Elizabeth Latimer (1800-1891) was the eldest daughter of Edward Latimer, a wine merchant, and Elizabeth (nee Jones), who had twelve children. She was an active resident of Headington all her life. According to an obituary, she was "a considerable traveller for those early days in the century, she spoke the chief European languages fluently and well, and was no mean classical scholar".
Details of her diary's contents are described below. With the diary are some notes on the people and events referred to in the first three years of the volume, when Miss Latimer wrote her daily entries in Italian. These notes were compiled by Stefano Twardzik, an Italian archivist, in November 1997.
The diary was purchased in July 1997 and given accession number 4254.
Catalogued by Mark Priddey, Dec. 1997.