[In our mini-series ‘A Page in the Life’, each post briefly introduces a new writer and a single page from their manuscript.]

Laura Sangha

The Leeds antiquarian and pious diarist Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725) wrote a lot. An awful lot. Between the ages of nineteen and sixty-seven he kept a diary, often recording entries on most days of the week. Seven volumes of Thoresby’s life-writing survive, and at approximately 500 pages per volume that’s 3,500 pages of text. The page transcribed below is fairly typical at 550 words, so that makes close to two million words of Thoresby’s self-reflection out there. You don’t have to read them all though, because this page below provides a relatively good sense of the content and scope of Thoresby’s written self:

Brotherton Library, Yorkshire Archaeological Society MS 24.

[22 May 1709][1]

afternoon Mr Pollard from 19 Math:28 proceeded to the Evidences & signs that we are followers of Christ in the Regeneration, 1 hatred of sin is a good signe of a renewed Soul, so 2 a fear to Sin, 3 carefulness to avoid all occasions and temptations to Sin 4 vigorous sinsere & resolute opposition of the whole man against Sin, & particularly 1 against sins of a spiritual nature, 2 Sins of the heart and tho’ts, & 3 Sins of Constitution & Custome, 5 inward love to God & Religion, & 6 due performance of secret Spiritual dutys, Application: 1 to the Regenerate, as they have rec’d the Grace of God to be truly renewed, so to labour to exceed others in holiness, 2 to the unregenerate, not to delude themselves with false hopes of heaven with out regeneration – afterwards catechised above 30 poor children, heard them the appointed psalms & distributed several Bibles – Read as at noon in Dr. Mantons Sermons in family & observed usual duties

23 morn: read Annotations in family & Mr Henry in secret, writ til 10 at Church, & after transcribing Topography of the Town til 4 at Church, after surprized with a visit from my Lord Irwin & some Relations, to see the Collections, Even: read as usually Continue reading →

Laura Sangha

This post is part of an occasional series on antiquarian, topographer and dissenter Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725).

It’s been a little wet in the south of England this winter, as some of you may have noticed. Storm has followed storm, houses have been flooded, villages cut off, and here in the south west the railway at Dawlish washed away. This has precipitated a deluge of news stories dragging out all sorts of beloved clichés as the media bandwagon has careered on its merry way. Predictably a political row about the causes of flooding has erupted where Conservatives have blamed Labour for previous policy mistakes and Labour have accused the government of ignoring climate change. But the storms have proven to be a delightfully flexible concept, allowing for commentary on all sorts of social issues, including: the storm blitz spirit, the storms and austerity, the storms and the royal family, the storms and the proposed high speed rail link, the storms and the under-equipped army, and my personal favourite, the storms and the mysterious case of the python that was battered to death in the night-time.

Perhaps more interestingly, the storms have also prompted some writing on historic bad weather and its consequences – I am sure I am not the only early modern historian who was delighted to see a seventeenth century woodcut on the front page of the Guardian’s website on February 12. We were also offered some timely musings on Daniel Defoe’s The Storm, his memorial to the hurricane that pummelled northern Europe in 1703, and this blog on eighteenth-century ‘climate change advocates’ provided some interesting historical context. Continue reading →