[Manuscript] The Household Expenses of the family Commander G.Y. Paterson, son of Admiral Paterson, sometime Governor of Portchester Castle (DNB)

106pp., 4to, black limp cloth, worn, remnants of paper on which is written a biblical passage in Greek on back, hinge strain, but contents clear and complete, text in an extraordinarily small neat hand, sometimes (amazingly) hard to read. The author has used a double entry system, recording Income on one side and Expenditure on the other. The balance (income less expenditure) is brought forward. Expenditure is listed daily, usually all expenses appearing on one line, nature of expenditure and outlay, and a total for the day appearing in the final column. Many expenses are repetitive, milk, bread etc being virtually daily, while "Church" appears every Sunday. Eg. "April 2nd | Milk .1/2 Bread 1/- Washing 5/1 Sweep 4/6 Eggs 2/- Boy 1/- Gravel Cart 12/- | 1.5.8. Sub-totals given every week. Many names of people appear. Income derives from Dividends, Pension etc. It would be no exaggeration to say that this is the most comprehensive record one could get of the expenditure of a middle class Victorian Household. A small quantity of letters are enclosed, one of which is a copy by Paterson of a note enquiring about his pension, in a hand which could well have been adapted, being larger, to the hand in the notebook. I have found no reference to Brockhurst House on the internet, but it was (assuming it's now gone) presumably close to Fort Brockhurst, now an English Heritage property, and a sister to Portchester Castle where Paterson's father reigned as Governor.