Thomas Marchant's Diary 1714 - 1728

Until then the only work done on the diary was carried out in Victorian times by the Rev. Edward Turner. His transcript, however, covered only approximately 5% of the whole.

The complete diary contains approximately 235,000 words and took our transcription team (Anthony Bower, Rose Cottis, June Kentsley and Bunty Parkinson) more than three years to transcribe and proof-read. David Blake provided a wealth of historical and farming background. Anthony's cousin, Diana Mitchell contributed (and continues to contribute) a large number of transcripts of related documents. Renate Bower was responsible for the huge task of typing up the diary and a large amount of related material.

Thomas Marchant’s diary is a record of his farming and trading in fish, timber, sea-coal etc but also gives an intimate insight into his social and family life. He also makes many references to national and even international events.

Click here to read some extracts of diary.

In 2005 we published a hardcopy version of the diary. Until then the diary was only available to the general public on a CD Rom.

The CD differs to the book inasmuch as it also contains a digital copy of the whole diary in JPEG form as well as transcripts of a large number of wills and documents relating to the Marchant family and their relatives.

We are still analysing the diary and annotating it and will from time to time update the electronic version available online. At the moment we are offering the September 2005 version

With genealogists in mind, we included on the CD, in gedcom form, a vast database of Thomas Marchant’s wider family. This has been prepared over 30 years by Anthony Bower and his cousin Diana Mitchell, direct descendants of Thomas via their paternal grandmother Laura Mabel Naomi Marchant.

The main names in the database are: Balcomb, Banistaire, Beard, Bellaby, Bennett, Bine, Borrer, Bower, Box, Bull, Campion, Chatfield, Clement, Coppard, Courthope, Courtness, Crips, Dodson, Dungate, Ede, Farley, Gatland, Goffe, Goodall, Gratwick, Greenaway, Greenfield, Griffin, Hall, Ide, Jenner, Johnson, Lindfield, Lintott, Luxford, Marchant, Martin, Mayne, Michelbourne, Mitchell, Moon, Morton, Naldrett, Nicholl, Norton, Nye, Pratt, Pryaulx, Sayers, Seward, Shelley, Simmons, Stapley, Stenning, Stone, Turner, Tyson, West, White, Whitpaine, Wood and Yates.

For the genealogy information contained in the family tree we are heavily indebted to the International Genealogical Index (IGI), the Chichester Record Office, the Lewes Record Office, the Public Record Office, the Sussex Family History Group and to individuals who have generously provided details from their own research. We were surprised how much information we have received from Australia and the United States of America.

Where possible entries have been crosschecked with Parish Records but with the sheer volume of information flowing in we cannot guarantee every single item. Inasmuch we would be grateful for any feedback where errors or omissions are discovered.

Thomas was well and widely travelled in Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire despite the bad roads. Amongst many others there are references in the diary to the following places: Albourne, Arundel, Balcombe, Beeding, Bolney, Broadbridge, Broadwater, Chichester, Clayton, Cowfold, Crawley, Cuckfield, Ditchling, Dorking, East Grinstead, Edburton, Fulking, Handcross, Henfield, Hickstead, Horsham, Hurstpierpoint, Keymer, Lewes, Newtimber, Petworth, Portsmouth, Poynings, Pyecombe, Rusper, Shoreham, Slaugham, St John’s Common, Steyning, Twineham, Whiteman’s Green, Wineham, Wivelsfield and Woodmancote.