Journal entry – John Grey – 16 Nov 1833

Saturday 16th November 



Received the Boards Minutes. Wrote a variety of Letters to Mr Jay the returns of Ores from Alston & other documents.  Went to organise the progress of the Embankment in Widehaugh - the building at the Park Farm just finished & the conveyance of Water to the Leadbitters Dam, which has succeeded in giving him a fair supply at the inconsiderable cost of £10.0.0.  In the evening examined the draft of the Boards letter to the Admiralty on the subject of letting the farms, making remarks thereon & writing with it to Mr Jay.  I was deeply concerned today to hear of the death of Mr Hooper.  He was a faithful, energetic and devoted servant of the Hospital, & I have little doubt that the constant state of excitement which he was kept in, during his residence in the north, by the difficulties he had to encounter & the perplexities he constantly found himself in, working upon his feeble frame, greatly accelerated the progress of his disease.  He was an excellent man to unravel an account, detect fraud and rectify abuse, but his inexperience in country affairs & ignorance of the management & value of land & its produce together with a certain eagerness to press every point to an immediate settlement, led him at times to very erroneous conclusions & would have made his interference to any extent in the farming department, any thing but beneficial. I wish the leases which he let last year had been upon a different footing. But he was an excellent Man!