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Diary
Title
Diary, 1776-1785.
Physical Description
1 v. (167 leaves) ; 32 cm.
Language
English
Notes
Binding: full parchment with a pencilled number '2' and the date '1776' on the cover. Written on a paper label on front cover: Diary. Feb. 8 1776 to April 16th 1785. On spine: Law.
On front flyleaf recto, quote attributed to Sir Edward Coke, followed by a summary of the maxim as mathematical statement: Sex horas somno, totidem des legibus aquis, / Quatuor orabis, des epulisque duos, / Quod superest ultra sacris largire Camcenia. To sleep 6. To law 6. To prayer 4. To [?] 8. 24
Biographical details provided by Neil Jeffares, art historian. See also: Iconographical genealogy, (http://www.pastellists.com/Genealogies/East.pdf).
Associated material: Diary, no. 4 (1791-2), Berkshire Record Office, Reading, United Kingdom.
In English, some Latin quotations.
Provenance
Purchased from Myers, February 1955.
Access and use
This material is available for research.
Biographical / Historical Note
Lady East, née Hannah Casamajor (1746-1810), was the wife of Sir William East, 1st. Bart. (1738-1819), of the Hall Place in Hurley, Berkshire; they married on 29 June 1763. Their daughter, Mary East (1765-1833), married Sir William Clayton, 4th Bart. (1762-1834) in 1785. Sir William was succeeded by his elder son, Sir Gilbert East, 2nd Bart (1764-1828). The younger son, Augustus Henry East (1766-1828), married Caroline Anne, daughter of George Vansittart, who is mentioned in the diary.
Summary
Holograph of a diary recording primarily family comings and goings and routine social activities of the East family, including visits from friends and family, tea drinking, dining, races, plays, and balls; as well as traveling by the family and neighbors, descriptions of the weather, and frequent updates on Sir William East's numerous illnesses, including two substantial bouts of the gout, several serious toothaches, a cold, and pain in his fingers, ankle, leg, and heel. Elsewhere, she mentions servants' wages, their livery, and the arrival and firing of a housekeeper who becomes inebriated on his first night of employment. On October 16, 1784, she goes to London to see Jean-Pierre Blanchard ascend in a hot air balloon. The writer also makes frequent mention of members of the Clayton family throughout the volume, most often visits by the "Miss Claytons." The volume also contains a list titled Rules & maxims for promoting matrimonial happiness, and a verse excerpt from the Ladies Magazine in 1786 titled A young lady's advice to an acquaintance lately married. Throughout the manuscript, in a different hand, and sometimes tipped, are notes on landownership, law terms, and legal concepts such as the laws on inheritance.
Other formats
Available on microfilm from The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University ; C579.
Format
Archives or Manuscripts
Added to Catalog
March 11, 2008
References
Lady East, Diary. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.
Cite as
Lady East, Diary. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.
Subjects
Genre/Form
Diaries - England - 18th century.
Bookmark As
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