Woodforde, James ___ 1740-1803 ___ British ___ priest

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Woodforde was born at Ansford, Somerset, into a religious family, and was ordained when 23. He spent a decade as a curate in his father's parishes before being appointed to the living at Weston Longville, Norfolk. He started writing his, now famous, diary in 1759, when only 19, and wrote an entry nearly every day until the year before his death. The diaries - there are 74 volumes in the Bodleian Library - were discovered in Hertfordshire during the First World War. They were published as 'The Diary of a Country Parson' in five volumes during the 1920s.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1758-1802 ___ domestic religious social farming weather sport health

WEB TEXT LINKS
googlebooks
a bit about
many extracts

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Oxford University: Bodleian Library

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Diary of a Country Parson
Woodforde at Oxford
The Diary of James Woodforde
 

May 2005, August 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.