Joseph Romilly: Extracts from Diaries

MS.Add.5098: Diary extracts, 1820-1864, 208 folios.

Notes on Professor Sedgwick extracted from Joseph Romilly's diary, 20 January 1820 - 12 June 1864, by Edmund Edward Allen, 1879. The following letters are attached to fo. 1: E.E. Allen to Alexander Macmillan, 5 July 1879; Macmillan to Thomas McKenny Hughes, 23 July 187[ ], 24 July 1879 and 31 July 1879; E.E. Allen to Hughes, 13 August, 17 September and 26 September 1879. The versos are blank throughout.

MS.Add.5099: Diary extracts, 1834-1850, 94 folios.

'Extracts from diary' [21 January 1834 - 29 October 1850], 'kept by Rev. Joseph Romilly, M.A., Fellow of Trin. Coll.&Registrary of University 1832 - 1862. Made by J. W. Clark when writing life of Sedgwick', 19th century. Fos ii and 63-87 are blank.

Joseph Romilly (1791-1864) entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1809 (B.A., 1813; M.A., 1816), and became a fellow in 1815. He took holy orders, but other than serving as chaplain to Thomas Musgrove, archbishop of York, whom he had befriended while at Trinity, he never held a preferment. He became registrary of Cambridge University in 1832, and held the position until his retirement in 1861. As registrary Romilly was responsible for the arrangement of the university's papers. He also edited the Graduati Cantabrigienses, 1760-1856 (8 volumes; Cambridge, 1856). In 1829 Romilly began a regular daily journal which continued until his death. He died suddenly at Yarmouth of heart disease on 7 August 1864, and was buried in Christ Church, Barnwell.

Open for consultation by holders of a Reader's Ticket valid for the Manuscripts Reading Room.

Bequeathed by John Willis Clark, 1910.

Description compiled by Robert Steiner, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives. The biographical history was compiled with reference to the entry on Romilly in Sidney Lee, ed., Dictionary of national biography, Vol. XVII (London, 1909), pp. 187-188.

Additional Manuscripts Catalogue.

Cambridge University Library also holds Romilly's diaries, MSS.Add.6804-6842.