Alan Sutton Editor & Author

Revd Francis Edward Witts (1783-1854) maintained a diary from 1795 up to his death in 1854. He was born into a mercantile family with pretensions to the landed gentry. His father, Edward Witts, inherited a substantial woollen cloth stapling business and served as a Justice of the Peace for Oxfordshire, becoming High Sheriff of the county in 1779. His mother, Agnes, nee Travell, was descended from John Tracy, 3rd Viscount Tracy of Rathcoole. She was a first cousin to Henrietta Devereux, Viscountess Hereford, and also a first cousin to Susan Charteris, Lady Elcho. From these connections, and with mercantile wealth, the Witts family moved in fashionable circles and lived at Swerford Park in Oxfordshire. The comfortable living came to an abrupt end in 1793 when Edward Witts’s business failed, probably due to the French Revolutionary Wars which cut off his main market. The family moved to Edinburgh where their much reduced income would go further, Edinburgh being deemed to be one third less expensive than England. Here Francis and his brother George were educated at the High School. In 1798 the family moved again, this time to Weimar in Germany, considered to be one third less expensive than Edinburgh. Here Francis Witts came into contact with some of the most influential people of the day; Goethe, Schiller, Wieland and the famous Dowager Duchess Anna Amalia, with whom the family became on familiar terms, Agnes Witts frequently being the duchess’s playing card partner. Back in England Francis Witts was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, taking his degree in 1806, and then entering the Church of England as a curate. In May 1808 he married Margaret Backhouse, a marriage of money, engineered by his mother Agnes. The following year, also through the clever engineering of his mother, he succeeded his late uncle, Ferdinando Tracy Travell, as rector of Upper Slaughter. From the 1820s onwards Francis Witts carefully built substantial wealth and became influential in County society. He served as a JP for Gloucestershire from 1811 until his death in 1854. He was also chairman of the Stow-on-the-Wold Union Workhouse and involved in much County business including the committee of accounts. Through his family connections, his position as a JP, and with County business, Francis Witts was in contact with many people of eminence in Gloucestershire and beyond. His extensive diaries provide an important source of information for historians of the first half of the nineteenth century. The highly detailed index has been compiled by Alan Sutton, who has edited volumes 1 to 9 of the Diaries from 1981 to 2019.