About The Diary

Although my father knew of the book, he had no idea where to find a copy, or indeed whether any copy still existed. It was not until the nineteen seventies, following the death of a distant relative, that a copy of the Second Edition of the Diary surfaced.

A transcript of the Diary lay undisturbed in my loft for a number of years until 2002 when, completely by chance I was contacted through the Internet by a local historian who expressed an interest in my family tree and alerted me to the existence of a copy of the First Edition of the Diary in the Nottingham City library. This copy had been donated by a Mr Richard Barlow of "New Chilwell" on January 10th 1857 and is now, as would be expected, in an extremely fragile condition.

The Second Edition, the transcript of which I have a copy, differs from the first edition only in its inclusion of a forward, apparently written by Florence Nightingale, who, writing from "30, Old Burlington Street, London," says amongst other things,

"P.p. 41 - 50 and the letter at page 59, are a type of the qualities which distinguish our men; of their good sense, heroic simplicity, and indomitable unmurmuring patience under prolonged suffering. Others may have ranted and canted about the Crimean war - our men never did

I have sent copies of this Diary to a great many people…………… All have been strongly interested in the simple, manly telling of a sad story".

The Diary does undoubtedly tell a sad story, but there are some glimpses of real humour as well. An example is when Sergeant Jowett is describing his rations in a letter written at Camp Scutari, May 14th, 1854. He says,

"We had 1lb of salt beef one day and 1lb of pork another, and with the beef 6oz of flour and a small quantity of raisins and suet to make a pudding with, which was pretty good when made up, still the plums had to shout at each other, being so far apart".

The Diary contains a number of examples of a gritty and stoical acceptance of life in the British army at that time. Some of the sights Sergeant Jowett describes on the battlefield must have been extremely difficult to deal with, but he appears to have done so with great fortitude. Despite the sacrifice soldiers were expected to make, one quote puts their situation into perspective. Written on 16th June 18, Sergeant Jowett says;

" Received letter from father today and had to pay one shilling and sixpence for it",

[Nothing much has changed then!]

The Diary describes a soldier's experience of some of the most famous battles in history such as the Heights of Alma, Inkermann, the Redan and Malakoff batteries. In our age of space travel, television and the world wide web, we can only marvel at the sheer slog that went into the achievement of the military objectives of the time. Although the Diary provides some veiled criticism of the management of the war and the treatment of the soldiers, it doesn't appear to question the reasons for the conflict. This is illustrated in a letter to his sister on 28th May 18 where Sergeant Jowett says,

"Think my dear girl, the cause we are fighting for is liberty - which is dearer than life itself to any true bred Englishman".

Sergeant Jowett seems to have placed more value on his service medal more than the Diary that he left us. Interestingly, after being shot, he wrote to his father, anxious about the medal he had received for his service. He says,

"I am quite resigned to my fate, but still have some hope it may please God to spare me; if not will you get some-one to inquire after my medal and keep it in the family?"

I do not know what happened to the medal but the Diary he left us is without doubt a priceless treasure.. Having lain unread and forgotten for years, and with traditional publishing costs being prohibitive to its redistribution, it is the Internet that has now provided a golden opportunity to re-publish and distribute the Diary in a way that Florence Nightingale and Sergeant Jowett wouldn't have even begun to comprehend. If you want to read the full text (memoir and diary)..............

There is a nominal charge for the text to cover the cost of developing the website but also, should a reasonable number of people be interested enough to request a copy, I hope that there may be sufficient funding to renovate the memorial to Sergeant Jowett and his colleagues that still stands in Beeston Parish Church yard, now in a poor state of repair.