Venns Daybook

Current Holder: Georgiana Wentworth

Origin: Josiah Venn

Description

A quarto notebook in marbled boards, titled on the first leaf Observations upon a Case of Instruments lately had of Messrs Zorab. It begins on 28 September 1814 in the neat hand of Dr Josiah Venn, a retired Company surgeon. The handwriting worsens from page to page, and the last entries are in a servant’s hand and signed with a mark.

What It Does

It is Dr Venn’s nightly record of the case of instruments he bought privately from Zorab & Sons.

• The early pages are measurements and delighted guesses.
• Then come the hours at which the case “sings”, a tally of servants leaving the house, and “a large bird on the roof-tree, nightly”.
• From 3 October the margins fill with diagrams: the case’s nested parts unfolded in an order nobody has tried, a ring of needles with the spacing given to a hair, and a human head in profile with four points marked behind the ears.
• One entry reads: “Woke at my desk having drawn the enclosed. I do not recall the lesson, only that I was an attentive pupil.”

History

Found in the study of Dr Venn’s bungalow in Chowringhee on the night of Wednesday 12 October 1814, pushed behind the medical books, and taken by Georgiana Wentworth.

Related

• People: Josiah Venn — wrote it. Georgiana Wentworth — holds it.
• Places: Chowringhee — found in Dr Venn’s study.
• Events: Zorab Sale — the case of instruments it describes was Lot 9 of the same sale.

Campaign Log

• Session 13 - Sundry Fittings — found in Dr Venn’s study after the Mi-Go were driven off, and taken by Georgiana.