Help needed with the author of this diary

[Jool]

Here's a snip of his signature from his 1827 marriage record.

Deleted.     Sorry - ignore this - it's a bishop's transcript, not an original signature

[Kendra71]

Hi Jool, Bbart

The author is almost certainly English and reasonably young. There are a lot of references to landmarks & buildings in Chester and that area. "Portman" looks like a possible surname (possibly a little long?), although the diary was written in October 1824 which may not fit with the dates for Lord Portman.

[Kendra71]

My homemade UV light seemed to help somewhat (taping blue and purple coloured sellotape over my phone's flash). Karen's suggestion that there might be a "g" at the end looks correct. It almost certainly ends in "ing".

The name currently looks to me like a slightly long version of "Panting"?

[Wiggy]

Could it be 'Previn'?

Wiggy

[Kendra71]

Having said that the surname likely ends with "ing" I'm now thinking it might end with "y".

Perhaps P___try? Or P___tny?

[Kendra71]

I'm quietly hopeful that I've found the right person, building on the writing analysis.
I think the author is John Dunting Pantry, written here as Jⁿ D Pantry.

Pantry was a merchant seaman, who from 1838 captained coastal vessels around the UK. The diary is written by someone who knows about sailing but doesn't know the Mediterranean. The age is right. The author is a youngish man, who treats the trip as a kind of mini-Grand Tour.
The captain of the ship (John Monk) spends a lot of time with him and speaks to him as a social peer.

John Pantry lived in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, not too far from Chester & Liverpool. The diary also makes reference to UK landmarks, mostly in the Liverpool area.
I'm going to look through the diary again and see if my flimsy theory still holds!

[Gadget]

I think, now you say it, it does look very like Pantry - I got as far as Pa*t* y but gave up.

Gadget

[Kendra71]

Thanks Gadget. It's been a half an hour and I haven't changed my mind on "Pantry" which is encouraging!

I may have had the wrong one though. The one I had found with all the merchant navy experience would only have been 13 at the time and therefore not a candidate unfortunately. There is another John Pantry I'm focusing on now though, born 1805. He ran a company manufacturing linen in Sheffield, and there were lots of linen imports from Dublin so may have been a merchant client of the captain. I'll keep looking.