The historical value and interest of diaries is not so much in their accounts of great historical events but in their ability to convey the quality - the sights, smells and textures - of everyday life that would otherwise be lost to us. It is everyday life that abounds in the diaries of Richard Hall, a sometimes pious Baptist haberdasher who kept shop at one end or other of the old London Bridge through much of the late eighteenth century. He recorded what he ate, what he purchased, how he slept and above all what the weather was like in near obsessive detail. He charts the hurly-burly of family life - he had two marriages and numerous children - his sometimes tumultuous relationship with his church, and his boundless curiousity about almost everything - from astronomy to the latest fashions.
His great-great-great-great grandson, Mike Rendell, has meticulously sifted through the rich treasure trove of Richard's papers to present us with an engaging portrait of a flawed but thoroughly likeable 'Georgian gentleman'.
His great-great-great-great grandson, Mike Rendell, has meticulously sifted through the rich treasure trove of Richard's papers to present us with an engaging portrait of a flawed but thoroughly likeable 'Georgian gentleman'.
