Colin Pooley

Richard Lawton

Siân Pooley

Personal diaries provide rare glimpses into those aspects of the past that are usually hidden from view. Elizabeth Lee grew up on Merseyside in the late nineteenth century. She began her diary at the age of 16 in 1884 and it provides an unbroken record of her life up to the age of 25 in 1892. Elizabeth’s father was a draper and outfitter with shops in Birkenhead, and throughout the period of the diary Elizabeth lived at home with her family in Prenton. However, she travelled widely on both sides of the Mersey and her diary provides an unusually revealing picture of middle-class life that begins to challenge conventional views of the position of young women in Victorian society. The book includes a detailed introduction to and analysis of the diary, together with a glossary relating to key people in the diary and maps of the localities in which Elizabeth lived her everyday life. There have been a number of diaries published relating to ‘ordinary’ people, but most accounts were written retrospectively as life histories by people who eventually gained some degree of fame or prominence in society. This very rare first-hand account provides a unique insight into adolescent life in Victorian Britain.

Growing up on Merseyside in the Late Nineteenth Century

The Diary of Elizabeth Lee

Jean Turnbull

Poplulation migration is one of the demographic and social processes which have structured the British economy and society over the last 250 years. It affects individuals, families, communities, places, economic and social structures and governments. This book examines the pattern and process of migration in Britain over the last three centuries. Using late 1990s research and data, the authors have shed light on migrations patterns including internal migration and movement overseas, its impact on social and economic change, and highlights differences by gender, age, family, position, socio-economic status and other variables.

Colin Pooley

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