W. M. Wills Home Front Diaries

Date range: 1903-1919

Medium: Archive

Fifteen volumes of manuscript diaries of Winifred Myers Wills, a member of the wealthy Bristol-based tobacco family.

The pre-war diaries detail the routine of a well-off family in England and the United States, with comments on events in the wider world, such as the San Francisco earthquake and the sinking of the Titanic. During the First World War the volumes document the participation of members of the family in the conflict, and they constitute a rare record of home life during the war.

The diaries are interspersed with photographs, newspaper cuttings, letters and postcards.

Further information:

Uncatalogued.

Location:

• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading rooms in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library