1st Edition
A Scientific, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour John (Fiott) Lee in Ireland, England and Wales, 1806–1807
A Scientific, Antiquarian, and Picturesque Tour: John Lee In England, Wales and Ireland, 1806–7, is a critical edition of the travel diaries and sketchbooks of Dr John Lee FRS (né Fiott, 1783–1866), published for the first time. Shortly after graduating from Cambridge University, Lee set out on a seven-month walking tour through England, Wales, and Ireland on 31 July 1806. His itinerary included most of the key sites on the ‘home tour’, such as Llangollen, the Lakes of Killarney, and the Wicklow Mountains, but also less- visited sites such as the Blasket Islands, Co. Kerry.
Best known later in life as an astronomer, antiquary, Liberal campaigner for women’s suffrage, and generous philanthropist, Lee’s lifelong interest in mineralogy, antiquities, industry, and popular culture, and his concern for the poor, are evident throughout these early diaries. Most of the content relates to Ireland, where Lee arrived on 29 August 1806 and remained until 6 March 1807. His observations paint a picture of Irish social, cultural, and political life in the aftermath of the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, and the 1801 Act of Union. The memory of 1798 looms large in the diaries, as Lee recorded conversations with witnesses and participants on both sides. These observations are laid against the backdrop of Lee’s assessments of the Irish landscape, evaluated verbally and pictorially within the frameworks of the sublime and picturesque. Lee also paid much attention to the physical remains of Irish history (earthen forts, early-Christian religious sites) and to the endurance of Gaelic culture (the Irish language, Gaelic games, ‘pattern’ days) that made Ireland exotic to the English visitor.
The volume includes an annotated transcription of Lee’s five diaries and notes from his three sketchbooks, reproductions of some of his sketches, and a critical introduction setting Lee’s diaries within their historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts. It makes Lee’s detailed observations available to researchers for the first time, a valuable resource for Irish social, cultural, and political history, local history, and the histories of travel and antiquarianism.
CONTENTS
List of Maps and Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Symbols, Weights, Measures and Currency
Itinerary
INTRODUCTION
1. Brief Biography of John Lee, né Fiott (1783–1866)
2. Lee’s Walking Tour of England, Wales and Ireland
3. Landscapes of the Home Tour
4. The Tour in Ireland
a. History and Antiquities
b. Memories of 1798 and 1803 in Lee’s Diaries
5. Lee as a Scientific Traveller
6. Textual Introduction
a. The Text
b. Editorial Conventions
c. Critical Apparatus
DIARIES OF A TOUR OF ENGLAND, WALES AND IRELAND IN 1806–1807
1. Tour from London to Holywell in Wales
2. Tour from Holywell to Dublin and Fermoy
3. Mallow to Bantry
4. Bantry to Castlemain
5. Killarney to Dublin
APPENDIX 1
6. Sketchbook, 1806
7. Sketchbook, 1806–7
8. Sketchbook, 1807
APPENDIX 2
Correspondence of John Lee (né Fiott) Relating to Visits to Ireland in 1806–7 and 1857
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Biography
About the Editor: Angela Byrne is Lecturer in Modern British and Irish History at Ulster University, and has formerly held positions at the University of Greenwich, National University of Ireland Maynooth, University of Toronto, and the Royal Irish Academy. Her research interests include the history of British and Irish travel and exploration, and women in the sciences. She is author of Geographies of the Romantic North: Science, Antiquarianism, and Travel, 1790–1830 (New York: Palgrave, 2013) and is co-editor (with Sebastian Sobecki) of Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations of the English Nation (1598–1600), vol. II (Oxford University Press, in preparation). She is currently preparing a monograph on Irish–Russian contacts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
