Joseph Jenkins (diarist)
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Joseph Jenkins (27 February 1818 – 26 September 1898), was an educated tenant farmer from
Tregaron Tregaron ( "town of St Caron") is an ancient market town in Ceredigion, Wales. It is sited astride the River Brenig, a tributary of the River Teifi, and is north-east of Lampeter. According to the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census, the po ...
,
Ceredigion Ceredigion (), historically Cardiganshire (, ), is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the West Wales, west of Wales. It borders Gwynedd across the River Dyfi, Dyfi estuary to the north, Powys to the east, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire t ...
, mid-
Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...
who, when aged over 50, suddenly deserted his home and large family to seek his fortune in Australia. The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' says that "Jenkins's noteworthiness stemmed from the rich documentation of his experiences and thoughts that has survived". He was a consistent
diarist A diary is a writing, written or audiovisual Memorabilia, memorable record, with discrete entries arranged by Calendar date, date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwriti ...
for 58 years of his life and an award-winning poet, under the
bardic name A bardic name (, ) is a pseudonym used in Wales, Cornwall, or Brittany by poets and other artists, especially those involved in the eisteddfod movement. The Welsh language, Welsh term bardd ('poet') originally referred to the Welsh poets of the M ...
of Amnon II. He achieved fame posthumously from publication of some excerpts of his Australian writings. The compiler, his grandson Dr William Evans, a
Harley Street Harley Street is a street in Marylebone, Central London, named after Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer.cardiologist Cardiology () is the study of the heart. Cardiology is a branch of medicine that deals with disorders of the heart and the cardiovascular system. The field includes medical diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery di ...
, coined the title ''Diary of a Welsh Swagman''Evans, William ''Diary of a Welsh Swagman'' (Macmillan, Melbourne 1975, reprinted by Sun Books 1977– ) by which name he is familiar to generations of
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...
school students for whom the book became a prescribed history text in 1978.


Early life and education

Joseph Jenkins was born at Blaenplwyf farm near
Ystrad Aeron Ystrad Aeron is a small village west of Felinfach on the A482 between Lampeter and Aberaeron, Ceredigion, Wales. It is part of the constituent community of Llanfihangel Ystrad. Facilities The church, St Michael's, is in the centre of Ystrad ...
in
Ceredigion Ceredigion (), historically Cardiganshire (, ), is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the West Wales, west of Wales. It borders Gwynedd across the River Dyfi, Dyfi estuary to the north, Powys to the east, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire t ...
, Wales. He was the fourth child of 12 brought up by Jenkin Jenkins and Eleanor (née Davies).Jenkins D. and Lewis D. ''Cerddi Cerngoch'' Caxton Hall, Lampeter, 1904. (See section ''Bucheddau'' (Lives), p lxx.) In 1846, he married his second cousin Elisabeth (Betty) Evans of Tynant. They purchased the lease of Trecefel farm,
Tregaron Tregaron ( "town of St Caron") is an ancient market town in Ceredigion, Wales. It is sited astride the River Brenig, a tributary of the River Teifi, and is north-east of Lampeter. According to the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census, the po ...
and had nine children, the last of whom, John David, was born in April 1868. Jenkins commenced education under a disciplinarian private tutor and later attended a small Unitarian church school at
Cribyn Cribyn is a small village in Ceredigion, Wales, about 7 miles (11 km) north of Lampeter and with the villages of Troed y Rhiw, Mydroilyn and Dihewyd to the north. History and amenities Once a thriving community with two pubs, a garage a ...
, a five-mile walk from home. Throughout his life, he bewailed his lack of more formal education. However, his thirst for knowledge, religious temperament, and passion for reading and writing, proved a firm basis for continuing self-education.


Agricultural skills

Under his management, Trecefel won many prizes in agricultural shows and its cattle fetched top prices in the market. In 1851, it was judged to be the best farm in the county. In 1861, Joseph was appointed to adjudicate the same competition.
Joseph Jenkins favoured the rotation system of growing crops, spoke against deep ploughing, favoured thorough harrowing, and was a strong advocate of the virtue of feeding the soil with farmyard manure. In his writings appearing in farming journals, he emphasised the importance of harvesting young hay, and preparing lucerne and clover crops to provide fodder for cattle during a severe and prolonged frost in winter and periods of drought in summer. . .


Diaries

For 58 years, Jenkins consistently maintained a diary of daily events. Though he was a native Welsh speaker, he penned the diaries in English as an aid to self-education. His biographer, Bethan Phillips, wrote in her foreword:
. . . The diaries reveal him as a man seeking to exorcise his own demons by attempting to escape from them, but they also reveal him as an astute observer of the people and occurrences impacting upon his own eventful life. His dogged determination in keeping a daily journal, often under the most difficult of circumstances and in the most unpropitious surroundings, has given us a uniquely valuable historical record of life in the nineteenth century.


Wales

The first entry was on New Year's Day, 1839. Though he continued to record each day, much of the early record has been lost. The earliest complete year extant is 1845. Manuscripts for the years 1839–1868 and 1895–1898, when he lived in Wales, are held by the
National Library of Wales The National Library of Wales (, ) in Aberystwyth is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million books and periodicals, and the l ...
at Aberystwyth, together with his shipboard diary of the voyage from
Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
to Melbourne.


Australia

Having sailed from Liverpool on the iron-hulled
schooner A schooner ( ) is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel defined by its Rig (sailing), rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more Mast (sailing), masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than t ...
''Eurynome'', Jenkins disembarked at
Port Melbourne Port Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of the Melbourne central business district, located within the Cities of City of Melbourne, Melbourne and City of Port Phillip, Port Phillip Local government ...
on 12 March 1869.That date is given in Jenkins' shipboard log. In later diaries, he wrongly recalled it as 22 March The ''Eurynome'' was an 1163-ton sailing vessel, transporting casks of beer to Australia on the
clipper route The clipper route was derived from the Brouwer Route and was sailed by clipper, clipper ships between Europe and the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. The route, devised by the Dutch navigator Hendrik Brouwer in 1611, reduced the time of a ...
, with 12 passengers in a first-class saloon and 21 (including Joseph) who paid a much lower price to share frugal and unhygienic
steerage Steerage is a term for the lowest category of passenger accommodation in a ship. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, considerable numbers of persons travelled from their homeland to seek a new life elsewhere, in many cases North Amer ...
accommodation on the voyage of 140 days, including three terrifying weeks of gales in the
Roaring Forties The Roaring Forties are strong westerlies, westerly winds that occur in the Southern Hemisphere, generally between the latitudes of 40th parallel south, 40° and 50th parallel south, 50° south. The strong eastward air currents are caused by ...
. The following month's diary records Jenkins carrying his
swag Swag, SWAG, or Swagg may refer to: Terms and slang * Swag (motif) or festoon, a wreath or garland or a carving depicting foliage and ribbons ** Swag, fabric dressing for a window valance * Swag, stolen goods, in 1800s thieves cant * Swag (pr ...
, pessimistically prospecting and offering rural labour in and around the goldfields town of Castlemaine, where he found many fellow Welshmen. He rarely left that vicinity except to attend the annual
St David's Day Saint David's Day ( or ), or the Feast of Saint David, is the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, and falls on 1 March, the date of Saint David's death in 589 AD. Traditional festivities include wearing daffodils and leeks, ...
''
eisteddfod In Welsh culture, an ''eisteddfod'' is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music. The term ''eisteddfod'', which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: , meaning 'sit', and , meaning 'be', means, a ...
'' at
Ballarat Ballarat ( ) () is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Ballarat had a population of 111,973, making it the third-largest urban inland city in Australia and the third-largest city in Victoria. Within mo ...
where, on thirteen consecutive occasions, he was awarded the premier prize for an ''
englyn (; plural ) is a traditional Welsh short poem form. It uses quantitative metres, involving the counting of syllables, and rigid patterns of rhyme and half rhyme. Each line contains a repeating pattern of consonants and accent known as . Ear ...
'' (Welsh verse form). Jenkins obtained regular employment in 1884 as a cleaner of streets and drains in the town of
Maldon Maldon (, locally ) is a town and civil parish on the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon District and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. It is known for Maldon Sea Salt which is prod ...
, a few miles north of Castlemaine. He continued working there until he reached the age of 76, when he became homesick for Wales. Having saved the fare, he departed Maldon by rail on 23 November 1894, and embarked on , which docked at
Tilbury Tilbury is a port town in the borough of Thurrock, Essex, England. The present town was established as separate settlement in the late 19th century, on land that was mainly part of Chadwell St Mary. It contains a Tilbury Fort, 16th century fort ...
on 5 January 1895. In 1994, a drinking fountain and a plaque were erected at Maldon railway station to recognise the centenary of Jenkins' departure, and his unique record of the life of a rural worker in Victoria. His own words were cited: ''Through this iaryI am building . . . my own monument'' (pictured at right).


Return and controversy

On returning to Wales, Jenkins entrusted the diaries to his daughter Elinor (Nell), who stored them in the attic of her home, Tyndomen Farm, near Tregaron. They came to light some 70 years later when a great-granddaughter, Frances Evans, recovered and protected them, permitting her uncle, Dr William Evans to read and edit the contents. Destruction of the diaries had been favoured by some family members who were concerned by their potential to arouse adverse reflection on reputations, especially that of Joseph's wife, Betty. The diaries record her alleged infidelity, and at least one physical assault on him by her and others: '' 6 May 1868. . . my ribs and breastbone were fractured . . . I have an ugly black eye with about a dozen other different wounds''. That was consistently cited by him as the cause of his leaving home. However, no conclusive evidence has emerged that Betty was other than a loyal and capable wife, and one who may well have had good reason to find fault with Jenkins' own personality and behaviour. In ''Pity the Swagman'', Bethan Phillips argues that Jenkins drank excessively while at home, though he generally abstained in Australia, and that he became disliked by neighbours for actively supporting landowners and the politicians who backed them, at a time when they were oppressing many tenant-farmers who promoted
Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * Generally, a supporter of the political philosophy liberalism. Liberals may be politically left or right but tend to be centrist. * An adherent of a Liberal Party (See also Liberal parties by country ...
candidates.


Historical studies

In 1904, information about Jenkins, with a photograph of him and a selection of his poetry in Welsh, was included in the book ''Cerddi Cerngoch'' by Daniel Jenkins and David Lewis. (The title is Welsh for "Poems of Redcheek", the bardic name of Jenkins' brother John, but the book also records the writing of several other distinguished family members.) Most of the book is printed in Welsh, but some prefatory pages are in English. In 1998, Dr Bethan Phillips of
Lampeter Lampeter (; (formal); ''Llambed'' (colloquial)) is a town, community and electoral ward in Ceredigion, Wales, at the confluence of the Afon Dulas with the River Teifi. It is the third largest urban area in Ceredigion, after Aberystwyth and C ...
, having devoted many years to the project, including a visit to Australia, published her extensively researched account of Jenkins' life: ''Rhwng Dau Fyd: Y Swagman O Geredigion'', followed by ''Pity the Swagman—The Australian Odyssey of a Victorian Diarist'', in 2002.


References


Further reading

* Jones, Bill
Jenkins, Joseph (1818–1898)
in online ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' * Hill, Gary.

' at irefuteitthus.com, updated October 2018 *
Diaries of Joseph Jenkins
' at the State Library of Victoria, with links to digitised pages of the diaries for online reading. *
The Welsh Swagman
' video, images and extracts at Culture Victoria * Rees, Rev D. C. ''History of Tregaron'' Gomerian Press 1936 * Solomon, Rachel.
The Victorian Diaries of a Welsh Swagman (1869-1894)
in ''The Latrobe Journal'' No 92, December 2013, at State Library of Victoria, Melbourne. Als
endnotes at p.11 (fol.190)
Accessed 5 March 2016 * Tregaron and District Historical Society. ''Tregaron–Images of a Country Town'' Landmark 2006 * Jeffreys E.
Welsh Australians: their history and achievements
' Y Lolfa Cyf., Ceredigion 2008. {{DEFAULTSORT:Jenkins, Joseph 1818 births 1898 deaths 19th-century Australian poets 19th-century Australian farmers 19th-century Australian diarists 19th-century Welsh diarists 19th-century Welsh poets Welsh emigrants to Australia People from Ceredigion People from Victoria (state) Welsh farmers