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Date: |
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Description: | Journal, 1828-1830;
Accounts, 1833-1848.
Charles Kirk's journal not only provides a record of his working life from 1 January 1828 to 29 November 1830, but also gives an insight into his private affairs. Despite the success of his business, it is clear that personal happiness often eluded him and in this respect the winter of 1829 seems to have been a particularly unfortunate period. An unpleasant business dispute with a client was followed, on 1 December, by the death of a female friend, Harriet S. The mysterious Harriet may well have been Kirk's mistress, as he records that he could not have relieved her state of distress "without forfeiting my honour as a husband and father." Evidently laid low by this event, he contracted what he describes as "dysentery" and his condition became so serious that he thought he might die. Fortunately, he had made a full recovery by the middle of January of the following year.
The accounts at the back of the journal provide a record of the many surveying and building projects undertaken by Charles Kirk over the period 1833-1848. He frequently carried out work on many of the bridges in the Sleaford area, made many improvements to Folkingham House of Correction and supervised extensive alterations to Bourne Town Hall in 1845.
A summary of some of the more important entries in the journal is given below:
30 October 1828: "At Sleaford and Lincoln. I was very much pleased with Smirk's [sic] County hall. There is an ancient grandeur about this modern edifice."
11 February 1829: "At Sleaford began to pull down the Court House. Was as full of bustle as a man need to be."
18 April 1829: "At Leicester met wife and bairns, also old friend Dand, got drunk with him at Mr Raggs at night."
1 December 1829: "Harriet S died this day at half past 4PM, a lovelier but more unfortunate woman never existed."
25 December 1829: "Still so ill was obliged to keep my bed. Mrs Kirk sent for Bowman to attend me. My disease - dysentery."
26 December 1829: "Still confined to my bed and the close stool."
31 December 1829: "Thus terminated this eventfull year, the most eventfull of any in my life, a strange mixture of prosperity and adversity.."
8 January 1830: "Worse than ever I was during my illness, appearing to hang lingering on the confines of Eternity." | Temporal: | 1828-1848 | Source: | Lincolnshire County Council | Identifier: | http://www.lincstothepast.com/Records/Re... | Go to resource |
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