In this post Mark Philp, Aysuda Aykan and Curtis Leung introduces their new volume in the Royal Historical Society’s Camden Series, A Collector Collected: The Journals of William Upcott, 1803-1823, published in November 2025.
William Upcott (1779–1845) rose from humble origins to become a major collector of coins, prints, drawings, and, above all, autographs. His journals offer a detailed, non-elite account of a London life, interspersed with forays into the provinces to visit relatives in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, and to pursue his trade as a cataloguer and organiser of people’s collections. His later ‘Tour of the Peak’ in 1823, evidences his growing expertise and his open acceptance by his fellow enthusiasts.
Upcott’s diaries are lively and engaging narratives of his life and activities in a world that he increasingly made his own, overcoming his deficiencies to become an accomplished bibliophile and collector. In this volume, Upcott’s papers, dispersed after his death in 1845, are brought together in a single volume.
To mark publication, the Introduction of A Collector Collected: The Journals of William Upcott, 1803-1823 is now available, free to read, via Cambridge University Press, until 30 May 2026.
I never remember beginning a year with more un-favourable symptoms than the present. – When I awoke at 8 o’clock my body was in pain, and my mind full of spleen & peevishness – owing to the tooth ache – which has grievously tormented this poor tenement of mine for the last two days. – I could have quarreled with a stone, had it lain in my way. – Providence may have wisely ordered it, to convince me of mortality & the frailty of human nature.
This splenetic fit continued the whole day. – I well know I should strive against ill-humour as much as possible & check it when it rises, but too often “nature will prevail” – as it has done today. New Year’s Day 1803
So begins William Upcott’s first attempt to keep a diary of his activities, so as ‘to assist my memory, and to accustom me to set a due value on my time.’ He was 23 years of age, and was working as an assistant to the bookseller Robert Harding Evans in Pall Mall, having served a three year apprenticeship with John Wright in Piccadilly, the publisher of the Anti-Jacobin Review. Upcott was dissatisfied with his position, his employer, and his achievements, and while he gripes about Evans, he is not slow to blame himself for his many shortcomings.
Upcott’s diary was kept, then stopped, then picked up again; some blanks were retrospectively filled, others were ignored. Over a period of six years and despite the gaps, he recorded a detailed and ‘unfiltered’ account of his activities and enthusiasms, his courtships and friendships, the ups and downs in his relations with his family, and of his beginning successes. In the process we get a unique perspective on the trials and triumphs of a young man trying to make his way in the world.
Upcott was the child of a liaison between Ozias Humphrey (1742-1810), a miniaturist and portrait painter, and Delly Wickens, the daughter of an Oxford grocer, who married another man later and had further children before dying when Upcott was seven.
As a child, he lived mainly with his grandmother, and was moved from school to school in the region, gaining what he regarded as a deeply unsatisfactory education. He had little direct contact with his father until he was apprenticed to Wright, but he then become increasingly useful to Humphrey, whom he referred to as his ‘godfather’, whose sight was deteriorating.
Upcott made major contributions to topography and antiquarianism and became a major autograph collector … his enthusiasm did much to fuel what quickly became a widespread fashion in the early nineteenth century.
As a boy Upcott became fascinated by tokens and coins and began a collection, and that was later supplemented by other collections of prints and portraits, manuscripts and books, in which fields he became increasingly expert.
He became cataloguer and arranger of people’s books and collections (starting with the library of Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire). In Spring 1806 he left Evans’s shop to join the staff of the London Institution, a subscription reading library as a sub-librarian.
Shugborough Hall, 1829, public domain
His expertise and interests widened and he made major contributions to topography and antiquarianism and earned the confidence of many of the collectors who frequented the Institution. He also became a major autograph collector, and his enthusiasm did much to fuel what quickly became a widespread fashion in the early nineteenth century.
The first two sections of the ‘Memorandums’ that we have identified (1803-1806, and 1809) give us some insight into this world of collecting, but they also afford us an account of a young man trying to make his way in a world for which his birth and education proved a rather poor endowment. The third, a detailed record of a trip to the Peak District in 1823, illustrates how successfully he has established his reputation as a connoisseur, antiquarian and collector among the members of the Institution.
The surviving Memoranda are reproduced in full in our new Camden Series edition, A Collector Collected: The Journals of William Upcott, 1803-1823. They are lively, engaging and seemingly unvarnished narratives of his life and activities in a world that he increasingly made his own.
They give us a detailed picture of Upcott’s London life, his forays to the provinces to visit his various country cousins, and his journeys through England to visit various stately homes, cities, monuments and natural wonders. And they bear witness to his overcoming some of the deficiencies in his education and his development as an accomplished bibliophile and collector.
The young man he candidly reveals in these early diaries is self-critical, aspiring, flawed but well-meaning, and a distinctive voice on lower middle class life in wartime London at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Upcott did not lose all his rough edges: in the summer of 1834 he had to leave the London Institution under a cloud; he had a long conflict with the descendants of the diarist and gardener John Evelyn (1620-1706) over the return of manuscripts he had ‘borrowed’; rumour has it that he was not above surreptitiously excising autographs from manuscripts with a sharpened thumbnail; his financial dealings with his half-sister, and with various cousins who managed his house in Islington in his later years, do not bear much scrutiny; and despite generous intentions he bequeathed his executor a world of trouble and only a fraction of the intended legacy.
Upcott tended to promise more than he could deliver and his enthusiasms often got the better of his common sense – both in collecting, and in his ramblings with various young women whom he sought to impress only to take fright at the prospect of marriage. But the young man he candidly reveals in these early diaries is self-critical, aspiring, flawed but well-meaning, and a distinctive voice on lower middle class life in wartime London at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
On his death in 1845, despite his hopes, Upcott’s vast collection of manuscripts and materials were auctioned off in small lots and his papers spread through collections around the world. The first of the diaries is from the British Library; the second two are in the Special Collection of University College London. The Autobiographical Letter is from the Huntington Library, California. All may now be read in our new edition of A Collector Collected.
About the authors
Mark Philp is Professor Emeritus of History and Politics, University of Warwick and an Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. He has written extensively about Britain in the period 1789-1815, as well as on the history of democracy and on corruption and standards in public life.
Aysuda Aykan graduated from the University of Warwick with a BA in History and Politics and most recently completed an MA in Public Policy at King’s College London.
Curtis Leung graduated from Warwick in 2022 with a BA in History and Philosophy joint honours. He then completed an MA in Philosophy at King’s College London, graduating in 2023, and currently works in local government.
About this latest volume in the Camden Series
A Collector Collected: The Journals of William Upcott, 1803-1823, edited by Mark Philp, Aysuda Aykan and Curtis Leung, is now available online and in print from Cambridge University Press. The Introduction to this volume is available to read on free access until 30 May 2026
Fellows and Members of the Society may also order a print copy of the volume at the discounted prize of £16 per volume. To order a copy of the volume, please email administration@royalhistsoc.org, marking your email ‘Camden’.
The Society publishes new volumes in the Camden Series each year. Two further volumes were published in 2025: The Papers of Admiral George Grey, edited by Michael Taylor (June 2025) and The Holograph Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489-1541), edited by Helen Newsome-Chandler (August 2025).
About the Camden Series
The Royal Historical Society’s Camden Series is one of the most prestigious and important collections of primary source material relating to British History, including the British empire and Britons’ influence overseas.
The Society (and its predecessor, the Camden Society) has since 1838 published scholarly editions of sources — making important, previously unpublished, texts available to researchers. Each volume is edited by a specialist historian who provides an expert introduction and commentary.
Today the Society publishes two new Camden volumes each year in association with Cambridge University Press. The complete Camden Series now comprises over 380 volumes of primary source material, ranging from the early medieval to late-twentieth century Britain.
