The Travel Diaries of William Creech 1766-1767

introducing william creech

William Creech (1745-1815) by John Plott (miniature reproduced by courtesy of William Zachs)

William Creech [1745-1815] was a minor but crucial figure in the Scottish Enlightenment in the second half of the eighteenth century. He was both publisher and contributor to Sir John Sinclair's groundbreaking The Statistical Account of Scotland, and endured a rocky collaboration with Robert Burns in producing the first Edinburgh edition of the poet's works. Creech was a juror at the trial of Deacon Brodie, and both wrote and published the first major account of the proceedings. He was a historian of his home city, publishing Edinburgh Fugitive Pieces in 1791, and served as the city’s Lord Provost from 1811 to 1813. He published many significant Enlightenment figures including Lord Kames, and for almost half a century ran the city's leading bookshop as an intellectual centre and salon. Creech was a major figure in the circles that produced literary and cultural journals The Mirror and The Lounger and boasted friendships within the publishing trade that straddled the European continent.

the creech diaries

The travel diaries contain William Creech's unpublished accounts of his journey from Edinburgh to London and then from London to the Dutch Republic and France in the summers of 1766 and 1767. They take the form of two small notebooks of unlined paper bound in soft brown leather, the first covering the voyage between Edinburgh and London and his account of his activities in London, with the second covering the voyage from London to the Dutch Republic and his experiences there. The diaries were presented to the Signet Library by J.P. Watson WS and carry accession no. 51569 of March 13th 1944. They were allotted MS 56 in Dr. Charles Malcolm's survey of the Signet Library manuscript collection during the Second World War and retain this number following the recent remapping of the collection.

The two journals show every sign of having been written during the journeys themselves: they are accompanied by records of Creech's spending and by lists of books he had with him, or which he wished to obtain or sell. It is not clear if Creech ever intended the diaries to be made public. The keeping of travel journals had been common for a century, but the publishing of the great Georgian travel diaries in the manner of Mungo Park and Captain James Cook was still some years away.

the transcription and the text

The diaries were carefully photographed and the images uploaded to the Transkribus online transcription package. The text was transcribed by Jo Hockey. The collaborative nature of Transkribus allowing the input of information taken from Signet Library collections where required. Transkribus has the ability to "learn" handwriting and so transcribe automatically, but this feature was not used in this instance and the transcription has been undertaken manually.

Creech wrote on unlined paper and in some instances the placement of his text on the page is complex beyond the ability of Transkribus to record and reflect. We have encountered similar limitations with our presentation of the transcription here, but trust that the juxtaposition of the page image with the transcribed text will provide any necessary clarification. There are a very small number of pages which consist purely of numerical calculations with no stated context. These were transcribed with the rest of the text, but we have excerpted the calculations in the transcriptionfor the sake of clarity.

Creech writes in the clear hand that was typical of well-educated Georgian Scots such as himself. However, the diaries are not "clean copies." There are regular instances of words obscured by the speed of his writing, the fading of his ink or the closeness to the edge of the paper where we have been unable to make a positive identification. Place names and personal names can be an issue: there are times when Creech was clearly himself attempting to spell a name which he had heard spoken but never seen in written form. We have offered modern spellings where we feel that Creech's version is too far from the modern spelling to allow for immediate comprehension.

Our aim throughout has been to provide a clear modern transcription of the diaries rather than a full edited edition. In the same fashion the index we have provided at the head of each section is not intended as a comprehensive finding aid but seeks to provide useful entry or jumping-off points to the diaries.

The edinburgh central library transcription of the diaries

This is not the first time that the diaries have been transcribed. An earlier typed transcription is listed in the collections in the Scotland Room of Edinburgh Central Library. This earlier typescript transcription is undated but was probably undertaken on or immediately after the diaries' presentation to the Signet Library. It is part of a wider collection of William Creech letters and manuscript material held at Edinburgh Central Library. Our transcription is an entirely fresh one made during a period when Covid-19 lockdowns prevented any reference to the Edinburgh Central Library typescript.

william creech as a diarist

Creech's journeys of 1766 and 1767 were important ones for him and enabled him to cement relationships with important allies in the wider publishing world that would serve him well in his future career. It is therefore disappointing that we learn so little from the diaries of his meetings with the likes of William Strahan. Creech is an excellent witness to the physical world around him but records little of his immediate exchanges with other parties: nevertheless, despite the absence here of the Boswellian touch, there is a great deal to enjoy. Creech's own enthusiasm for his journal-keeping shows signs of having waxed and waned over the course of his travels. The accounts of his actual travels are full and perceptive, at times almost literary, but the latter part of both diaries becomes cool and abbreviated, separated off from the early narrative and often interleaved with the records of his spending, and in the second volume these latter reveal a visit to Paris which the diary text itself omits entirely.