Brett Manuscript Histories
The below are transcriptions of the Brett Manuscript Histories. Whilst the formatting has changed slightly to fit within the website's format, the content is as far as is possible an accurate transcription. OCR technologies have been used in some instances, however the transcriptions are then proof-read and checked by volunteers.
Due to the sheer volume of text contained within these manuscripts, they have been split from their original form of ten volumes into individual chapters. It will be seen that the author, T. B. Brett largely alternates between St. Leonards and Hastings with each chapter; the chapters typically spanning a year each between 1828 and 1864.
Brett's original introduction and testimonials are to be found in 'Brett Volume 1: A Few Testimonial Extracts'. The original scans which are unfortunately not fully capable of being converted via OCR (although efforts are underway to change this) to searchable text are currently linked at the footers to the Index pages as transcribed originally by Rod Lavers and published at Rootschat genealogy website. The indices and original scans can also be accessed by means of clicking on the desired volume heading in the table below.
It may be noticed that Brett was a strong believer in astrological predictions for weather phenomena, going so far as to dedicate a large number of pages within his works to those predictions and the actual weather conditions experienced at the time.
Brett, for reasons only known to he, whilst quite meticulous in his reporting of events, did have a number of inaccuracies and omissions in his chronicling of the 19th century. These are in the process of being cross-referenced in completed transcripts and notes of the transcribers are included as footnotes in the individual chapters. In addition to this, in spite of him being a newspaper man, the pagination and titling of pages is not quite correct, with articles being literally cut and pasted with scissors and glue into the originals, interspersed with hand-written sections and a large number of images. An attempt at correcting this has taken place within the transcriptions, but original page numbers are inserted in the correct locations thus: Pg.140 or in the left margin in the case of pages which have been proof-read (these pages can be compared to the original texts in a side-by-side format by clicking on the page number). This should help others that wish to refer to the original material in finding the source pages more readily.
