The Bousfield Diaries

The diaries of Charlotte Bousfield, extending from 1878 to 1896, paint a vivid picture of the activities of the multi-talented Bousfield family of Bedford, led by a strong-minded matriarch. She tells us about her husband, Edward’s, work, as an inventor at the Britannia Iron Works, and records her children’s successes: one son became a QC and Tory MP. The family were staunch Methodists and teetotallers and Charlotte, helped by her two daughters, was very active in spreading the good word of both causes. She was also involved in running a home for inebriated middle class women in London. In Bedford she was involved in the Bedford Workhouse scandal of 1894 and she records some of that and conditions in the workhouse. There are glimpses of middle class domestic life, of the social round, religious commitments and of the lives of servants, the working class and the poor.