A Farmer's Life: The Diary of James Higginson aged 57½ (part 2)

Read Part 1 of A Farmer's Life: The Diary of James Higginson aged 57½ here.

The diary covering 1817-19 gives us an insight into a particular 15 months in James Higginson’s life but what else do we know?  We can tell from his writing that he was educated.  His diary entries show that he employed several men, his financial dealings indicate he was reasonably well off (he loaned money to friends and received dividends), he was able to take time away from the farm to visit his brother who lived some distance away, and we know he liked to socialise, but we hold other sources that add more information.

At the time this diary was started, James and Mary would have been 57 and 42 years old and had been married for 17 years.  They had three sons, Charles, 16, who worked on the farm, Edward 11, and James, 7.  We know this because their marriage, their burials, and their children’s baptisms are in the parish registers for St Bartholomew, Barrow.

When James died in 1835 at the age of 75, he left everything to Mary.  We have his will which he signed just a few days before he died.  By then, the man who had written so neatly in the small notebook was too unwell to sign his name and could only make his mark.

We know that Mary continued at the farm until her death in 1861 as the Tithe Apportionment of 1839 lists her as Occupier.  Searching our Tithe Map site using her name will show you the extent of the land the Higginson’s farmed.

We also know that by 1851 her sons Charles and James no longer lived in the family home.  Census returns for 1851 and 1861 show that her middle son Edward still lived with her and helped run the farm.  In 1851 the household consists of: Mary, Farmer of 86 acres, Edward, Farmer’s son, plus a Dairymaid, Housemaid, Waggoner and Cowman.  The next census in 1861 was the year Mary died.  She was 86 years old and presumably needed more help running the household as her niece Alice Woodier is included as Housekeeper.  There was also a Dairymaid, Housemaid, Carter, Cow Boy (aged 14) and Stable Boy (aged 12).

The newspapers of the time help to flesh out events that James only mentions in passing such as the deaths of Princess Charlotte and Queen Charlotte, mentioned previously, giving us a taste of life in the early 19th century.

One particularly gruesome event was recorded briefly on Saturday 9th May 1818.  It came between a sentence about his cows and a note on the price of butter: ‘My wife & her Son James at Chester seeing the Two men to suffer’.  Hold on - what?  The Chester Courant of 12th May 1818 carries a report of the execution by hanging of 2 men, Abraham Rosthern and Isaac Moors.  Rosthern had stolen items from his employer, namely 7 pictures, 1 looking glass, 5 silver teaspoons, 1 pair of silver sugar tongs, a drinking horn, a quantity of jaconet muslin, gold thread and several other articles.  Moors had broken into a house and stolen various articles of linen and drapery.

The Courant reported that a great crowd came to watch the executions, estimating that 6000 people attended.  In amongst them were Mary Higginson and her youngest son James.  The parish records have James being born and baptised in August 1809, so in May 1818 he would only have been 8 years old!  Whether he was brought along as a form of entertainment or to terrify him into living an honest life, we’ll never know.

 

All of these items and more are available to view at Cheshire Record Office in Chester.

A Farmer's Life: The Diary of James Higginson aged 57½ (part 1)

In 1817 you could buy a small notebook from Mr Poole of Chester for 1s/6d.  James Higginson bought one and wrote in it every day, except Sunday, from Monday 13th October 1817 until Saturday 16th January 1819.  There were most likely other notebooks before and after this one, but this little diary is all that’s left 200 years later.

James farmed land in the village of Barrow, a few miles outside Chester, and he used the notebook as a daily record of the work of the farm; the weather; weekly trips to buy and sell goods at market; snippets of local and family news; and occasional mentions of national events.  From his writings we know that it was a mixed farm with pigs, dairy cattle that produced milk for the cheese and butter his wife Mary sold at market, and some chickens.  James grew wheat and potatoes, turnips (probably for the cattle) and planted peas in his garden.

Even though writing space was limited, James didn’t just record the daily grind.  There is often a note in the margin or maybe a line given over to local events, leisure time, or words of wisdom for his future self, such as this from 3rd March 1818 when he got drunk with friends and lost a wager: ‘James go no more to Ale houses – mind’.  But like most people who have a few too many and regret it the next day, he didn’t heed his own advice!  He very honestly notes every now and then spending the evening (or the day) at the alehouse, and advice in November to ‘Drink no more wiskey’ is followed a week later with ‘got Drunk a gain. No Better nie Before.’

There were notes of things he bought – flower seeds, waistcoats and britches for himself or his sons, 2 handkerchiefs for 4 shillings and sixpence, an ‘umberbelow’ (umbrella), and a watch for his eldest son Charles.  On one occasion someone came to the house to make Mary ‘a pare of Stayes’ - who knows what Mary thought about such information being recorded for posterity!

In early December 1817 he wrote a derogatory comment on the marriage of an older acquaintance: ‘Old Mr Rite of Norley Marry’d this Week wich I thought too old for much Execution’.  In September 1818 he was very pleased to have sold his pigs for a good price, then wrote a note to remind himself ‘Never sell all your pigs a Gain – but kill one’ because he then had to buy another pig at market to feed his family!

James notes various deaths amongst his acquaintance including a Christmas day burial, and in February 1818 he sadly lost both his brother, John, and sister, Betty, within 3 weeks of each other.  Two deaths of national importance also make it into his diary, those of Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince of Wales, and Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III.  Princess Charlotte died after giving birth to a stillborn son and the mourning was national and profound with shops closing for 2 weeks and drapers running out of black cloth.  When she was buried on 19th November 1817 James wrote: ‘Princess Charlottey Interede at Winsor a very Deplorable day’.  A year later the death and burial of the Queen was also recorded: ‘our gracious Queen departed’ but though a notable and sad occasion, it seems to have affected him less.

He closes the notebook with record of wages paid to his farm workers and servants; a list of meat bought; bills paid to maintain his farm carts; money received from dividends and cash paid out; and a list of cows calved with some of their names – Plum, Dunham, Primrose, Little Weaver, Tydey, Nutt, Lilley, Bett, Weston and Cherry.  With every last page filled, our peek into the life of James Higginson ends and it’s time for a new notebook.

Coming soon - in part 2 of A Farmer's Life: Diary of James Higginson Aged 57½, we learn more about James, his wife Mary and some significant events of the time. 

All of these items and more are available to view at Cheshire Record Office in Chester.

Explore Your Archive: Archive Extremes!

Explore Your Archive is an annual celebration of archives and the collections held in them. This year’s event runs from 20th to 28th November, with themes for each day including ‘small’ and ‘big’. Inspired by this, here are some contenders for not just the smallest and biggest items held at Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, but also the oldest, heaviest, longest, brightest and oddest!

Smallest

Some of our smallest items are diaries from the Swindells of Bollington collection. These three on the right, belonging to mill owner Frederick Swindells, have pages measuring less than 9cm x 6cm and are full of tiny writing giving an account of each day. In collection D8714 we have some miniature notebooks by Chester artist and illustrator Randolph Caldecott, dating from 1855, that are full of practice sketches.  And in the Baker-Wilbraham family collection, there is a wooden box measuring 9cm x 7cm x 4cm, full of small deeds dating from the 13th to 18th centuries, some complete with seals.

 

Oldest

Our oldest royal charter is almost 850 years old, dating from around 1175. It is a City of Chester Charter (ref: ZCH 1) relating to matters outside the city, in which King Henry II “re-affirmed trading rights enjoyed by the burgesses of Chester in Dublin since the time of Henry I”, and still has its seal. 

Amongst several centuries worth of deeds in our oldest family and estate collections, are even older documents from the early 1100s. They usually don't include a date - this can be narrowed down based on what we know about the transaction and the people involved.

Our Local Studies department holds many collections of photographs, including some taken by pioneering Cheshire photographers Thomas Davies and W.H. Hanmer, dating from the 1850s. This early photograph from a Hanmer album is of children at a school in Wincham run by Charles Hanmer, presumed to be the photographer’s father. And on the right is a self-portrait of Thomas Davies – a very early selfie! They are not the oldest items in our collections, but they are our oldest photographs.

Biggest

Many of our maps are on the large side. To give an idea of the scale, this one measures around 9 feet or 2.7m on its shortest side and was photographed on the floor next to our staff member Heather - she is just under 5 feet 2 inches tall, or 1.56m. We tried taking the photo standing up, but our ceiling was too low! 

One of the longest maps we hold is a 1721 map of the River Weaver from Frodsham Bridge to Winsford Bridge, which measures 75cm x 3.35m. The image below left has been stitched together digitally from the 10 individual images we had to take to capture the whole map. This 1564 pedigree (below right) is even longer than the River Weaver map, and measures around 55cm x 4.2m. It shows three generations issuing from the marriage of Sir Randle Brereton of Malpas, who died in 1530, to Eleanor Dutton of Hatton. 

Brightest

Our archives are stored carefully in seven large strong rooms at Cheshire Record Office in Chester, and also offsite at a salt mine storage facility in Winsford. Until we open a box, folder or roll, we don’t know what the item inside will look like, and we’re often taken aback at how vibrant some very old documents still look. The pedigree above is a good example of how well the colours have lasted, but this one, of the Eyton family of Denbighshire dates from 1674 and the colours, including the touches of gold paint, look as bright as a much newer document. It is also over 5m long!

Heaviest 

We thought a contender for the heaviest item would be a City of Chester Assembly Minute book, ref: ZAB 1. It is frequently requested in our search room, and is very large and heavy to handle. But its 11kg weight and 43x32x14 cm dimensions pale in comparison to this wages and holiday pay book from Brunner Mond & Co Ltd’s Lostock works, from 1913 (DIC 9026/1). Measuring 58x50x12cm, it weighs in at a whopping 25kg. 

Just a couple of kilos lighter is our Thomas Hughes collection of copper engraving plates, dating from c.1810 to c.1860. The 44 plates in the collection weigh a total of 23kg - this one features an engraving of the Dee Bridge railway disaster.

Oddest 

We certainly have some unusual items in our collections – from some coffin plates removed from a vault in Malpas church (DCH/WW/24), to a lady’s single riding glove containing a calling card from 1680 (D5154/30), and a single brick that arrived with our collection from Foden (DFO) commercial vehicle manufacturers. 

But arguably the most unusual, or oddest, are locks of people’s hair. There are several – including one within a collection of late 17th century correspondence of the Arderne family of Alvanley (DAR/A/89) - but the one pictured below is from the collection of Colonel Hugh Robert Hibbert of Macclesfield, who served in the Crimean war. It is contained in a small envelope inscribed ‘Hugh’s hair, April 4th, 1854. Cut off at Manchester the evening before he left’ for the Crimea. 

So these are some of our Archive Extremes – the smallest, oldest, biggest, brightest, heaviest and oddest in our collections. Can you think of any others we should add? 

We’re featuring the themes of Explore Your Archive on our social media – check out @CheshireRO on Twitter and cheshire_archives on Instagram to see more. All these items are available to view at Cheshire Record Office – information about visiting can be found here.