HANDWRITTEN DIARIES of Major-General Bertram Reveley Mitford, CB, CMG, DSO, FSA, FRGS (1863-1936) of the Buffs and East Surrey Regiment. 8 volumes covering sixteen years: 1908-09, 1912-13, 1920-21, 1922-23, 1926-27, 1928-29, 1930-31 and 1932-33. Each volume covers two years and contains between 270-300 pages and about 50,000-70,000 words. The total number of words in the eight diaries is around half a million. There are entries for every day of the year with a report on the weather at the end of each entry. Interspersed between the leaves are newspaper cuttings (mainly obituaries), photographs, pictures, letters, lists of dinner guests and other ephemera.

As the diary was written up each day many of the entries are necessarily mundane. The following are fairly typical:

Aug 17 Wed. [1932] Spent a quiet morning. Soon after 1.30 we left via High Ercall for Shrewsbury, and reached the Quarry at 2.15: here the Show was taking place. We went round the five tents devoted to the Flower Show, watched the dancers and acrobats on the stage, listened to the three Guards Bands, admired the Dingle, and, best of all, sat in peace on the banks of the Severn. Saw Jocelyn, Offley and the two boys, Frances and Honor, Luke, Linnie Mather, and several others. Were home by 5.15, & glad to get back, the heat was trying. Very hot day. 85 degrees.

Jan. 20 Fri. [1933] In the morning I went to the Library, returned home and proceeded to the Union Club to lunch with Ritchie; Ritchie and his wife are leaving tomorrow for Ceylon, taking their three eldest children with them as far as Toulon. I then went to the British Museum where I saw Ean Tinnachy, and asked hm to get me a lucid account of the Tiki, Maori God, sent me by Vernon Mitford. Then I saw Allen in the Coins department and presented him, for the Museum, with the die blocks of a one piastre that I got out of the Beit el Amana at Omdurman in Sept ’98; then home. Clearer day, but no sun; dry and cold; 38 degrees.

Jan 21 Satur. [1933] I went to the Electric Light Co in the morning to pay their bill, and complain about the front door bell, which their employee failed to put in order. Then I went to a couple more shops down that way. I did not go out again. Eric Luke, recovering from a cold & indistinct of speech, came to tea. I have been very much better all this last week. A gloomy day, cold, east wind. 37 degrees.

The diary for 1908-09 was written when he commanded the 9th Infantry Brigade at Portsmouth.

Mitford served in Egypt and the Sudan in the Eighties and Nineties and later in South Africa. During the First World War he commanded the 72nd Infantry Brigade from 1914-1917, taking part in the battle of Loos and the Somme, and was then appointed commander of the 42nd Division and was present at Passchendaele. He was mentioned three times in despatches. He married in 1891 the Hon. Etheldreda Mary Manners, youngest daughter of the second Lord Manners, and had three daughters. One of his daughters married Sir Offley Wakeman, Bt., of the Grenadier Guards. In 1912 he was appointed to the King’s Body Guard, the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, established in 1509. In his later years he joined the Society of Antiquaries, serving on its council, and devoted himself to the study of heraldry and tracing the family trees of the Mitford and Broughton families, the latter being his mother’s family. He was described as a devoted husband, son and brother, and it was said the happiest time of his life was when he was in the Egyptian army with his beloved IX Sudanese Battalion.

General Mitford’s diaries for 1883-93 and 1900-1917 are at the National Army Museum. A book entitled ‘The Real General Mitford’ by Michael Lucas was published this summer, but the author did not have access to the diaries now offered for sale.

8 vols bound in full brown morocco, with ‘BRM’ initials on the covers (8)