Abstract
This paper examines the diary of Charles Blagden, physician and secretary of the Royal Society between 1784 and 1797. It argues that the form and content of Blagden's diary developed in response to manuscript genres from a variety of contexts, including the medical training that Blagden undertook at the start of his career, the genre of the commonplace book, and contemporary travel narratives. Blagden was interested in the workings of memory and in the association of ideas. This paper reveals the diary's nature as an aid to memory and an information management tool. It argues that the diary assisted Blagden's attempts to secure the patronage of key figures in the eighteenth-century scientific world, including Joseph Banks, the Royal Society and a London-based network of aristocratic women. In exploring the development of the diary, the paper uncovers the role of a material object in aiding the management of patronage relationships central to the career of a significant but little-studied secretary of the Royal Society.
Highlights
On 1 January 1795 Charles Blagden recorded the following in his diary: Jan 1, 1795. [Thursday]
This paper examines the diary of Charles Blagden, physician and secretary of the Royal Society between 1784 and 1797
In exploring the development of the diary, the paper uncovers the role of a material object in aiding the management of patronage relationships central to the career of a significant but little-studied secretary of the Royal Society
Summary
On 1 January 1795 Charles Blagden recorded the following in his diary: Jan 1, 1795. [Thursday]. One might consider Hume’s discussion of associative links forged by ‘contiguity’, observed in the way that ‘the mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an enquiry or discourse concerning the others’, suggesting the power of recording the first item in a sequence in leading one to recall the items that follow.[33] In stating only the beginning or topic of an idea or conversation, Blagden’s diary may have been calculated to contain all that was needed to prompt previous trains of thought, suggesting one explanation for its terse prose Blagden began his diary in the 1770s, but had experimented with various genres of recordkeeping prior to this. Wellcome Library, MS/1245 (Charles Blagden, commonplace book, entry 11 Jan. 1770)
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