VOLUME XXXIII, JOHN CARRINGTON, FARMER OF BRAMFIELD, HIS DIARY, 1798-1810, volume 2, 1805-1810 and JOHN CARRINGTON JUNIOR’S DIARY, May 1810-December 1812.
John Carrington was born in 1726. Following in his father’s footsteps, at the age of 20, he became gardener to Lady Cathcart at Tewin Water House. By the 1750s he was employed by Richard Warren of Marden Hill, Tewin, and in 1760 became tenant of Bacons Farm, Bramfield. Shortly after the death of his wife in 1798, when John was 72, he began to keep a diary, and continued it until twelve days before his own death in 1810. This forms an almost daily record of the last twelve years of his life, years which saw great change and often hardship for local communities caught up in the effects of the Napoleonic wars. The high prices gained for all farm produce, as a direct result of the war, gave farmers such as John financial security and allowed him to purchase property and to make financial investments. For most of his life he served his local community as a member of the Bramfield vestry for which he acted as Surveyor of the Highways and Overseer of the Poor as well as being one of four Chief Constables of the Liberty of St Albans in the Hundred of Cashio. With a wide circle of friends and acquaintances he appears to have had a long reputation for honest dealing and a generous heart for those in his local community less fortunate than himself. As a man of apparently no formal education he exhibits a shrewd intelligence and a financial soundness in his business dealings.
Volume 1 containing the whole text of John’s diary from 1798 to 1804 was published in 2015 (HRS vol XXVI). This second volume continues the diary from 1805 until John’s death in 1810. His son, also called John (Jack), continued the family tradition and began to keep a diary of his own which survives until 1812. With an historical introduction and appendices, including biographies of local persons, a glossary, and full indexes of names, places and subjects, this publication makes the text of the Carrington diaries fully accessible to all.
This is the Hertfordshire Record Society’s volume for 2017/18.
- Edited and with an Introduction by Susan Flood
- xxv + 419 pp
- 15 illustrations, 2 maps, plus illustrated jacket
- ISBN: 978-0-9501741-2-9
Non-Members:
£22
• Members:
£17.50
(+£4 p&p )