Four volumes of the personal diaries of William Prince Telfer of Rusholme, Manchester and one volume containing press cuttings and ephemera. All the volumes are hardback, roughly A4 size, with lined paper. The diaries contain daily entries, most of which are detailed, and provide a full record of the writer's work and social activities, as well as giving an insight into his family life and his personal views about his relationships with his friends and colleagues, his thoughts about the books he read and the plays and lectures he went to, and his personal philosophy and beliefs. Entries for a large part of 1913 begin with a quotation, usually by an author Telfer was reading at the time, or was interested in. Diary entries are interspersed with press cuttings, theatre programmes, photographs, and other personal ephemera kept by Telfer, though he did not begin to include cuttings until April 1913, and made a decision to include fewer cuttings in early 1914 because the practice was taking up too much of his time.
The last diary entry is dated 22 September 1914, and the final entries are written in cramped handwriting on the back inside cover of the volume, suggesting that Telfer did not have a new volume ready to continue his account. It is not clear whether the diary continued in another volume. The press cuttings volume continues the chronological sequence and contains cuttings dating from 1915 and the first few months of 1916. It is not clear from the diaries themselves whether these volumes formed part of a more extensive series, or whether Telfer only kept a diary for this period of his life. The first three volumes of the diaries each cover a period of six months, and the final entries for the diary for January to June 1914 are written on loose sheets inserted into the volume, but the final volume covers only the period from the beginning of July to 22 September, though every page in the volume has been written on.
The diaries for 1913 focus heavily on Telfer's Scouting activities, particularly his involvement with the Old Scouts Association and his work as editor of 'The Knot', a magazine associated with the 6th Manchester Scout troop. These volumes provide an insight into the activities and organisation of a Scout troop and Old Scouts Association during the early years of the Scouting movement. They also provide evidence of his interest in writing and journalism, and in rifle shooting. Many of the entries for both 1913 and 1914 display a preoccupation with issues of social and moral 'purity', the dangers of 'self abuse' and venereal disease, and the need for adolescents of both genders to be taught sex education. It is likely that this concern developed as a result of Telfer's identification with the ideals of the Scouting movement, and can be viewed in the context of contemporary worries about these issues.
Diaries for 1914 contain coverage of Scouting activities, but entries display a shift away from these topics. There is more information about Telfer's developing political views, for example concerning women's suffrage, and particularly about conflict and military service folowing the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. Entries for August and September 1914 refer frequently to the early stages of this conflict. The 1914 volumes continue to display Telfer's dominant concerns about 'purity' and 'self abuse', and a number of entries focus on his friendship with a work colleague, George Maude, and his attempts to influence his behaviour and attitudes. These entries also reveal Telfer's apparent interest in the bodies, physical appearance, and character of young men, and the sexual behaviour of both young men and women. This interest is not explicitly stated, and it is not clear how Telfer identified himself, but the entries include a number of statements about his observation of, and attitudes towards sexual behaviour. The 1914 diaries contain more substantial detail about Telfer's working life, including some information about office business in his job as a clerk at Berisfords wholesale grocers in Manchester, but particularly the interaction between other adolescent boys and young men he worked with, with some conversations described verbatim, especially those concerning 'purity' and ways in which they were not following patterns of behaviour set out by the Scouting movement.
Considered as a whole, these diaries provide a rare insight into the cultural and emotional life of a lower middle class clerk in a provincial city immediately before the First World War. The detailed accounts of Telfer's daily life and activities mean that they contain a large number of references to streets, buildings, and other locations in Manchester and the surrounding area. They are a valuable source for the study of Telfer's reading, and the ways in which Telfer's selection and consumption of literature and plays influenced him and informed his views. They also form a rich source for research into the impact of the social and moral 'purity' movement in the early twentieth century, and for the study of sexual attitudes and identity.