• Name: Martineau, Harriet
• Gender: Female
• Birth Date: 12  June  1802
• Death Date: 27  June  1876
• Occupation: writer
• Occupation: journalist

See DNB.

This code has been used four times: H Martineau (1834-03-08), (H Martineau) (1834-05-12), H Martineau (1834-06-12), H Martineau (1834-07-06).

Harriet was the daughter of 'Thomas Martineau (1764–1826), a cloth manufacturer descended from an old Huguenot family, and his wife, Elizabeth (1770/71–1848)' (DNB). Her brother James (1805–1900), Unitarian minister, has a separate DNB entry. The family were prominent Norwich unitarians and I suggest we might need more Martineau keycodes.

From her autobiography: Godwin was 'an occasional morning visitor of mine. I looked upon him as a curious monument of a bygone state of society; and there was still a good deal that was interesting about him .... My mother and I went, with a mutual friend, to tea at the Godwins' little dwelling under the roof of the Houses of Parliament, just before I went to America [describes him giving her letters of introduction] .... On the next Sunday, in came Godwin, in evident uneasiness and awkwardness. He threw his gloves into his hat, as if preparing for some great effort; and then he told me, with reluctance and confusion, that he wished to recal his offer of letters to his American correspondents; for this reason:-that I should be known there as a political economist; and, if he introduced me, it might be supposed that he had changed his views in his old age, and become one of the order of men against whom he had written in his earlier years .... That last evening at Godwin's was a memorable one to me. The place is gone, and all who were there are dead except myself. Before it grew too dusk (it was in July) Godwin took us through the passages of the old Parliament House, and showed us the Star Chamber...' (Martineau, Autobiography, pp. 302-6)

Harriet went to America on 9.8.1834 and left New York to return to England on 1.8.1836, after Godwin's death. Martineau entries after August 1834 have therefore been left uncoded. That leaves only the 'H Martineau's. So Godwin and Harriet Martineau only meet 4 times, all in 1834. The first two are at Gaskel's (her name is bracketed in the second meeting) then 12.6.1834 'Star-chamber; Gaskels, H Martineau and mere at tea.' 6.7.1834 'Call on H Martineau:' which clearly correspond to the meetings Martineau describes above, although she muddles the dates a little and she seems to be elaborating by describing G as 'an occasional morning visitor of mine'.

Other Martineau entries prior to this period seem to refer either to Philip or Thomas Martineau (1764-1826), or to one of the following:

1 -- martinu, lambeth 1811-02-15 I suggest this is also Thomas Martineau - the full entry reads 'Seek Martinu, Lambeth : call on Wordsworth, Gold and Martineau', so likely that 'Martinu' is an abbreviated form of the full name, which Godwin writes in full later in the same entry.

2 -- mrs martineau 1835-02-02 1836-01-30 This prob refers to Harriet's mother Elizabeth (1770/71-1848) who survives her husband and probably merits her own code. As well as the two instances of 'Mrs Martineau' she is denoted by 'Star-chamber; Gaskels, H Martineau and mere at tea.' (12.6.1834) and, all in 1835, by 18.2 'Mesds Martineau and Kentish at tea.' 1.3.'Fox (Finsbury), w. Mesds Gaskel and Martineau; adv. S Smith.' 11.5 'G Jones at tea; adv. mesds Gaskel and Martineau.' 28.5 'Soir, Gaskel’s, Bowring, L Aikin, Grimstone, Hawkes’s, Owen, Hunter, Holms, Martineau, Jones.' I think we can be sure that the last one is Elizabeth even tho there is no 'Mrs' because of the context - meets at Gaskel's, who had met Godwin with Harriet and Elizabeth Martineau the previous year.

4 -- p martineau 1805-09-08 1811-05-15 1811-06-12 1811-11-28 P Martineau might well be Norwich surgeon Philip Meadows Marinteau (1752-1829), whom Harriet refers to in her Autobiography as 'my eminent uncle' (p. 38). The first meeting is an adv at tea during one of Godwin's visits to Norwich then the first two of the 1811 refs are to meetings in London and the other (28.11) is a letter Godwin writes to him that is not in Abinger scans.

1 -- j martineau 1811-05-15 1 -- martineau jr 1811-11-29 These are likely to refer to some of Harriet's seven siblings. Probably not possible/not worth trying to identify. The J Martineau is unlikely to be her younger brother James as it's a 'call on...' and James would only have been 5 or 6 yrs old at the time. If we create the new codes described above then these two entries should be the only uncoded Martineaus in the diary.

• Harriet Martineau, Autobiography, ed. by Linda H. Peterson (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2007)

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.