INTRODUCTION William Mawhood's diary is contained in forty-nine note-books (6" x 4") with a total of just over four thousand pages and probably half a million words. The first entry is dated 14th July 1764 and the last 18th October 1790. He began using these note-books for business memoranda, but gradually he formed the habit of adding notes of a personal or family interest , so that , in the later volumes, business affairs take a subordinate place. William Mawhood also copied into his note- books drafts of letters concerning family
matters . Selection. As it was impracticable to print the whole diary, some principles of selection had to be formed. A negative principle has been to omit the business records such as sales of cloth, accounts, payments into the bank , etc. This at once halved the material. A positive principle has been to include everything referring , however remotely , to the Catholic life of the times. The diary is a unique document in this respect, for, although there is a considerableamount of material on what may be termed Catholic public affairs , there is almost nothing on the private lives of middleclass Catholic families . These two main principles of selection did not solve the problem of how to deal with such matters as the conduct of Mawhood's country estate, his work as a Surveyor of the Highway for Finchley , or as a Vestry -man of St. Bartholomewthe-Great, and other general topics. In order to keep within reasonable limits of space , it seemed best to give, here and there, sample extracts referring to these aspects of Mawhood's life ; is important to note how far a Catholic at that period could take his part in civic and cultural life. The Transcript . William Mawhood's spelling and punctuation The spelling is at times have been scrupulously followed . eccentric and the editor has suggested readings for the most obstinate words by an italicised note in square brackets [thus . will be found that , as the spelling is on the whole phonetic , difficulties will disappear by reading aloud . Occasionally the spelling throws light on contemporary pronunciation ; this probably explains the use of 'os ' for ' us in the earlier years. Contractions have been expanded, including, of course , 'ye into 'the . may, however, be of interest to note that whereas up to about 1780, ye is the common form, after that date ' the' is more frequentlywritten in full. The diarist's method of dating has not been followed. The frontispiece shows that his custom was to give for each day, the name of the day and its full date with month and year. As there is no significance in this, it seemed best to adopt a simpler system throughout . Omissions in individual entries are marked by
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