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Journal kept by Harriet Marshall née Swayne during a voyage from Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India with her two children to visit her in-laws in England and Ireland. The journal commences on 9 January 1847 with her arrival in Calcutta, where she spends the rest of the month waiting for the commencement of the next leg of her journey on board the vessel Alfred. While in Calcutta, she visits old friends and old scenes, having lived there eight years previously: ‘I had left Calcutta a child and returned a Woman and a Mother, how little had I fancied when I bade it farewell that I should return thus.’

The bulk of the journal is kept on board Alfred and contains descriptions of Harriet's fellow passengers, daily life on the vessel and the grinding monotony of long sea voyages. There are squabbles among children and endless quarrels among passengers, particularly women. Harriet herself becomes embroiled in a hostile exchange of words with the ship's captain, Edward Wall, who makes a derogatory comment about doctors, unaware that Harriet's husband is an army surgeon.

Remarkably, Harriet does not suffer from sea sickness even in the roughest of weathers, and has no patience for those who do. She does, however, regret having allowed herself ‘to be talked into taking a Cabin below [deck]’, where the air is stale as the port holes can only rarely be opened. She also regrets having chosen to travel by sea and concludes that ‘I will undergo any inconvenience & rough travelling rather than come back by sea to India[.] in an Overland trip there is something stirring every day, but here we breathe an impure atmosphere & when we do go upstairs it is only to walk up & down… nothing stirring but the ship’.

Alfred arrives on the island of Saint Helena on 30 March and the passengers get to enjoy a rare break on land. On 31 March they make an excursion around the island, which Harriet describes in great detail, including her disappointment at the shabby state of Napoleon Bonaparte's home. The journal ends with an entry made on 1 April as Alfred weighs anchor and leaves St Helena for England. Harriet's last lines read: ‘now I must go on with my Journal on sheets of Paper till we arrive in England.’ These loose sheets do not appear to have survived, and the fate of any of Harriet's other journals is unknown.

The journal is a useful research source for life in the service of the British Empire and the challenges of ocean travel. More broadly, it provides interesting insights into the lives of women and children in the nineteenth century and the societal mores that defined and separated the sexes.

Bound hardback volume containing a diary kept sporadically by Henry William Massy as a young man about town, describing his professional and leisure activities and containing introspective reflections of his own shortcomings. The diary provides a lively and betimes poignant account of the life of a young man eager to advance in life but not quite possessed of the maturity to fulfil his ambitions. It provides glimpses of urban life of the professional classes in 1830s and 1840s Ireland and challenges the perceived rigid morality of the Victorian era by revealing Massy’s long-standing clandestine affair with Maria Cahill.

The diary commences in February 1839 with regular entries describing the weather, Henry’s daily professional and leisure activities, the books he is reading, the parties he attends and the visits he pays to his mistress, Maria Cahill. He castigates himself for his habit of getting up too late in the mornings, usually as a consequence of too much merriment the night before, and for smoking cigars in his office. However, most of his diary entries are upbeat and humorous in tone. On 15 March 1839 he mentions meeting ‘Mrs James Sadleir, who asked me to subscribe to a Lying-in-Hospital, which they are getting up here – I said I did not think gentlemen had anything to do with it – she said she wished I could prove that, if so I ought to take out a patent’. His mother and siblings feature regularly on the pages of his diary, as does a destitute uncle for whom a subscription is arranged among relatives to provide for him: ‘altogether we will make up £70 a year but my uncle says it w[oul]d not keep him in potatoes & salt – How many curates live on £75 a year!’ There is a gap in the diary entries between 11 April 1839 and 19 October 1840, which Henry attributes to his lazy habits: ‘I am beginning to know myself pretty well and alas! I must confess the great fault in my character is irresolution of purpose and insuperable indolence.’ He confesses to having entered as a law student two years previously, ‘determined to read diligently… and I did keep my resolution excellently for – a week!! – since then I have done nothing’. An entry dated 23 October 1840 is followed by a blank page and a page torn out.

Henry resumes the diary in January 1841 with a description of preparations for a dinner party he is about to give and an account of the dinner party itself. He mentions his appointment to the Commission of the Peace for County Limerick and provides a lively account of a meeting he attends in Dublin on 21 January 1841 advocating the introduction of railroads in Ireland. He describes in some detail ‘Ireland’s great men’ who spoke at the meeting, including the Archbishop of Dublin, the Duke of Leinster, Earl Mountcashell, John O’Connell MP, Colonel Edward Michael Connolly, Christopher Fitzsimon MP, Henry Grattan and William Torrens McCullagh. He describes his daily activities in Dublin, which in the main consist of reading Sir Archibald Alison’s History of Europe in the Dublin Library, wining and dining at the Queen’s Inn and the Oyster Tavern, writing poetry and visiting his mistress. On one occasion, he spends half an hour walking with a Miss Millet, ‘a very agreeable girl and handsome by Candlelight’. Returning to Limerick in February, he takes great delight at the reception of some comic verse he has published anonymously. He attends the petty sessions in Limerick city as chairman for the first time ‘and went thro’ the business very well’. In March 1841, he contemplates his relationship with his mistress. ‘Poor Maria! I feel that I love her much and I know not how I can ever desert her – I have often been thinking latterly of retiring from the world with her, and taking a cottage in some retired country, of spending the rest of my days in quiet, giving myself up to my little children & my books…’ In the same month he mentions his election as president of the Mechanics’ Institute and discusses his plan to introduce a new system at the court house ‘By occasional levity and by inflicting an equal punishment on rich and poor’. He is suffering from an undisclosed ailment which is slow to heal and which leaves him ‘generally sad and out of temper’. In early April 1841 he travels to London and spends two weeks mostly dining at Lincolns Inn and visiting various theatres. Returning to Dublin, he notes: ‘I think I may in time become a useful magistrate and have a pretty fair knowledge of my duties as such – There are gentlemen on the Tipperary Bench of many years standing and, God knows! They know little enough’.

There is another long gap in entries between 2 May and 1 October 1841, when Henry describes a weekly meeting of Poor Law Guardians. An entry made on 3 October is incomplete as a consequence of a page having been torn out. The next and final entry is dated 1 January 1842, in which Henry reflects on the less flattering aspects of his character and his lack of application to qualify for the bar or to finish a story intended for publication in Blackwood’s Magazine. He also reprimands himself for the sorry state of his finances: ‘Every one, who spends more than his income, is a fool’. The entry ends abruptly with yet another torn-out page. Pagination up to page 55, but with irregularities.

A bound manuscript compendium of statutes, orders and decrees relating to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Covering the period 1585 to 1661, the contents reflect the physical and curricular expansion of the College during its first 75 years of existence.

The first half (folios 1-43) contains the Latin text of the College’s first statutes as provided by its founder Sir Walter Mildmay. The second part of the manuscript (folios 44-81) comprises orders and decrees primarily in English concerning such matters as the borrowing and buying of books from the college library, stipends, rent rates for chambers and rules of the use of the college tennis court. In 1630, one of the decrees ordered that no student ‘shall size bread and beer anywhere but in the Butteries, nor have Dyett provided for them constantly out of the College’ (p. 63). The onset of a plague epidemic eight years later also features prominently. Scholars and fellows of the College were permitted to ‘have free leave to betake themselves thither, where they shall be able best to provide for their own safety, and that notwithstanding the same, they shall receive in the time of their absence the allowance from the College…’ (p. 68) In 1651, misbehaving students were threatened with fines and imprisonment when it was discovered that some of them ‘not regarding their own birth, degree, and quality have made divers contracts of marriage with women of mean estate, and of no good fame in the town to their great disparagement, the discontent of their Parents and friends, and the dishonour of the government of that our University’. Students were strictly forbidden to ‘resort to such houses and places as are mentioned in the said Statute to eat or drink or play or take tobacco, to the misspending their time and to the corrupting of others by their ill example, and to the scandalizing the government of our said University.’ (pp. 71-72)

The volume is most likely from the library of William Shaw (1688-1739) of St John’s College, Cambridge, Rector of Akenham and antiquary. Among the Clarendon Papers held at the Bodleian Library are two further manuscripts from the collection of William Shaw, namely an eighteenth-century commonplace book (MS. Clar. dep. c. 413) and an eighteenth-century volume of ‘Extracts of Records &c. relating to St John’s College in the University of Cambridge’ (MS. Clar. dep. c. 414). The Emmanuel College volume has an eighteenth-century numbering on the inside front cover (No. 47). The two manuscript volumes in the Bodleian Library bear identical numbering, respectively nos. 100 and 46, placing the latter just next to our volume, also relating to a Cambridge college.

The inside cover of the volume contains the bookplate of Charlotte Villiers, Countess of Clarendon (1721-1790), formerly Lady Charlotte Capell, heiress to the wealthiest branch of the Hyde family and wife of Thomas Villiers, Baron Hyde and later 1st Earl of Clarendon (both titles acquired through his marriage). The family seat, The Grove, the name of which appears on the bookplate, was located near Watford, in Hertfordshire. It was acquired in 1753 by Thomas Villiers and turned into one of the most fashionable country homes in England.

The Daly Papers provide a unique insight into the birth of the Irish republic and the country’s search for an identity in the first decades of its existence. At the core of the collection is material relating to John Daly, a prominent Fenian and a source of inspiration to the generation that followed, as attested by the quantity of correspondence from numerous prominent republicans of the time. Of particular note is Daly’s correspondence with Thomas Clarke (P2/2/1/11/1, 3, 5 and 6; P2/2/1/18/9-21, 23-27 and 29-30). Other items of note include Seán Mac Diarmada’s account of his part in the Howth gun-running operation (P2/2/1/31/8); Edward (Ned) Daly’s last letter to his mother on the eve of the Easter Rising (P2/2/1/17/2); and Kathleen Clarke’s letters to her sisters during her imprisonment in 1918-19 (P2/2/1/10/4-10). The latter also illustrate the role of women in the formation of the Irish republic, as do several other items of correspondence in the collection. Madge Daly’s draft memoirs (P2/2/2/2/1-5) provide a first-hand account of the events leading up to and immediately following the Easter Rising. Her account of a visit to Kilmainham Jail to see her brother Edward (Ned) Daly prior to his execution (P2/2/2/3/1) offers a unique insight into the hardship suffered by the families of the leaders of the Easter Rising, and added poignancy is provided by personal effects in Ned’s possession which were returned to the family after his death (P2/4/1/3). The large volume of photographs contained in Series 6 provides further insights into the main players of this most turbulent of times.

Material relating to the Dore branch of the Daly family opens a window into the young nation’s first steps as an independent state. Of particular interest are Edward Dore’s military medals (P2/4/3/1-4) and his determination to commemorate the Easter Rising in Limerick City which resulted in the erection of a memorial on Sarsfield Bridge in 1956 (P2/2/1/60/6/2, P2/3/1/3/1/1-4, P2/5/1/41 and P2/6/8/5-9); and his son Éamonn de hÓir’s impassioned campaign for the promotion of the Irish language (P2/3/2/3/3/1-14) and his extensive contribution to the study of Irish place names (P2/3/2/3/2/1-20). Also of note is de hÓir’s substantial research into the life of John Daly (P2/3/2/3/5/1-3 and P2/5/1/61-65) with a view to writing his biography, the publication of which was prevented by de hÓir’s untimely death.

The collection of letters and artefacts in the possession of the Daly family was originally considerably more substantial but the burning of their home in 1921 by the British Army destroyed much valuable material (see P2/2/1/19/3, P2/2/1/60/3/3, P2/2/1/62/5, P2/4/1/7 and P2/5/1/40). Records relating to the Daly family’s bakery in Limerick City are superficial, comprising mainly account books from Edward Dore’s time as manager. The fate of the papers relating to this business is unknown.

Manuscript entitled ‘The Irish Establishment’ comprising 44 gilt-edged leaves totalling 88 pages, 12 of which are blank, in Cambridge panel calf binding contemporaneous with the contents. The document bears the official title ‘Anne R. An Establishment or List containing all Payments to be made for Civil Affairs from the Twenty fifth day of March 1704 in the Third Year of our Reign for the Kingdom of Ireland.’ It is one of several copies of a formal register of annual payments to be made to maintain the civil and military offices in Ireland at the expense of the sovereign.

The document commences with the civil list, outlining masters’ fees and other expenditure of the courts of the Exchequer, Queen’s Bench, Chancery and Common Pleas and those of the officers and ministers attending the state, customs officers, commissioners of appeals and non-conforming ministers. Also listed are payments towards perpetuities and pensions, the upkeep of lighthouses and payments made out of the concordatum fund for ‘extraordinaries’, such as ‘keeping poor Prisoners & Sick & Maimed Soldiers in Hospitals’. There is also a 13-page list of the names of French soldiers to whom pensions were to be paid following the disbanding of the French regiments that served in Ireland.

The civil list is followed by the military list, which includes allocations of money towards military contingencies and incidents and the maintenance and upkeep of regiments of horse, dragoons and foot and superior and inferior officers in charge of the Ordnance. The third and final list records payments to be made to half-pay officers and governors of garrisons, military pensions and the annual charge for maintaining and upholding all the barracks in the four provinces of Ireland. The document also provides a summary of increases and decreases in certain annual payments.

The manuscript is either incorrectly bound, or faithfully copied from an incorrectly bound version. Text on p. 56 ends mid-sentence and continues on p. 73. Pages 57-72 should follow p. 73, except for pp. 71-72, which should follow p. 80.

A number of previous owners have left their mark on the document. These include Simon Cavan, who signed p. 88 with the note ‘Simon Cavan his Book Anno Domini 1785’. The signature ‘H. Cotton’ appears on the endpaper at the beginning of the book and on the title page. This was Henry Cotton (1789-1879), Archdeacon of the Diocese of Cashel from 1824 until 1872, who previous to that appointment served in Cashel as librarian at the Bolton Library and domestic chaplain to his father-in-law Richard Laurence, who was appointed Archbishop of Cashel in 1822. There are no shelf or other marks to identify this particular volume as having ever formed part of the Bolton Library and must therefore have been part of Cotton’s private book collection.

The endpaper and flyleaf at the beginning of the book bear the stamp ‘C. A. Vignoles’ left by the very Reverend Charles Augustus Vignoles (1789-1877), Dean of Ossory and Dean of the Chapel Royal, Dublin, a fourth-generation Huguenot from Portarlington. Finally, the inside cover is signed ‘Herbert C. C. Uniacke Clogheen Co Tipperary December 1903’. This was Lieutenant General Sir Herbert Crofton Campbell (1866-1934), an officer of the Royal Artillery.