James Woodforde
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James Woodforde (1740-1803) was an English clergyman, best known as the author of The Diary of a Country Parson (ed. John Beresford, 5 vols. 1924-1931).
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
James Woodforde was born at the Parsonage, Ansford, Somerset, U.K. on 27 June 1740. In adulthood he led an uneventful, unambitious life as a clergyman of the Church of England: a life unremarkable but for one thing - for nearly 45 years he kept a diary recording an existence the very ordinariness of which provides a unique insight into the everyday routines and concerns of 18th century rural England.
The sixth child of the Revd Samuel Woodforde, rector of Ansford and vicar of Castle Cary, and his wife Jane Collins, James was one of four brothers ( one of whom died in infancy ) and the only one to attend public school - Winchester, and university - Oxford. He was admitted to Winchester as a scholar in 1752 and enrolled at Oriel College, Oxford in 1758, migrating to New College in the following year. His diary begins with the entry for 21 May 1759 - "Made a Scholar of New College". He was ordained and graduated B.A. in 1763, became M.A. in 1767 and B.D. in 1775. He appears to have been a competent but uninspired student and the portrait he provides of Oxford during his two periods of residence as scholar and fellow ( from 1758-1763 and from 1773-1776 ) only confirm Edward Gibbon's famously damning opinion that it was a place where the dons' "dull and deep potations excuse the brisk intemperance of youth".
[edit] Working life
Upon leaving the university in 1763, Woodforde returned to Somerset where he worked as a curate, mostly for his father, for ten years. This period of his life, under-represented in Beresford's edition of the Diary, is thickly peopled with memorable characters from all strata of society, many of them immortalised with nick-names - Peter 'Cherry Ripe' Coles, 'Mumper' Clarke, 'Riddle' Tucker. The extended Woodforde family, including James's frequently drunken brothers, figure prominently in these Somerset years.
On his father's death in 1771, James failed to succeed to his parishes and, likewise, failed to win, or rather retain, the heart of Betsy White - "a mere Jilt". He returned to Oxford where he became sub-warden of his college and a pro-proctor of the university. In 1773, he was presented to the living of Weston Longville in Norfolk, one of the best in the gift of the college being worth £400 a year. Despite the wrench of leaving family and friends, he quickly settled down to a comfortable bachelor existence. He thought Norwich "the fairest City in England by far" and always enjoyed a trip to the "sweet beach" at Yarmouth. He was soon joined by his niece Nancy who, as housekeeper and companion, was with until he died.
In Norfolk, his social life was more limited, but he enjoyed the fellowship of the local clergy who took it in turns to entertain one another to dinner - "our Rotation Club". Because he always recorded what was provided for dinner, which very occasionally was an elaborate banquet, he is often wrongly characterised as a glutton. Among the gentry in the eighteenth century, it was a matter of pride to provide a variety of dishes. Because Woodforde recorded them all, does not mean that he ate from them all. He also provides a meticulous record of his accounts. This does not mean that he was either a miser or a spendthrift; he was advised to do so by his father. The daily entries are also accompanied by weather notes. The Diary also provides a wonderfully full account of the small community in which the diarist lived - of the births and deaths, comings and goings, illnesses and annual celebrations. We learn not only of 'the Squire and his Relations,' but of the rector's servants, the farmers and labourers, carpenter and inn-keeper, parish-clerk and many more. As a churchman, Woodforde himself was conscientious by the standards of his time, charitable and pious without being sanctimonious and again typical of his day, deeply suspicious of enthusiasm.
The value of the Diary to the historian lies in the wealth of primary source material it provides, whilst the general reader will bring from it the authentic flavour of eighteenth century English country life.
[edit] Writings
The five volume edition of the Diary has one flaw: it is only a selection, and, unaware of how popular it would prove - with Virginia Woolf, Max Beerbohm and Siegfried Sassoon among many thousands more - Beresford's selected his first volume from nearly half of the entire Diary. The subsequent volumes, each covering between four and six years, are more complete. A definitive edition is being prepared by the Parson Woodforde Society. The MS Diary, consisting of 72 notebooks and 100 loose sheets, is deposited in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
The Revd James Woodforde was one of several Woodforde diarists. His niece Nancy, and his `Nephew Bill's' three daughters all kept diaries, as did a number of his predecessors. Others were painters, including his nephew Samuel Woodforde RA. Hence, a remarkably detailed account of his family exists, and is now documented online at http://www.woodforde.co.uk
[edit] References
- Beresford, John (ed.) The Diary of a Country Parson, 5 Vols. 1924-31
- Winstanley, Roy, Parson Woodforde: the Life and Times of a Country Parson, 1996, ISBN 0-948903-38-4
- Treasure, G. Who's Who in History,Vol. IV 1714-1789, 1969, ISBN 631061908
- Woodforde, Dorothy Heighes (ed) Woodforde Papers and Diaries, 1932, Peter Davies, London.
