Henry Jennings's notebook

For a family historian this is a gem - written by Henry sometime after between 1910 and his death in 1918 - he filled a notebook (177 pages!) with anecdotes, poems, hymns, epitaphs, autobiographical stories and family notes. In total I believe he hand wrote one for each of his sons plus an additional copy for a family friend.

I have seen the copy  written for my grandfather Arthur and know that George Barham's copy was seen by his son Jack- although what happened to it is unclear. I'd dearly love to know if any more of these books survive and to know whether they were all identical or had different contents?

 

Henry was born in Biddenden, Kent, married local girl Caroline Barham, then move towards London (Deptford) where he worked at Penns, an engineering company. Nothing very surprising except that his note book reveals he also went to America (on his own) to work for William Reick, the editor of the New York Herald, as his kennel manager to breed champion pedigree St.Bernard dogs!  Exactly how he came to meet Reick and where he gained his dog breeding skills is a complete mystery

Below I've included some extracts from the book:

Introducing Mr. Reick

More fun with dogs

Family events