Farmer's diaries will shed light on Victorian era

The decades-old diaries of a Victorian farmer who "took risks" and survived "really horrible" winters could take as long as 20 years to analyse.

John White, born in 1813, took over Parsonage Farm, in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, in 1839, before moving on to the site about three years later.

Over the next 55 years, he detailed every day of his working life on the farm - and his personal life outside of it - in a series of diaries, some which are now on display at Three Rivers Museum.

Fabian Hiscock, chairman of the museum trust, believes the 5,000-plus pages of "social history" paint a picture of 19th Century life in the county.

"I was absolutely set back when the family stated they would donate the entire collection to us... there was enormously more material than we knew existed," he said.

"The most surprising thing is the detail with which he describes his daily life; we really get an insight into how he felt about what was going on around him.

"We learn shovelfuls from it and every time I open a volume or extract I see something new that I haven't seen before."

The vast, but incomplete, collection of diaries was gifted to the trust in "two old French wine boxes" before being digitised into a 2,000-page readable file.

The period depicted covered the effects of the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws (which had regulated the price and trade of grain) and the Great Agricultural Depression (c.1873-1896) when cheaper imports, poor harvests and bad weather hit rural communities hard.

The diaries show that Mr White managed to come out the other side.

The texts now make up part of the Project Harvest exhibition, a collaborative initiative co-produced by the trust and the University of Hertfordshire.

However, due to the sheer volume of material there is to go through, the diaries could still take 20 years to completely analyse.

"This is social history and it's a wonderful find; I think it is terrifically unique," added Mr Hiscock.

"It's a fabulous gift and the lessons we will draw up - to do with investment, diversification, and keeping a handle on a business - are clearly relevant to us now."

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