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.

A honeymoon tour to remember!

Who has kept a diary? I have – with a birthday at Christmas time and growing up in the seventies there was every chance I would receive at least one diary, usually with matching pen, every year – but even the most attractive of them (purple velvet) still didn’t inspire me much beyond February. Then there were the teenage years  ... And the last diary I kept? Recording a trip to Japan in my early twenties I supposed I wouldn’t make again.

The wonderful thing about diaries in Cheshire's archive collections is that we can recognise all of this and ourselves in them. For International Archives Day 2017 and #archivestourism here are extracts from a young woman's honeymoon diary.

Wednesday July 13th 1892

We were to travel by a train which left Alderley Edge soon after half past three in the afternoon – Leo and I. The express which Leo had decided on to take us up to London would not stop for us at Alderley, though most politely requested to do so; but brides and bridegrooms were things it was very accustomed to, and its iron heart was not to be moved. The express left Manchester at a quarter past four, so we had a good half hour to wait at Crewe. Leo put me in the waiting room to rest before the journey. He came to summon me presently, and took me to the express which had come in, and finding his name on the window of a coupe, he opened the door. We reached Euston about half past eight. Leo got a cab and we packed in with our luggage, my box and Leo’s portmanteau and he had a hat box, and I a handbag, and set off for the Victoria Hotel in Northumberland Avenue.  We were expected, and our room was waiting for us. It is a very fine hotel, the largest I have yet been in.

Of course we were much too late for dinner, and we were too tired to care for a private one, so Leo ordered cutlets and tea, as the most refreshing things he could think of, to be ready immediately. Leo, who knew the hotel, made his way to the coffee room, where our tea was to be laid, a handsome room, but oh so hot and close! Our tea came soon, cutlets, chip potatoes, tea and toast, and very good and refreshing it was, but I was not sorry to leave the hot room as soon as possible, and as we were both very tired, we went straight away to bed. I do not seem to have much to say about today, but it is not a day one would choose to write about.

Thursday July 14th

I am ashamed to say what time it was when we got up, but Leo had slept badly, having had toothache, which was very unromantic, but true nevertheless. 

We went down to breakfast (I might say at last), and Leo ordered coffee, and fried soles, and toast, which was very nice, but the room was as close as ever, and my new morning frock pinched so dreadfully round the neck, that I unhooked it, and furtively fastened the brooch in again over a good gap of collar. (Otherwise, it is a very nice blue serge, and in my heart I rather admire it, with collar and cuffs.) 

Our newly weds have the best part of a day to kill before their train to the coast and the boat for Rotterdam.  They would both have liked Kew (Frances will become an expert gardener) but it’s too far out and museums or galleries seem like hard work …

So Leo proposed that we should go and see ‘Venice’ at Olympia, as a good lazy way of passing the time, for as we know that there were canals and gondolas, we naturally thought that they must be in gardens. In other respects, we knew nothing at all about it.

The gardens were creations of our own wild imagination … the glass-making was in progress at certain hours, but we did not see it …. We went to see the – I know not what to call it – say, spectacle. Presently the play began, a hash-up of all sorts of things, the whole thing was sung; and we were too far away to hear anything of words. 

And on to the boat at Harwich, and perhaps the reasons for Frances’ growing dissatisfaction becomes clear … Leo predicts a calm night …

We did not want any supper, after the long dinner we had had, but I was very anxious to be allowed to pass the night on the saloon couches; the cabins looked so full and close, and I don’t care to be sick before strangers, in a box. At first we were told that I could and Leo went away cheerfully to look after his own berth. But by and by came the stewardess to me, and said that it could only be allowed if all the berths were taken up. When Leo came back he had found a berth, and an old lacrosse acquaintance. I waited awhile, but I was doomed to disappointment; the stewardess came and bore me off to a berth, in a cabin containing four. The whole place was about as big as a very small dining table and it already contained three Americans. I climbed into my top berth, half undressed and lay down. Presently came the stewardess and dealt out basins. ‘Prevention is better than cure’ she said with a pleasing smile. My heart sank right to the bottom end of my berth. The abominable Adelaide began to roll almost immediately after leaving Harwich, and one of the Americans succumbed early, and kept it up all night. If this were any consolation to me I had the pleasure of lying and listening to it, until the small hours, when I too succumbed. 

Friday July 15th

Not to have slept till morning, and not much then, does not conduce to general briskness, to say nothing of the horrors of seasickness and a close cabin. Soon after six I roused up altogether, for the stewardess came in and said that we were later than usual, for we had had a very rough passage. And that was Leo’s calm night.


Frances Crompton was born near Prestbury in 1866, and lived in Wilmslow, where she met and married bank manager John Leopold Walsh. They later lived in Holmes Chapel and Chelford. She published 29 children’s stories, was a skilled painter and kept her Gardening Diary begun in 1915. She died in 1952 and her daughter deposited her diaries in the archives. The collection reference is D 5453.

With thanks to volunteer Hilary Morris for transcribing diary extracts.