Sources & methods (4): eyewitness accounts

Introduction

Sources & methods (4) discusses the extent to which War Diaries and contemporary press reports present eye-witness accounts of events. This injects a sense of reality into the lives of individuals reconstructed from the static official data of the census or a parish register.

Sources & methods (4): press accounts

Victorian newspapers presented their readers stories compiled from different sources and reported in several formats. Much of the content appears to repeat stories verbatim, which had appeared in titles published elsewhere in the country, often without attribution. Thus, the source of such stories remains unknown. Local stories contained information gathered from people other than journalists and staff reporters. A network of informants appeared to operate. Community groups supplied information about their meetings in the hope that the newspaper would repeat it. For the most part, the stories contain factual reports of an event. Others, however, preserve apparent verbatim passages from speeches. Thus, the press becomes, in those snapshots, an eyewitness to contemporary vocabulary and tonality. It becomes possible to hear the reactionary cleric Pretyman as he blusters in the Improvement Commission and in meetings of the workhouse Union directors.

Sources & methods (4): War Diaries 

During World War I, each battalion maintained a diary of its military activity, written by an officer.  When an action occurred, the diary might report events hour by hour. Because they formed part of the reporting chain, the diaries adopted a formal, objective and impersonal style. Although forbidden by official orders from doing so, some soldiers kept personal diaries. Thus, the voice of the proletariat has survived, with many of the authors serving as NCOs or even infantrymen. These accounts often include the author’s personal commentary on his feelings and thoughts about events. Both forms of diary provide eyewitness accounts of battles. Soldiers’ letters, published by the local press, employ a similar tonality. Thus, these sources make it possible to stand beside the men reconstructed by genealogical research.