Transcriptions from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1731 to 1907

The Gentleman's Magazine, 1731 to 1907


	Transcriptions from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1731 to 1907 Transcriptions of interest to Westmorland and Cumberland etc, from the Gentleman's Magazine, published London, 1731 to 1922. The magazines used are mostly in the Armitt Library, Carlisle Library, and some at Hampshire CC Museums Service. The Armitt Library has nearly all issues up to 1809, and these can be browsed on the shelves. Carlisle Library has a longer run of issues kept in the stacks, missing some which might be available on CD. I have not had access to the following: missing 1892 to 1899 part 1; 1899 part 2 incomplete; missing 1903 to 1906; missing 1907 part 2 to 1922. source type: Gents Mag Lists of References
	18th century 1731-49

	18th century 1750-74

	18th century 1775-99

	19th century 1800-24

	19th century 1825-49

	19th century 1850-74

	19th century 1875-99

	20th century 1900-22

	miscellaneous extras, not Cumbria
	In these lists:- (GS) marks contributions by George Smith who is a regular contributor from Cumberland. (CAM2) gives the page number/s of citation in William Camden's Britannia, Gough edn 1789. Not all entries have useful information. Note that A Rambler is believed to be Joseph Budworth, 1756-1815, author of A Fortnight's Ramble to the Lakes, but little of his other contributions have any relevance to Westmorland or Cumberland. Illustrated articles have either an engraving on one of the pages, or a plate tipped in. The annotation does not include maps and charts which are mentioned explicitly. The coded page references are hyperlink buttons in the database. There are two styles:- G[yr][no].txt eg G7310367.txt G[yr][A\|B][no] eg G857B108.txt In each case the first three numbers gives the year (1731 and 1857 in the examples); letter A or B is for part 1 or part 2 in the year; the last number is the page number.
	Page Images The pages were mostly photographed; the source books are too stiffly rebound to lay flat on a scanner or photocopier, the photography could not use a copy stand and lighting and relies on camera flash or natural light. The photographs are not intended for display; all pages are now transcribed, and the photo of the page hidden from the default page display. The images are available 'behind the scenes' in image view (MODES database).
	Finding Stuff! Some, even many, articles may have been missed. Miscellaneous articles, prints and maps have been found in the magazines at different times. The Armitt Library has a handlist of articles relevant to Cumbria which was a valuable start for searching, but it has some glitches which I have tried to correct. Some of the entries in that handlist have little direct bearing on The Lakes and Cumbria. References marked 'not found' are in the Armitt index, but not found in the magazine. The Armitt handlist stops at 1808, so from 1809 the Contents at the start of each issue and the Index at the back of each volume, or part volume, have been inspected to spot relevant material. These volume indexes are not always reliable, citing page numbers which do not have the promised content, or not indexing under obvious terms in the content. As always with historical material, searching for relevant material depends on the searchers foreknowledge of the likely odd spellings and family names which might be of interest. This failure of indexes might be taken as a reason to use text searching instead (not an option in printed material, but could be applied to transcripts in machine readable form); searching that way also relies on the searcher knowing what to look for. Would you know to look for 'Kshitisavasavalicharitam' (in the index for 1853 part 2) if you had an interest in India? Indexing in the new series about the 1860s has a list of keywords for essays, and a separate topographic index; both were checked. Indexing of the entirely new series begun in 1868 is nonexistent, all that is given is a page or two of contents. As an example of a better level of indexing, the arrangement of vol.36 for 1766, includes a list of plates for the whole volume at the beginning; for each monthly issue there is a title page with a contents list, and the next page is an extended contents which has subentries for matter within articles, and indicates pages; at the end there are separate indexes to essays, to occurrences, to poetry, and to person names. But: when trying to find an article about agriculture in Cumberland in this volume there was no relevant index entry, but the article was found, it is about Land Tax, and was noticed because 'Cumberland' was luckily mentioned in an extended content entry.

	Thoughts on indexes and searches

	General Indexes
general index
	There have been numerous projects to index the magazine, some claiming to be full indexes, latterly they concentrate on people's names to serve the current craze for family history; topography is not an interest. The most promising of general index is said to be organized by county:- An early time span is covered by an index:- Ayscough, Samuel (ed) & Nichols, John (ed) & Gabriel, Richard (ed): 1789=1821: General Index to the Gentleman's Magazine:: covers 1731-1818 As yet I have not had access to this index. A book sometimes cited as an index is not an index but just a subjective selection of articles made in 1891 and more recently reprinted. Gomme, George Laurence (ed): 1891: Gentleman's Magazine Library 1731-1868, The
	References
WARNING
	NOTA BENE: Over the long span of publication the number of new series and misnumberings of volumes make it essential for today's researcher to give references by the year, part and page number. The declared volume number from its title page might be given as well, but is not to be relied upon and is better ignored Make references on the pattern (from 1810):- Gentleman's Magazine 1865 part 2 p.406 or for early years when pagination was continuous for a whole year (before 1810), use the pattern:- Gentleman's Magazine 1731 p.1035 or some abbreviated form. (For instance the database references to pages of the magazine follow the MS DOS 8.3 rul. G is the declared prefix for the Gents Mag in the research project, the reference above becomes G865B406.txt; for the early series where the year has a single run of pages reaching over 1000, the reference would be on the pattern G7351035.txt.) And when looking for things, bear in mind: that pages are sometimes bound out of sequence; that the contents and indexes are not always at the end; etc.

request for data
	Please Help:- It is not a practical option to read every page of every magazine over nearly two centuries of monthly issues, to find all relevant material. So, I do not imagine I have found all the matter relating to Westmorland, Cumberland, Lancashire north of the sands, and the scrap of Yorkshire, that make present Cumbria. If you know of more please pass the reference to me, to be added into this list.
	The First Magazine
magazine
	*Edward Cave was first to use the word magazine* for this type of publication. Dr Samuel Johnson was one of his contributors; his dictionary entry for the word is:-** MAGAZINE n. (magazine, French, from the Arabick machsan, a treasure) 1. A storehouse ... ... 2. Of late this word has signified a miscellaneous pamphlet, from a periodical miscellany called the Gentleman's Magazine, and published under the name of Sylvanus Urban by Edward Cave.
	Volumes
	review of volumes

	Technical Note Extracts made for gazetteer entries, place by place, can be quite large and beyond the capability of MODESforWindows to handle. This size problem is a bug that has not been solved, and will not be now that MfW is no longer developed. The successor database engine, MODESxml, will not have this problem. Meanwhile, some extracts have been cut into smaller chunks, which should be linked by previous/next page buttons. The usual pattern of linking 'included' files in LakesGaz is to store the chunk of Evidence data with record identifier = [place identifier] ([short filecode]inc). For example Evidence from Donald 1774 for Addingham, Glassonby is:- Addingham, Glassonby (DN04inc) There are Includes and IncludedIn data to link the place record and included record. For the Gentleman's Magazine evidence the included record will have a record identifier on the pattern [place identifier] (GM text reference]inc)), eg:- All Saints, Bolton (G7800130inc)

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