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Date: |
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Description: | Frederic Walter Giffard
Frederic Walter Giffard was born at Wrawby on 19th September 1811, the son of the Reverend James Giffard, curate of Wrawby. James came from a family of Cambridgeshire landowners, but a career in the Church brought him to Lincolnshire and, in 1808, he married Frederic's mother, Anne Goodwin, the widow of a Gainsborough banker.
Frederic studied at Cambridge and then followed his father into the clergy. After a number of years in North Yorkshire, he returned to his native county in 1839 to take up the post of curate of Cabourne, where his father had been vicar since 1821.
In 1840 Frederic married Anne Susannah Petch of Helmsley and their first child, Rohesia Mary, was born in July 1841. Eight more children were born in the years that followed: Isabel (1843), Caroline (1845), William Walter (1848), Alice (1850), Arthur James (1852), Annie (1854), Mary (1856) and Margaret (1858).
Following the death of his father in 1849, Frederic became vicar of Wootton, where he presided over, and partly financed, the restoration of the church from 1850 to 1851. His later years at Wootton were marred by the deaths of three of his children: Alice and Arthur in 1853 and Annie in 1856. The last entry in his diary is dated 21st August 1859, by which time he seems to have given up any hope of recovery from an unspecified illness. He died at Wootton on 22nd September 1859.
Frederic Giffard's only surviving son, William Walter, followed his father and grandfather into the Church and subsequently became curate of Louth, 1872-4, and vicar of Wootton, 1873-1912.
The diaries
The diaries are by no means solely concerned with the parishes of Cabourne and Wootton, as Frederic assisted his father at Thornton Curtis from 1844 to 1848, and frequently undertook the duties of other local clergymen who were otherwise indisposed. He was also a magistrate for the area and regularly visited Caistor Union Workhouse, where he often preached.
Family life and church business naturally feature most prominently in Frederic Giffard's diaries, but he also gives frequent weather reports, records any important local news (particularly crimes and unusual deaths) and passes comment on events in the wider world, such as the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny.
A summary of the most interesting entries from the diaries is provided below: | Temporal: | 1839 | Source: | Lincolnshire County Council | Identifier: | http://www.lincstothepast.com/Records/Re... | Go to resource |
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