During those first few years at Weybridge, Elizabeth appears to have taken primary responsibility for the farm and the children. She meticulously charted which livestock were in which fields and what the men who worked the farm had accomplished, whether it be making hay or mending fences. Elizabeth closely monitored the children's health and activities. Her sister Martha spent much of her time in the garden, and helped with housecleaning and other household tasks. They both managed the accounts, and took care of Clinton's affairs while he was away. Their aged father devoted many of his days to fishing and riding, and died soon after Clinton's return to England in June 1782.

Weybridge was actually part of the Duke of Newcastle's property, and the Clintons and Carters lived there rent-free until the Duke, piqued at Clinton's lack of deference for his benefactor, requested rent in 1784. Clinton was so annoyed at the request that he moved to Orwell Park in Suffolk. Sir Henry would eventually break with his cousin, who had proved to be a sporadic and ineffectual patron. While they were neighbors, the Duke frequently stopped in specifically to see the Clinton children.

Clinton kept a London house on Portland Place, near Regents Park, and made the usual rounds from city to country to resort towns like Bath, accompanied by Elizabeth and his youngest child, Harriot. His boys, William and Henry, went off to Eton and then military service. In 1783, Clinton established his mistress, Mary Baddeley, and their children in a house in London. For the rest of his life he circulated between their residence and the one Elizabeth continued to manage. When Clinton died in December 1795, he provided well for both households, and Elizabeth received £1,000. Elizabeth's journals cease the day before Clinton died, and little is known of how she lived until her own death in 1817.

Scope and contents:

There are nearly 800 pages in the dozen oversized journals kept by Elizabeth between 1774 and 1795. This tremendous record has long been identified simply as "Volume 290" of the Clinton Papers. Although the journals are but a mere speck within this collection, they are the richest source available for researching the Clintons' home life. Elizabeth rarely committed detailed observations to paper, but she was a precise recorder of daily events. Several family letters, including those between Elizabeth and Clinton, augment the material in the journals.

Above all else, Elizabeth's journals chart movement. People, animals, letters, and crops ebb and flow through the pages. She wrote nearly every day, and the accumulated entries dizzy the reader with rotating stock and visits back and forth among the Duke's extended entourage. She named specific horses and cows, and listed the people involved in the day's activities, which invariably included card games, outdoor sports and walking -- weather permitting -- and always included tea.

Elizabeth was utterly devoted to the children, invariably referred to as, "the dear sweet little ones." Frederick, the eldest, was probably the illegitimate child of Harriot and Clinton, born at least two years before the wedding. The other children, Augusta, William, Henry, and Harriot, often accompanied the adults, and Elizabeth noted milestones like losing teeth and the boys' transition to long pants. The children's health was a great preoccupation, and Elizabeth nursed them through measles and chicken pox, and regularly administered "James's Powder" and rhubarb for lesser ailments. She also arranged for the older children to attend school.

Elizabeth was also devoted to Clinton. When he left Weybridge, she spent days putting his linen, his clothes press, and the papers and maps in his "Sanctum" in order. Whenever she received a letter from Clinton, she would write: "I had the happiness of receiving a long letter from my dearest Genl" (1775 Sept. 6). At some point after his return from America, however, Elizabeth stopped referring to him as "my dearest friend;" he became plain old "the Genl," and the tenor of their relationship seemed to shift. Elizabeth may well have been in love with her brother-in-law. The arrival of Mrs. Baddeley, Clinton's mistress from America with whom he had several illegitimate children, undoubtedly shocked Elizabeth, whether or not she entertained fantasies of having him for herself. On February 8, 1783, Elizabeth wrote, "The Genl went to see Mrs. Baderly," and the following day, "very unhappy."

Elizabeth's writing is peppered with these fleeting expressions of emotion. She would go weeks without alluding to her mood, and then throw in a short phrase: "My fathers Lame Mare taken from grass. a bad morning. My father went a shooting." In some instances she is probably just alluding to the weather, but occasionally there seems to be an indication that all was not right in her world. In her very first entry, for instance, Elizabeth wrote, "Took a melancholy ride in the Plantation on poor little Blacky who was not in better spirits than I. walked to the upper field as soon as dinner was over, where we were all three very busy for half an hour pulling up weeds & thistles. The great event of the day, the dear little Harriot cut one of her eye teeth. Ned very ill." Other extremes of emotion are also kept well in check: when Clinton finally returned from America, the family spent a "happy" day together. The minimality of her expression speaks volumes, even if it at times frustrates the reader intent upon knowing the causes for her changes in mood. In this private forum there was no need for Elizabeth to spell out the whys and wherefores. The specific events of the day would be sufficient to trigger her memory of why she was melancholy, or what made a particular day such a "bad day."

One of the most curious aspects of the journals is the gaps, which almost always correspond with a sad event in Elizabeth's life. There is a sense that when her emotions overwhelmed her, Elizabeth chose not to write at all. Most gaps correspond with deaths in the family - the young Frederick, her father, and then her sister -- or other painful situations, like Clinton's eldest daughter's elopement with Henry Dawkins early in 1788. When she resumes her journal, days or months later, Elizabeth does not allude to the deaths, or the elopement. An entry for June 1788 simply states, "Augusta and Mr. Dawkins came here to breakfast," and from then on they feature regularly in the daily perambulations, with no description given of the familial reconciliation that must have occurred.

The end of the journals -- the final gap -- comes the day before Clinton's death. Although it is possible that Elizabeth continued to keep a journal, it seems somewhat fitting that her voice stops with his death. For over twenty years, she had dedicated herself to managing his domestic affairs and raising his children. Her journals document a peculiar companionship, from the perspective of the one who stayed at home.

References:

Froggett, John Walter. Froggett's survey of the country thirty miles round London. (London, [1831]).

Stern, Marvin. Thorns and Briars: Bonding, Love, and Death, 1764-1870. (New York, 1991).

Willcox, William B. Portrait of a General. (New York, 1964).

See also: Clinton Papers at Beinecke Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Subject index:

Bath (England)--Social life and customs
Card games
Carter family
Children--England
Clinton family
Country life--England--History--18th century
Death
Domestic animals--England--History--18th century
England--Description and travel--Early works to 1800
England--Social life and customs--18th century
Family--England--History--18th century
Fishing--England
Horsemanship--England
Human-animal relationships--England--History--18th century
Hunting--England
Kinship--England--History
Nobility--England--History--18th century
Sex role--England--History--18th century
Social calls--England
Surrey (England)--Description and travel
Surrey (England)--Social life and customs
Tea--England
Upper class--England--History
Walking--England
Women--Diaries
Women--England--Conduct of life
Women--England--Diaries
Women--England--History--18th century
Women--England--London
Women--England--Social conditions--18th century

Name index:

Carter, Elizabeth, 1742-1817
Carter, Martha, 1739-1783
Carter, Thomas, 1698-1782
Clinton, Augusta, b.1768
Clinton, Harriot Carter, 1747-1772
Clinton, Harriot, 1772-1812
Clinton, Henry, Sir, 1730-1795
Clinton, Henry, Sir, 1771-1829
Clinton, William Henry, Sir, 1769-1846
Newcastle, Henry Fiennes Clinton, Duke of, 1768-1794

Link to:

Folder listing for the Elizabeth Carter Journals

Provenance:

Acquired, 1937.

M-1079, Vol. 290
cat. 3/98 rko

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