Journal of European tour, 1889-1890, undertaken by Harry Lindsay Somerled MacDonald and Lilian Margaret Coke

The journal is in the form of a folio notebook, 69pp with additional blank pages. Original marbled wrappers. It is a diary covering two journeys abroad. The first journey began in December 1889 and took Harry Lindsay Somerled MacDonald and Lilian Margaret Coke on a trip from London to Paris, Marseilles, Corsica, Algiers, Cannes, Nice, Genoa, Rome, Naples, Palermo, again Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, over the Allps, Zurich, heidelberg, Brussels, and back to London on 2 July 1890. The second journey began in the Spring 1891 and covered Geneva, Zurich, Salzburg, Linz, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade to Constantinople on the orient Express, Athens, Sevastopol, Balaclava, Inkerman, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and returning via Stockholm, Gothenburg and Christiana (Oslo).

The first journey cost just over Pounds Sterling 83, and the second cost Pounds Sterling 92 including travelling expenses in Norway and the boat to Scotland.

There is also a carte de visite photograph of Lt-Col. William Donald MacDonald of the 93rd (Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot (1827-1862) dressed in his hunting clothing and holding a rifle.

First-class cricketer Harry Lindsay Somerled MacDonald was born in Westminster, London, on 2 August 1861. He was the grandson of Donald Macdonald, of Sandside, Caithness, and was the only son of Lt-Col. William Donald MacDonald of the 93rd (Sutherland Highlanders) Regiment of Foot (1827-1862) and Miss Emma Anne Elizabeth Lindsay (married in 1860).

The younger MacDonald was himself commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Fife division of the Royal Artillery in 1879. In 1883, he was promoted from Lieutenant to Captain in the fourth brigade of the Scottish Division of the Royal Artillery. He resigned his commission in 1887 and resigned from the reserve of officers in 1892.

Earlier, on 12 July 1887, he married Lillian Margaret Coke (daughter of R.G.Coke Esq) of Brimington Hall, Derbyshire, and the pair settled in Bathford, near Bath. MacDonald played club cricket in the Bath area of Somerset in the 1890s.

Harry Lindsay Somerled MacDonald died at Bathford, Somerset, on 15 August 1936.

Generally open for consultation to bona fide researchers, but please contact repository for details in advance.

Item purchased from Marlborough Rare Books, New Bond Street, London, November 2012. Accession no: E2012.46.

Catalogued by Graeme D. Eddie 15 January 2013

Also at Special Collections is the material 'Account of a trip to the Western Isles and St. Kilda, 1849 and 1850, made by William Donald Macdonald (1827-1862)', Coll-1430. William Donald Macdonald was the father of Harry Lindsay Somerled MacDonald.