Joseph Jenkins
1869-94
Australian Manuscripts Collection
Jenkins’ diaries, consisting of 25 volumes, provide one of the most detailed and comprehensive accounts of early Victorian working life. Jenkins, an itinerant farm labourer from Wales, travelled throughout central Victoria in the second half of the 19th century documenting his life and experiences.
Jenkins’ achievement – making daily entries in his diary for 25 years while working as a manual labourer for up to 16 hours a day – is nothing short of remarkable. Difficult conditions and a limited education usually prevented people from keeping such a detailed record of daily life, but Jenkins was not a typical labourer or swagman. He had literary as well as literacy skills and placed great value on maintaining his diary.
The diaries were discovered 70 years after Jenkins' death in the attic of one of his descendants in Wales. The Library acquired these volumes in 1997. Since being published in 1975 as Diary of a Welsh Swagman, Jenkins’ writings have become a popular Australian history text. | 
