Love Strong as Death
130 pages
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130 pages
English

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Description

A transcription of Lucy Peel’s wonderfully readable journal was recently discovered in her descendent’s house in Norwich, England. Sent in regular installments to her transatlantic relatives, the journal presents an intimate narrative of Lucy’s Canadian sojourn with her husband, Edmund Peel, an officer on leave from the British navy. Her daily entries begin with their departure as a young, newlywed couple from the shores of England in 1833 and end with their decision to return to the comforts of home after three and a half years of hard work as pioneer settlers.

Lucy Peel’s evocative diary focuses on the semi-public world of family and community in Lower Canada’s Eastern Townships, and fulfils the same role as Susanna Moodie’s writings had for the Upper Canadian frontier. Though their perspective was from a small, privileged sector of society, these genteel women writers were sharp observers of their social and natural surroundings, and they provide valuable insights into the ideology and behaviour of the social class that dominated the Canadian colonies during the pre-Rebellion era.

Women’s voices are rarely heard in the official records that comprise much of the historical archives. Lucy Peel’s intensely romantic journal reveals how crucially important domesticity was to the local British officials. Lucy Peel’s diary, like those of such counterparts as Catherine Parr Traill, also suggests that genteel women were better prepared for their role in the New World than Canadian historians have generally assumed.


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Publié par
Date de parution 30 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures 1
EAN13 9781554587353
Langue English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0040€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Love Strong as Death Lucy Peel s Canadian Journal, 1833 - 1836
J.I. Little, editor
Studies in Childhood and Family in Canada

Wilfrid Laurier University Press
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Peel, Lucy, fl. 1833-1836 Love strong as death : Lucy Peel s Canadian journal, 1833-1836
(Studies in childhood and family in Canada) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-88920-373-3 (bound)
1. Peel, Lucy, fl. 1833-1836 - Diaries. 2. Frontier and pioneer life - Quebec (Province) - Sherbrooke Region. 3. Pioneers - Quebec (Province) - Sherbrooke Region - Diaries. 4. Sherbrooke Region (Quebec) - Biography. I. Little, J.I. (John Irvine), 1947- . II. Title. III. Series.
FC2949.S47Z49 2001 971.4 6602 092 C2001-930463-3 F1054.5.S55P43 2001
2001 Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5
Cover design by Leslie Macredie. Cover image based on The Junction of the St. Francis and Magog Rivers (Sherbrooke) from W.C. Bartlett, Canadian Scenery Illustrated (London, 1842). Courtesy of Bishop s University Archives FC 72.W5.

Printed in Canada
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic or mechanical - without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, 214 King Street West, Suite 312, Toronto, Ontario M5H 3S6.
To the memory of Robin Burns, 1944-1998
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death.
- Song of Solomon 7:6
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Frequently Mentioned Names
Book One
Book Two
Book Three
Notes
Index
Acknowledgements
In many ways, this publication has been a co-operative effort. I would like to begin by thanking Dr Hugh Kinder for permission to publish his ancestor s letter-diary, as well as for his kind responses to my questions about his family. I am also grateful to the Eastern Townships Research Centre for their faith in me as an editor; to Dr Juliet Harrison, who transcribed the journal to the word processor; to Stephen Moore and Jack Corse for their research assistance; and particularly to Monique Nadeau-Saumier and Rina Kampeas, who worked hard to make this publication possible. In addition, I wish to thank Sandra Woolfrey, formerly of Wilfrid Laurier University Press, for her initial encouragement; Carroll Klein, who took over the project with equal enthusiasm; the anonymous readers for the Press and the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation for their helpful comments; and Barbara Tessman for her painstaking copy-editing. My research was assisted by funds from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and publication was made possible by a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada. Finally, as always, I wish to thank my family for their patience and support.

Map of the Eastern Townships, 1833. This map, first published by the British American Land Company the year it was established, gave a misleading impression of the region s accessibility from the St. Lawrence Valley and the United States. Source: DeVolpi and Scowen, The Eastern Townships: A Pictorial Record (Montreal, 1962).
Introduction
Lucy Peel s journal, sent at regular intervals to her transatlantic relatives, presents a remarkably complete narrative of her Canadian sojourn with her husband, Edmund, who was a half-pay officer on leave from the British Navy. Lucy s entries begin with their departure as a newlywed couple from the shores of England in 1833 and end with their decision to return home three and a half years later. Such letter diaries, which first appeared in the eighteenth century, became an important means of personal communication between gentry families in the British North American colonies and their relatives in the mother country. Similar documents by Elizabeth Simcoe, Anne Langton, Mary O Brien, Anna Jameson, and Catharine Parr Traill have been published as journals or diaries. 1 Although Robert Fothergill defines a diary or journal as serial autobiography written of oneself, by oneself, for oneself, rather than as part of a reciprocal correspondence, Felicity Nussbaum has written more recently that by the nineteenth century the diary was both a private and a public document, no longer confined to secrecy. 2 Nussbaum s definition is more applicable here, and we will use the term journal and diary interchangeably.
The Peel journals, which include occasional additions by Edmund, have survived as a transcription written in two different hands in three bound volumes entitled Letters from Canada. The journals were recently discovered in a descendant s house in Norwich. 3 Even if whoever did the copying subjected the original document to a certain amount of editing or censoring, these changes would still reflect the values and attitudes of the early nineteenth century, for the transcriptions were probably made shortly after Lucy s instalments were received so that they could be circulated to various members of the family. Moreover, Nussbaum reminds us that all types of autobiographical texts issue from the culture as much as the individual author. 4
The early nineteenth century was an era when women s diaries still focused on the semi-public world of family and community rather than the private world of the individual psyche. 5 Just as the journals of half-pay officers wives, such as Susanna Moodie s Roughing It in the Bush , provide the best descriptions we have of everyday life and cultural mores on the Upper Canadian frontier, so Lucy Peel s evocative writing fulfills the same role for the Sherbrooke area of Lower Canada s Eastern Townships. 6 While it is necessary to remember that journals such as Lucy Peel s reflect the experiences and views of a small, privileged sector of society, their authors were nevertheless sharp observers of their social and natural surroundings, and they provide valuable insights into the ideology and behaviour of the families who dominated the Canadian colonies socially and politically during the pre-Rebellion era. Furthermore, they give a voice to women, a voice that is rarely heard in the official records that constitute much of the historical archives.
Because of their literary talents, these well-educated diarists and correspondents have also attracted the attention of literature scholars, and Lucy Peel s journal deserves to be included in this rather restrictive canon. 7 Harriet Blodgett refers to diaries as literature subjectively interpreting life, though not to be confused with the novel or public autobiography in which life has been retrospectively shaped into a coherent, self-valorizing fiction. 8 Even though Lucy Peel s journal was written with the deliberate literariness that Fothergill claims emerged in the early nineteenth century, it is without the artifice of chronicles selfconsciously produced for publication. 9
One cannot expect a diary written as correspondence to be entirely candid, and indeed Blodgett s extensive study of English women s personal journals prior to the First World War found that few such women had much to say about their own problems. 10 Yet, Lucy Peel s journal is far from a colourless chronicle of mundane events, and it clearly came to provide her with a degree of emotional support, just as more private diaries did for their authors. 11 Helen Buss nicely summarizes the function of the letter diary for pioneer women when she writes that it would become a public record of travel and settlement, a private record of their own development in the course of the new experiences offered them in the new land, and a letter home to family and friends in the old country, and, fortuitously, a history and literature of women s pioneer Canadian experience. 12
As a prelude to the strongly romantic and intensely domestic world the reader will enter into with the Peel journals, this introduction will briefly explore the natural, economic, social, and political environment in which Lucy was writing, then conclude with a few observations on what the journal suggests about the nature of the genteel family. First, however, we will examine the Peels family background in an attempt to situate them within the English society of their day, and to understand what brought them to the Eastern Townships in the first place.
Family Background and Social Status
Edmund Peel was born in 1801, the descendant of a powerful English manufacturing family. His great-grandfather, Robert Parsley Peel, had been a partner in one of the country s largest textile companies; Robert s son William (Edmund s grandfather) operated a calico manufacture at Church Bank, which no longer exists on a map. Edmund s great-uncle Robert Peel had become one of England s richest cotton manufacturers by the end of the eighteenth century, and was knighted during William Pitt s administration. Robert s son, also named Robert, was prime minister in 1834-5, and again in 1841-6. 13 Lucy s journal reveals that Edmund s father, also Edmund (first cousin of the prime minister), carried on the manufacturing busin

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