Thomas Giordani Wright was a very successful nineteenth-century doctor who died, aged ninety, in 1898. He kept a remarkable diary during the last three years of his medical apprenticeship in the 1820s, which is published here for the first time. Working as assistant in the 'extensive colliery practice' of Mr James Mc Intyre, Surgeon, Wright had responsibility for 'six collieries around Newcastle and the inferior practice of the house'. He had to make long rounds on horseback, and cope with dreadful accidents and diseases as well as with the demands of his 'reserved proud and selfish' master. But in spite of his arduous and busy life, Wright kept his diary up-to-date (and included autobiographical detail of his earlier life) and has left a vivid account of the life in a busy provincial town of a bright young man at the outset of his career.