Francis Kilvert
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Robert Francis Kilvert (3 December 1840–23 September 1879), always known as Francis, or Frank, was born at The Rectory, Hardenhuish Lane, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, to the Rev. Robert Kilvert, Rector of Langley Burrell, Wiltshire, and Thermuthis, daughter of Walter Coleman and Thermuthis Ashe. He is remembered for his diaries, reflecting rural life in the 1870s, which were published several years after his death.
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[edit] Professional Life
Kilvert was educated privately in Bath by his uncle, Francis Kilvert, before going up to Wadham College, Oxford. He then entered the Church of England and became a rural curate, working primarily in the Welsh Marches between Hereford and Hay on Wye. Initially from 1863 to 1864 he was Curate to his father at Langley Burrell, and in 1865 he became Curate of Clyro, Radnorshire; he remained there until 1872 when he rejoined his father at Langley Burrell. From 1876 to 1877 he was Vicar of St Harmon, Radnorshire, and from 1877 to his death in 1879 he was Vicar of Bredwardine, Herefordshire.
In August 1879 he married Elizabeth Ann Rowland (1846-1911), whom he had met on a visit to Paris, but he died a few days after returning from his honeymoon in Scotland.
Now there is a Francis Kilvert Society which holds meetings looking around places where Francis went and where he lived.
[edit] Kilvert's Diary
Kilvert is best known as the author of voluminous diaries describing rural life. After his death from peritonitis, his frank and open diaries came into the possession of censorious relatives, and only three of the twenty or more volumes are known to have survived deliberate burning.
These three volumes have since been used as the source for published collections. His Diaries are considered to be classics, and also of historical importance for the study of remote rural life and Victorian society.
Poet William Plomer published the most widely-known selection of the diaries, as Kilvert's Diary, 1870-1879 (Penguin, 1938—corrected in the 1960s, and with an abridged and illustrated version for children published as Ardizzone's Kilvert in 1976). A somewhat different selection from that of Plomer was published as Journal of a Country Curate: Selections from the Diary of Francis Kilvert by The Folio Society in 1960. In 1992 a new selection was published under the editorship of David Lockwood, Kilvert, the Victorian: A New Selection from Kilvert's Diaries (Seren Books, 1992). Out of print since 1970, the 3 volume indexed edition was reprinted in 2006 by O'Donoghue Books of Hay-on-Wye (http://www.kilverts-diary.com)
The Cornish Diary: Journal No.4, 1870 - From July 19th to August 6th, Cornwall was published by Alison Hodge in 1989. The National Library of Wales, which holds two of the three surviving volumes, published The diary of Francis Kilvert: April-June 1870 in 1982 and "The Diary of Francis Kilvert: June-July 1870" in 1989.
[edit] Kilvert adapted to film
A John Betjeman BBC television documentary on Kilvert, called Vicar of this Parish, was shown in 1976 . This led to Kilvert's Diary being dramatised (270 minutes or 390 minutes—sources differ) on British television between 1977 and 1978, with Timothy Davies in the title role. The programmes are no longer available, and may have been lost.
Kilvert's life was the loose thread running through Mary Webb's novel Gone to Earth; a curate in the Welsh Marches falls in love at first sight with a fey half-gypsy girl. Webb's novel was filmed by Powell & Pressburger on location in Shropshire Gone to Earth (1950 in re-cut form, fully restored by the National Film Archive in 1985).
[edit] Further reading
- David Lockwood. Francis Kilvert. (Seren Books, 1992)
- John Toman. Kilvert: The Homeless Heart. (Logaston Press, 1992).
- Frederick Grice. Francis Kilvert and His World. (Caliban Books, 1980).
