The diary of Thomas Turner 1754-1765

Turner, Thomas, 1729-17931984

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Summary

Thomas Turner (1729-93) was a key figure in the village of East Hoathly, Sussex, where he was a shopkeeper, undertaker, schoolmaster, tax-gatherer, churchwarden, overseeer of the poor and much besides. In his diary he recorded eleven colourful years of daily life in a Georgian village. Here are boisterous parties (after one of these the rector's wife helped pull Turner from his bed in the early hours and made him dance in his wife's petticoat), cricket matches, cockfighting, horse-racing, unexpected windfalls of confiscated brandy... Here too are vivid and memorable portraits of those whose lives and deaths would otherwise only be fodder for the statisticians. David Vaisey is Librarian Emeritus, Bodleian Library, Oxford University and Emeritus Fellow of Exeter College.