Brief Lives of Bourne
People (2010)
Fifty
Biographies of the Great and the Good
by Rex Needle
THOMAS CARLYLE, the Scottish historian and essayist
(1795-1881), wrote that history is the essence of
innumerable biographies and indeed it is the minutiae of
everyday life that gives us a glimpse of the way it was
in past times. The men and women who were the movers and
shakers of their day are recorded only in the dusty
documents and fading newspaper files of centuries gone
by and although their worthy connections and their
passing is usually recorded in some detail, there is
little chance of getting any more than a glimpse of
their everyday lives, their friends and families.
The more intimate relationships that reflect character
and personality seldom find a place in history unless
they are described in letters or diaries but these are
rare in the history of Bourne, perhaps because literacy
was less widespread and fewer people could write with
clarity. We are therefore left with what we have, mostly
official records and fictitious accounts by historians
for those who made their mark in earlier centuries and
public records for those who came after although as we
move into the 19th and 20th centuries, things began to
change and we are able to obtain more information about
the great and the good than hitherto.
The main criticism of this book will be about those who
have been left out and this is not that they have been
overlooked but because I have confined these lives to
just fifty, leaving the opportunity perhaps to add
another fifty in a few years’ time although those who
have come after do not seem to be quite so interesting
as those who have gone before.
The book is available as 6 PDF files:
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