Thursday 27 June 2013

A Farm Journal ~ from the 1st to 15th May 1869 ...

My great great great uncle John Bayliff Bowman lived at Summer Hill, near Monyash in the County of Derby. 

The Bowman family, who were Quakers, had three farms, One Ash Grange [which John Bayliff Bowman often referred to as O.A.], Cales and Summer Hill [which he usually referred to as S.Hill or S.H.]

John Bayliff Bowman is fourth from the left in the photo below ...
 
The Bowman family

 A Farm Journal continues :~
 
5 Mo[nth] 1 Very fine time dry Eastwinds very cold with hot sun - lost 7 ewes with blackening etc 3 hogs 
 
2 day 3 Showery day - self with John Hodg[so]n [or Hodgkinson] & H[enr]y Pursglove drove to Lindhurst etc for beasts - off next morning as far as Alfreton for night self to Heanor in aft[ernoo]n M[onthly] Meeting]
 
5 - 6 Showery day
 
6 - 7 Ditto  Working Pewet Knobs
 
7 - 8 Ditto cold N.E. Wind - walling etc. Sold 7 fat pigs £3 10/- each - pastures pretty good cows all out
 
1 - 9  Fine
 
2 - 10 Fine & warm B[akewe]ll market things very dear
 
3 - 11 Fine but cold E wind Frosty nights sow[e]d swedes S.H.
 
4 - 12 Ditto weather 
 
5 - 13 Ditto sow[e]d swedes Cales
 
6 - 14 Ditto fallow[in]g lime in for mear [sic] etc
 
7 - 15 Cold dry E Wind very [next word indecipherable] week grass goes fast Tideswell Fair bo[ugh]t 4 cows - better to buy
 

6 comments:

  1. I wonder which field was Pewet Knobs it is a strange name,it would be interesting to see old field maps.It could be after the Peewit bird as they used to nest round there.Ann

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  2. I've always thought by 'Pewet' they meant Peewit (also known as Lapwing and Green Plover) Ann. Perhaps by knobs they meant lumpy ground or old lead workings ... If I get the chance I should have a look at the field names.

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  3. Any idea what 'blackening' is? Some sort of virus, or parasite?

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    1. This might answer your query Mitch :http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infectious_necrotic_hepatitis !

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  4. So of course I had to check out your link to blackening too.

    I am reading a book now by Colleen McCullogh who wrote the Thornbirds (which Princess Diana read during their trip with Wills as a baby in AU) It is called Morgan's Run and she seems to make those Quakers out to be astute bankers who gave no inch during the time before the prisons were cleared to populate Australia. It was a new concept to my stereotyping of Quakers.

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    1. I read the Thornbirds many years ago and enjoyed it as I recall. As for Quakers being somewhat ruthless I can believe that ... though obviously the Bowmans were atypical !

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