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Elizabeth Firth's diary for 1812 is the earliest in the Elizabeth Firth Collection and begins when she is almost fifteen years old. It is entered in a copy of Crosby’s Royal Fortune-telling Pocket Book, for the Year 1812, inscribed on the flyleaf: ‘A Gift from the best of Friends.’ (11.5 cm x 7 cm).

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The 1813 diary is entered in The Minor’s Pocket Book, for the Youth of Both Sexes (1813). This diary records her last months at school at Crofton Hall, Wakefield until 12 June, and thereafter at home in Thorton.

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The 1814 diary is entered in a copy of The Ladies’ Fashionable Repository, For 1814; Embellished with a View of Tendring-Hall, the Seat of Sir William Rowley Baronet, M.P. near Nayland, Suffolk . . . Ipswich: Printed and Sold by J. Raw. The main event of her life in 1814 was the death of her mother on 2 July, killed instantly on being thrown out of their gig.

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The 1815 diary is entered in a copy of The Ladies' Own Memorandum-Book, or Daily Pocket Journal, for the Year 1815 . . . By a Lady (1815). This diary notes the arrival of the Brontës in May, and Elizabeth pays them a call on 7 June. Elizabeth begins the year in mourning for her mother, and her father remairries in September.

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The 1816 diary is entered into a copy of The Ladies Select Pocket Remembrancer, for the Year 1816. Elizabeth continues to record calls, teas, dinners, letters written or received and domestic duties. The family continues on friendly terms with the Brontës; Elizabeth notes the birthday of her goddaughter Elizabeth in February and the birth of Charlotte in April.

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The 1817 diary is entered in a copy of The Ladies Select Pocket Remembrancer for the Year 1817. Elizabeth continues to keep monthly cash accounts in her diary. In May, Elizabeth and two of her friends begin helping with Mr Brontë's Sunday school.

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The 1818 diary is entered into a copy of The Ladies Select Pocket Remembrancer for the Year 1818. Elizabeth comes of age this year, and some rearrangements take place of her finances and her method of accounting, but generally her life at Kipping continues much as in the previous year. Regular visits with the Brontë family continue, as well as renewed contacts with the Franks family, beginning with a dinner party at their house on 7 September.

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The diary is entered in a copy of The Ladies Select Pocket Remembrancer for the Year 1819. The great event of the year was Elizabeth's visit to London with her Aunt Walker, beginning in May and returning in September. A seperate notebook contains a longer account of the journey and holiday, whereas this diary records the all the expeditions of the trip in the same, short style of the previous diaries.

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This diary is a notebook larger than the usual diaries, in which Elizabeth Firth records her journey and holiday to London May - September 1819, with her Aunt Walker. She records specific sights seen in London in detail, including Vauxhall Gardens (5 July) and Westminster Abbey (3 August). There is little overlap with the regular diary in the engagement book for 1819, which notes all the expeditions day by day.

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The 1820 diary is written in The Ladies Select Pocket Remembrancer for the Year 1820. On 27 December Elizabeth's father died. The Brontë's move to Haworth, but Mr Brontë notably returns to administer consolation at Dr Firth’s deathbed. This was also the year following Peterloo, with unrest in the manufacturing districts; on the night of 31 March Elizabeth and her family ‘sat up expecting the Radicals.'

Scope and Contents The 1821 diary is written in The Ladies Polite Remembrancer for 1821. Elizabeth leaves large gaps in this diary; for 215 of the days there is no entry. Mr Brontë made his proposal of marriage in December, three month's after his wife's death. Neither side left an explicit record of it, however Elizabeth records a visit to Kipping by Mr Brontë on 8-10 December; then two days later 'A Letter from Mr Bronte'; then on 14 December 'I wrote my last letter to Mr Brontë', with a line drawn under the...

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The diary for 1822 is written in Poole's London Annual Repository and Ladies Useful Companion for 1822. Elizabeth still leaves many gaps, however from a series of cryptic entries and symbols it seems her engagement to the Rev. James Clarke Frank may have begun this year.

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The 1823 diary is entered in The Ladies Entertaining Miscellany and Polite Repository for 1823. There are entries for most days, and it seems her engagement to the Rev. James Clarke Franks was made public this year. The engagement made it easier for Elizabeth to renew her acquaintance with the Brontës.

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The 1824 diary is written in Gedge's Town and Country Ladies Own Memorandum Book or Fashionable Companion, for the Year 1824. Kipping has been let, and on 27 April Elizabeth records 'I took my final leave of dear Kipping.' Her marriage to James Clarke Franks takes place on 21 September, and a week after the wedding the couple were installed in the vicarage at Huddersfield.

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The 1825 diary is written into Poole's London Annual Repository and Ladies Useful Companion for 1825. This last complete surviving volume of the diary is also the shortest, with only sixty-six entries, so gives little detail about her life as wife of the new Vicar of Hudderfield. It does include details of her first pregnancy, and slips of paper in the back cover record details of her next two pregnancies.

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Fragmentary diary by Elizabeth Franks (née Firth) for 1829. It is entered into an old engagement book printed nineteen years before she was born: The Ladies Most Elegant, Useful, and Original, Lottery Pocket Book, for the Year 1778, wrapped in a marbled-paper cover titled 'Choice Scraps, E Franks'.

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Diary for 1848 written in Tilt's Miniature Almanack for 1848, in the hand of Mary, Mrs Charles Smith, mother of George Moore Smith, who married Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. James Clarke Franks and his wife Elizabeth (née Firth). Each page is titled with the month and she records births, deaths and marriages in her family and the year they happened, such as (March) '24 - My fathers wedding day 1818'.

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Diary for 1857 kept in The Churchman's Almanack for the year of our Lord 1857 by Elizabeth, Mrs George Moore Smith, daughter of Elizabeth Franks (née Firth). Short, daily entries recorded in pencil, with no entries after 31 October.

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Various papers, including letters, reports and a photograph.

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Family trees showing the Moore Smith pedigree, complied by Douglas Hamer (signed).