The Diary of Nathaniel Bryceson (Part 6)

[Ruskie]

Welcome to Part 6! 

As we have a limit of 20 pages per thread, I've started a new one. I hope all the new members following Nathaniel's Diary can find us here.

Once again, thanks to the powers that be for allowing us to continue our obsession. We've had a couple of new members join rootschat and our Nathaniel discussion in Part 5.

Any other lurkers are most welcome to join our discussion.

Links to previous threads:

Part 1:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,457330.0.html

Part 2:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,459757.0.html
On page one of Part 2 is a recap of our discoveries and a timeline.

Part 3:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,464660.0.html

Part 4:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,469736.0.html

Part 5:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,472362.0.html

And Nathaniel's Diary:
http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/archives/victorian-clerk/

[tedscout]

Bookmarking 

[drykid]

Yay, new thread

Mongibello, I suppose there'll be no chance of finding out more about the diary if it was purchased from a bookseller.   That's very disappointing. Ooo, I wonder if Miss Myers had the entire Nathaniel Bryceson collection?

I know you weren't asking me, but yeah a trader is definitely the worst case scenario.  If it was a private seller then a relative of theirs might remember the story of how it came into their posession, but if it's someone who dealt in thousands of books over a lifetime then obviously that's not going to happen.  Still might be an invoice or something filed somewhere, but it would be asking a lot for someone else to try and locate it when they have no incentive.

I doubt if she had the whole set at the time Westminster acquired the 1846 one (or surely they'd have acquired them too; although £115 for one in 1974 is still quite pricey? If there were dozens of them then that would've been a big investment for a council archive...); but it's not impossible she had more and had sold the others earlier. 

One other thing I noticed - looking online at the Westminster Archive it refers to "Samuel Bishop, merchant, Berkhamstead: Day book of imports and inventory, 1797 (available on microfilm only). Bound with the diary of Nathaniel Bryceson, qv, in Section 22 Acc 730"  I know it was said earlier that the 1846 diary was written in an accounts log book; I wonder if the above entry means that rather then buying a brand new one (probably expensive) he re-used a half-completed old one he bought on one of his expeditions.  If that's the case then the other diaries may have been in a completely different format and therefore it wouldn't have seemed like such a "set" as if they were all identical sizes.  So maybe that's how they came to be separated. (Especially if they became assimilated into the collection of Aleck Abrahams, who seems like he had his own private research library.)

[Siamese Girl]

drykid - That sounds entirely logical to me. Perhaps the other diaries were written in notebooks and didn't look so important as this one and got chucked away.

Does anyone think pursuing the New York Medical School might be worthwhile? Shall I try and contact them?

Carole

[Aniseed]

I'm not totally sure I understand today's entry...it doesn't make much sense.
"Took shilling 1846 of Mr Lutman: the first I have seen this year."
Does he mean that this was the first shilling that was minted in 1846 that he'd seen? And that he'd taken it from Mr Lutman?

The Notes and Queries find was a huge bonus for me. It was an article published on July 2nd 1921 from information collected by Lieut-Co G.S. Parry in 1913, who had sadly been killed in the Great War.

The introduction to the article reads “INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CHURCHYARD OF ST. NICHOLAS, DEPTFORD. Among a few MSS. Yet remaining over from the days of the War, we have found the following list of Inscriptions taken down and abstracted by our regretted correspondent, the late Lieut.-Colonel Gilbert S. Parry. They appear to have been received during the time when ‘N. & Q.’ was appearing monthly; and we are glad at length to find room for them, and to have this opportunity for expressing our regret that these are the last results of the careful and useful labour devoted to rescuing from oblivion the memorials of those buried in so many churchyards in and near London.”

So going round old churchyards was obviously a favourite occupation for several people, not just our Nathaniel. I don't know whether those inscriptions are still there now, but I'm fairly sure they'd be much less legible these days, so I thank Lieut.-Colonel Gilbert S. Parry for his work in transcribing them in 1913.

[drykid]

I'm not totally sure I understand today's entry...it doesn't make much sense.
"Took shilling 1846 of Mr Lutman: the first I have seen this year."
Does he mean that this was the first shilling that was minted in 1846 that he'd seen? And that he'd taken it from Mr Lutman?

Yeah, the phrasing is a bit formal / archaic, but I assume that's the intended meaning.  When I was a kid it was a big deal to see the first car with the new registration letter for that year on August 1st; I imagine the shilling thing is an equivalent interest for him.

[Siamese Girl]

I've emailed the college library but I don't know what, if any, response I'll get. Google books comes up with a College Alumni from 1902. No Leas in it.

I'm half hoping his degree was fraudulent 

Carole

[MaryA]

Seems a very strange change of occupation unless he had reason to administer first aid etc. to his staff and thought he knew enough about the subject to take it further.

Just bookmarking really ....

[Ruskie]

Ian, your thoughts about the log books seem very logical. At the end of 1846 Nathaniel buys a diary for 1847. If he is writing the 1846 in a log book rather than a writing book, I wonder if he may have pinched it from work?

Remember earlier in the year he read the previous year's "log book" to Ann and, um ... Mrs Olive(?)  Presumably that is a similar format book to the one for 1846? I wondered if he called it a log book rather than a diary because it was actually written in a log book ...

So do you think that the Samuel Bishop inventory was actually part of the same book? If so it was dated 1797 so quite old when Nat began writing in it. Maybe Mongibello or Steven who have seen the original diary can tell us more.

Carole - well worth trying the medical school. I wonder if there is something online - a register of some sort perhaps? I imagine his 'qualifications' would be recognized back in England? That's a bit naughty hoping that his degree is fraudulent (but I was hoping the same thing  ).