Ihe irtr) of 



OF DORCHESTER, Co. DORSET, FROM NOVEMBER, 1618, TO MARCH, 



1634. 



Eev. W. MILES BARNES. 



|HIS Diary now in the British Museum contains notes of 

 JL much local interest. Being in MS. and having become 

 public property only since 1840, when it was purchased 

 for the British Museum, it has not come under the notice 

 of local historians. 



Hutchins states that a diary written by a son of 

 William Whiteway was in the library of S. John's 

 College, Cambridge, in his day ; nothing is known of it 

 there, nor is the book to be found in the library of S. 

 John's College, Oxford, to the librarian of which college 

 mpre than one enquirer has been referred. It is not 

 improbable that this journal is the diary mentioned by Hutchins, for 

 the writer was a son of William Whiteway. 



William Whiteway, junior, the writer of our journal, was one of the 

 leading Burgesses of Dorchester. He owned an estate in the parish of 

 Martinstown and was related to some of the principal persons in this 

 neighbourhood, besides which he held various civic offices, including the 

 highest municipal dignity. He was therefore well informed on matters 

 of much interest, and in a position to give accurate information. 



The book is a small duodecimo volume. On the first page is a rough 

 pen-and-ink sketch of a coat of arms, possibly his own, and here and 

 there the margins and vacant spaces are utilised for little domestic 

 accounts, the first of these, dated Jan. 1, 1625, some years after the 



