GB, 5th Earl, ref GDP/12 The Great Diary Project holds ten volumes of diaries belonging to GB, 5th Earl (1860-1949) covering ten of the years between 1903 and 1929. The 5th Earl was the grandson of GB, 3rd Earl, who passed down the order for the disastrous charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War in 1854, and the grandfather of RB, 7th Earl, who disappeared after the murder of his children’s nanny in 1974. The Diarist knew both his notorious grandfather and grandson: the 3rd Earl died in 1888 when the Diarist was 27 and, when the Diarist [...]

DE ref GDP/11 was born in Woolwich in 1969. We hold her diaries for the years between 1979 and 2009, which cover her school years and then her work. She writes a lot about her friends and her leisure hours, including concerts and films attended and her enjoyment of motorcycling. Of particular note with these diaries is the large amount of ephemera included among the pages. Letters from friends, postcards, birthday cards, cinema tickets, and lottery tickets are all preserved in the 31 volumes.

AL ref GDP/10 was born in Surrey in 1952. We hold his diaries covering the years 1986 to 2011. During this time, he taught art to school students in London. The most striking feature of these diaries is that L draws a self-portrait each day. Text is spare, although there is noticeably more in later diaries. Typically, each day’s entry will include comments on the weather, where L is, his domestic situation, and sometimes current events or sport. Sometimes, when the diary itself is not available, the entry has been made on whatever comes to hand, including tickets, receipts, and sea-sickness [...]

John Leeson John Leeson was born in London on 10 July 1803 and died in London on 27 May 1865. We hold his diaries for the years between 1846 and 1865. During the time covered by these diaries, he owned and rented out property, and lived at 41 Davies St., Berkeley Square. The diary was kept on bound volumes of blank paper, and although the entries were not made every day, a number of significant events were recorded. Leeson often noted important political events, including events in Parliament, Chartist demonstrations, the revolutions of 1848, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. [...]

AM ref GDP/1 was born in Stockport on 3 January 1937. We hold her diaries for the years between 1952 and 1958. At the beginning of this run of diaries, she was living with her parents is Eskdale, Cumbria and going to boarding school in nearby Seascale. After leaving school, she did clerical work in Edinburgh, where she was still living when she made the final entry in her diary on her 21st birthday. Her diaries contain a detailed and vivid account of this formative period of her life. The entries are fairly lengthy, and were often written up several [...]