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

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

 (1657–1715), a Catholic recusant

Recusancy

In the history of England and Wales, the recusancy was the state of those who refused to attend Anglican services. The individuals were known as "recusants"...

 and Jacobite

Jacobitism

Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...

 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 uprising of 1715

Jacobite rising

The Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in Great Britain and Ireland occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at returning James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by...

 – Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

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

James Francis Edward Stuart

James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales was the son of the deposed James II of England...

 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

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

to which it had been entrusted for safekeeping.

External links

• The Tyldesley Diary (edited with introduction and notes by Joseph Gillow and Anthony Hewitson) (1873)