An edition of the journals of Adlard Welby

This thesis comprises edited and annotated transcriptions of four of the six known journals of Adlard Welby, (1776 – 1861), Lincolnshire landowner and traveller. The transcriptions have been made from the original manuscript journals, housed in the Lincolnshire Archives and the Sleaford Museum Trust. They cover the periods 1832 to 1856. Welby’s domestic life was unusual, in that he had two families, one with his wife Elizabeth, and a second, with his mistress Mary Hutchinson. The Italian Journal (1832-1835), is a detailed record of his first three years in Italy, where he lived with Mary and their ten children, after giving up his family estate. The remaining three journals, dating from 1841 to 1856, are a record of his travels in Europe and his experiences following Mary’s death in 1840. He was a thoughtful and outspoken diarist, and the journals provide a unique record of his view of the world he lived and travelled in. The Introduction considers the contents of these Journals together with references to other manuscript letters and documents, the remaining two journals and his only published work, A Visit to North America and the English Settlements in Illinois, (1821). Welby’s writing is placed in the context of nineteenth-century life writing and the travel writing of the period. The journals also provide a perspective on English attitudes to life on the continent at the time. The journals are prefaced by headnotes which give bibliographical details of the manuscripts and the principles of transcription. Each journal is accompanied by an itinerary. The editorial notes provide contextual material, and identify contemporary and historical references. The fifteen appendices include a family tree, details of his reading, illustrations of journal pages, notes on The Fourth Journal and the transcription of a bastardy bond signed by Welby.