A message from BAHS member Margaret Bird, including three portraits of the Hardy family.

New website

In November 2018 I said in these pages that I would be reshaping the website for the Letheringsett diarist Mary Hardy (1733-1809). I have amalgamated three existing websites into one, to make them smartphone friendly: www.burnham-press.co.uk

The old Mary Hardy websites are now superseded. A good deal of fresh material is on the new site.

Further Mary Hardy books

I have finished the text of the four companion volumes Mary Hardy and her World 1773-1809 – all 3030 pages. It will take a long time to index the work, but I have made a start.

Two professors, Penelope J. Corfield and Richard G. Wilson, have been reading the draft chapters. It is heartening to hear from Prof. Corfield that Mary Hardy, in her Letheringsett setting, is “one of the treasured big diaries of the 18th century”.

There will be much for family and local historians to enjoy. Prof. Wilson pronounces the four volumes to be “a major historical undertaking and a gold mine for historians”.

I am working as fast as possible: I promise. Meanwhile here are three portraits from the Cozens-Hardy Collection showing the farmer and brewer William Hardy, his diarist wife Mary, and their 11-year-old daughter Mary Ann in 1785. The artist is James Gabriel Huquier.

With every good wish to BAHS members, and special thanks to all the officers and their team who carry out so much work on behalf of the rest of us,

Margaret Bird
Kingston upon Thames
28 February 2019