Source material: Diaries

Some of the most interesting details of the social and economic life of a local community are to be found in the diaries and notebooks of individuals who lived and worked there. Diaries enable the historian to probe beneath the surface of the story told by the official record, and make it possible to come face to face with the private thoughts of writers as they commented on the events that took place around them.

Local diaries

Several local diaries have survived in Calderdale, covering a span of over 400 years - from the mid 17th century down to the mid 20th century. The most significant of these, perhaps, are of: Oliver Heywood, a dissenting minister of Coley during the second half of the 17th century; Cornelius Ashworth, the late 18th-century Ovenden farmer and handloom weaver; Anne Lister, the 19th-century owner of Shibden Hall. These writers illuminate their times with their vivid language, and provide us with personal and informal portraits of the period in which they lived.
Anne Lister's diaries are held by West Yorkshire Archive Service and any enquiries should be passed on to them directly, their website can be reached with this link: Yorkshire Archive Service

Cornelius Ashworth Journals

The four volumes of Cornelius Ashworth's journal, covering the period 1782-1816, are very well known to the historian. This is because they contain a wealth of information about the Halifax district during the early years of the Industrial Revolution. This was when the area was entering a transitional period. It served as a bridge from the pre-industrial domestic system to the factory age.

The wide variety of topics covered in the diaries include:

• climate, during a period for which few official records have survived regionally and nationally;
• farming methods in the highland zone of the Pennines;
• textile production during the early years of the Industrial Revolution;
• religious nonconformity;
• Parliamentary enclosure;
• disease; and
• crime and punishment.

Cornelius Ashworth's journal is held by West Yorkshire Archive Service and any enquiries should be passed on to them directly, their website can be reached with this link: Yorkshire Archive Service

Use and limitations

The value of old diaries such as these cannot be overestimated, though their possible limitations should always be borne in mind, and the researcher should always be on the look out for highly subjective impressions of events and issues. At their best, however, such unofficial sources often reflect, in a vivid and readable form, the attitudes of the dominant members of local society and the ways in which they perceived and evaluated contemporary events.

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