Derbyshire Farmer.- Marsh (John Riley, estate owner and farmer, of Alvaston Grange, near Derby, Derbyshire, 1806-68) 10 diaries, autograph manuscripts signed in several places, together c. 2000pp., 1 vol. in pencil, rest in ink, 1 vol. Harwood's diary in original morocco wallet style covers, 9 Lett's original cloth diaries (4 disbound and 1 with numerous ff. loose), 8vo, 1855, 1858-64, 1866 & 1868.

⁂ The diaries of a gentleman farmer in the 1850s and 1860s. Marsh farmed Alvaston Grange Farm and would walk over on a near daily basis to inspect it. Alvaston Grange Farm was near Elvaston Castle, the home of Leicester Stanhope, 5th earl of Harrington (1784-1862), and near the hamlet of Thulston Lodges. Marsh recorded the state of the weather every morning, business and farm accounts, poor rate accounts, the sale of milk and butter sold, planting asparagus, haymaking, "Grand weather for the Hay 8 haymakers, tedding, winnowing and cocking", bulling his cow strawberry, looking at colts on Lord Harrington's farm etc. Occasionally he rode further afield on his horse, Scarborough, to Derby where he dined at the Royal Hotel, or called on Lord Harrington to discuss Alvaston School and the sale of parish property, Chaddesden (Stoker Flats Farm), Shardlow etc., and the train to visit family at Burslem.

John Riley Marsh was born on December 17, 1806, in Longton, Staffordshire, the son of Mary Riley and Jacob Marsh (1773-1848), a potter in Burslem and later the proprietor of the Boundary Pottery Works at Longton. John Riley Marsh also had a career in pottery, but by the early 1850s had settled at Alvaston Grange, Alvaston, Derbyshire where he became a farmer. He married Eliza Thornley in 1858, and died on July 1, 1868, at Alvaston.