Edinburgh Diary 1793 1798

Agnes Witts was a woman with great zest for life. She required constant amusement and bored easily. Her favorite pastimes were cards and stimulating conversation, her social circle was wide and well-connected, her attachment to her faith consistent and strong. In a remarkable set of diaries Agnes recorded her life in a structured and unvarying manner. She noted the weather, the doings of the day and letters received and written. A day without a letter was a dark day in her life. She loved to maintain a wide correspondence among a large circle of family and friends. In 1793 Agnes’s husband, Edward, became bankrupt and from affluence they were reduced to subsistence. With just a few hundred pounds a year to live on, the family fled to Edinburgh, where Agnes was assured by her cousin, Susan, Lady Elcho, that they could live one third cheaper than in England. Within months Agnes’s natural buoyancy returned and she soon built a large social circle among the well-to-do of Edinburgh society. These diaries mainly reflect her busy social life. This volume covers the years 1793 to 1798 when the Witts family resided in Edinburgh. In August 1798, with their funds further reduced they moved again to somewhere one third cheaper than Edinburgh-Weimar in Germany.