Here’s another wonderful notebook from the past. It belonged to James Haden (1790 – 1871), a member of a family engineering firm in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England.

James was “the partner in the firm who travelled the country erecting, supervising and taking orders for the installation of warm air heating & ventilating stoves and expanding the firms business. His travels took him the length and breadth of the British Isles and his notebook shows visits to counties as far apart as Kent and Invernesshire.”

From the company history:

One of James’ notebooks has survived, which covers the years 1829 – 1832. It gives an interesting insight into his travels and varied engineering interests. This notebook accompanied him on his various site visits to take details about the buildings he was to survey.

The notebook has a strange mixture of information in it ranging from firstly, quite detailed dimensioned survey sketches that he drew, complete with the calculations necessary to establish the size and number of warm air stoves required to heat the premises. Other pages give various scientific technical notes on,

* how to make a thermometer;
* the theory of latent heat and how this can explain the cooling of champagne;
* the theory of the hydraulic ram;
* how to make a spirit level;
* the composition of air;
* an explanation about stuttering and stammering;
* article copied from Gardening Magazine about Perkins HPHW heating system.

He also mentions items relating to botany.

I would love to see more pages from this notebook!