The Tyldesley diary was a diary kept by Thomas Tyldesley of Fox Hall,

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

(1657–1715), a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

recusant Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation. The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...

and Jacobite sympathiser, between 1712 and 1714.

The diary

The diary is a valuable historical source for the light it sheds on the daily lives and routines of the Lancastrian gentry of the age and, in particular, during the period immediately before the

Jacobite rising of 1715 The Jacobite rising of 1715 ( gd, Bliadhna Sheumais ; or 'the Fifteen') was the attempt by James Edward Stuart (the Old Pretender) to regain the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland for the exiled Stuarts The House of Stuart, ori ...

–

being one of the heartlands of such support for the cause of

the Old Pretender James Francis Edward Stuart (10 June 16881 January 1766), nicknamed the Old Pretender by Whigs, was the son of King James II and VII of England, Scotland and Ireland, and his second wife, Mary of Modena. He was Prince of Wales fro ...

as still existed at that time.

Damage to the manuscript

In 2007, it was discovered that the manuscript of the diary, owned by Peter J. Tyldesley, had been seriously damaged while in the custody of the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

to which it had been entrusted for safekeeping.The Times, 29 December 2007
/ref>

External links

The Tyldesley Diary
(edited with introduction and notes by

Joseph Gillow Joseph Gillow (5 October 1850, Preston, Lancashire – 17 March 1921, Westholme, Hale, Cheshire) was an English Roman Catholic antiquary, historian and bio-bibliographer, "the Plutarch of the English Catholics". Biography Born in Frenchwood Hous ...

and Anthony Hewitson) (1873)

References

{{Reflist Diaries 18th-century documents History of Lancashire Jacobite rising of 1715