Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

A Yorkshire Almanac Comprising 366 Historical Extracts, Red-letter Days and Customs, and Astronomical and Meteorological Data

17 July 1785: Mr Strother, a York draper’s assistant, finds that diarising is not for common folk

Strother of Hull. 1912. Strother’s Journal. Ed. Caesar Caine. London: A. Brown and Sons. Local History, Leeds. Get it:

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Excerpt

And now I have filled this book but perhaps shall not fill another. I have learnt by keeping this journal that I have been discontent more than was profitable and that it is not proper for a tradesman to keep a journal without he has enough of time and plentiful fortune. I began Sunday 8 of August 1784 and now conclude Sunday 17 July 1785 at seven o’clock in the evening.

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

  • ER: East Riding
  • GM: Greater Manchester
  • NR: North Riding
  • NY: North Yorkshire
  • SY: South Yorkshire
  • WR: West Riding
  • WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Comment

Via Arthur Ponsonby (Ponsonby 1923), who has more excerpts.

Dickens also abandoned a diary (Dickens 1882).

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Original

And now I have filled this book but perhaps shall not fill another. I have learnt by keeping this journal that I have been discontent more than was profitable and that it is not proper for a tradesman to keep a journal without he has enough of time and plentiful fortune.

I began Sunday 8 of August 1784 and now conclude Sunday 17 July 1785 at 7 o’clock in the evening.

71 words.

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