Introduction

In the eighteenth as in other centuries much unobtrusive public work was done by obscure people. Often they are little more than names in the records of vestry meetings, of charities, of turnpike trusts, and in militia rolls. The diary of John Salusbury reveals him in the round. The present whereabouts of the manuscript is not known. In 1883 it was in the possession of Dr. Edward Lawford, and was copied by Henry Pettit, who in 1936 gave his transcript to the County Library. (A copy made from this is in the County Record Office.) This transcript appears to have been carefully and reliably done. Only very rarely is either a blank left or a misreading to be suspected. It has here been printed in full, save only for the constant references (on the average twice a week) to cards and backgammon, followed by entries of his gains or losses, usually a few shillings only.

John Salusbury was in 1757 a bachelor, aged 44. A pretty face like Dolly Gulston’s was not entirely lost on him, and once he and Ashwell bought at Leighton fair ribbons for the ladies for fairings; but in the main his life had settled down to a quiet, regular pattern.

His house was of moderate size, for he paid window tax on 37 lights. At fair time he let his front railings to horse-vendors. In the garden was a summer-house, and apparently a minimum of flowers (the only ones he mentions are tulips and hollyhocks). But the vegetable garden was excellently stocked with artichokes, asparagus, beans (also yellow kidney and French dwarf speckled), broccoli, cabbages, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cos lettuce and “ small salad ”, onions, parsley, peas and savoys. In the orchard were apples : pippins, russets, Pearmain, Nonpareil and Golden Rennetor (some were wall-fruit and some espaliers); he also had vines and Burgundy pears. There were some cobblestones or pebbles, which had to be weeded, and the yard was “pitched”; most of the walks, however, were grass, and Dick Gilpin mowed them four times a year.

Here Salusbury lived with his maid Alice (Robbins?), who once went to London, walking back from St. Albans.