions to this Journal
have been second to none. We hope to offer our formal thanks at the AGM which
will take place, as you will read in the Newsletter, on 13 September at the
Holbrook Manor Hotel, Wincanton.
Jennifer
Soan, who has done so much for our British Diarists series, here contributes a
foreigner’s view of south-east England in the 1740s. Pehr Kalm, a Swedish
student of agronomy, impresses as an intelligent observer of the English
countryside in the early days of the Agricultural Revolution.
Returning to
Frances Partridge, who, presumably, considered herself unimaginative, I think
she underrates herself. If, like me, you have been missing trips to the
Continent, you might be consoled by this entry in her diary. It is for 5 July
1970:
“The night
was appallingly hot and the Antequera dogs indefatigable. Oh, those dogs of
Antequera! All night long, bass, tenor, treble and counter-tenor dogs performed
in every possible combination – solo, duet, trio, quintet or full chorus. I
half-stifled myself with my head under my sausage pillow and contrived to
sleep little.”
I hope your
summer has been a healthy one, in no way resembling the ‘malarial season’ of
1783, and your nights, whether in Britain, Spain or elsewhere, have been
undisturbed by the barking of dogs!
------------------------------------
ERRATUM
In the April
2021 Journal (Vol. LIV, 1) p. 35. It was on 13 August (not April) 1773 that
Woodforde was asked off venison at Mr Creed’s.
