We may think we have a good idea
of what life was like in the nineteenth century, but what of the world outside
novels, divorced from royalty, far distant from the gas lamps of London and the
dramas attendant on the personalities who came to define an era?
Anne Bronte's sketch of Holy Trinity Church, Little Ouseburn |
The journal of George Whitehead
(1823-1913), sometime carpenter and consummate busybody, is a portal to such a
world. For over 60 years, in journals dedicated to births, marriages, deaths
and ‘sundries’, he recorded the comings and goings of life in Yorkshire
villages Little Ouseburn and Great Ouseburn, with meticulous detail and
limited, if blunt, commentary.
He records everything, from the
mundane…
Two
gates hung across back lane against Clarkes stack yard corner July 6th
1847
To the dramatic…
John
Johnson Mr Woodd’s cowman at Thorpe Green hung himself in the cart horse stable
March 14 aged 53 years 1856
Boswell
Atkinson of Whixley died Nov 5th he cut his throat Oct 26th
Mrs Ibbotson confined Nov 15th & died Nov 18th
through Atkinson cutting her throat & shock to the system 1893
To the personal:
Our
little pony died suddenly Janry 30th 1858
I
cut my great toe nearly off Oct 22nd I went on crutches for one
month then a fortnight with the boot front cut off then one week with Father’
boots then began with my own all right 1866
And, as you read on, a picture
emerges of a village that’s representative of the great changes the century is
witnessing:
I
sat at Mr Monkhouse’s Lendal York for my first Cartes devisits 6/- pr dozen
August 13th 1864
The
eleventh telegraph wire on our high road put up July or Augst, 1891
It’s a fascinating read. You
never know what the next sentence will bring and start to feel part of a
community you can never enter into.
Equally interesting is the book’s
very existence in print. It was published in 1990 with all proceeds going to
Holy Trinity Church in Little Ouseburn and mentions three intended audiences in
its Editor’s Note – inhabitants of the Ouseburns, historians and those tracing
their family history. Many readers, like me, stumble over the journals due to
their connection to the Brontes. Anne and Branwell Bronte both worked in the
area in the 1840s at Thorp Green, a local manor.
The journals’ existence and
survival are exceptional, even if the central life it records is not, and they seem destined for a vibrant afterlife, whether fuelling scholars or looked at
as a transportive curiosity.
What would you like to read from
the Secret Victorianist next? Let me know – here, on Facebook or by
tweeting @SVictorianist.
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