28 Facts About Eliza Acton

Eliza Acton was an English food writer and poet who produced one of Britain's first cookery books aimed at the domestic reader, Modern Cookery for Private Families.

Eliza Acton was raised in Suffolk where she ran a girls' boarding school before spending time in France.

In 1857 Eliza Acton published The English Bread-Book for Domestic Use, a more academic and studious work than Modern Cookery.

Eliza Acton was the eldest of six sisters and three brothers born to John Acton, a brewer, and his wife Elizabeth, Mercer.

Sheila Hardy, in her biography of Eliza Acton, considers it likely that John would have borrowed heavily to buy himself into the business.

In 1819 Eliza Acton left the school and opened another in September with her sisters, this time at nearby Great Bealings; the school moved three miles to Woodbridge in 1822 and had probably closed by 1825.

The food historian Elizabeth Ray, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, states that Acton travelled abroad for the good of her health, because she had a weak constitution.

Hardy dismisses the theory, stating that Eliza Acton did not have a sister called Sarah, let alone one who was married ; she observes that she has found no baptismal or census record that would account for a child of the right age.

Eliza Acton had been writing poetry since at least 1822, as she wrote that year on the bottom of one of her poems.

Eliza Acton wrote at least one while in France, "On Approaching Paris", which she dated 1826.

Eliza Acton subsequently wrote some longer poems, including "The Chronicles of Castel Framlingham", which was printed in the Sudbury Chronicle in 1838, and "The Voice of the North", which was written in 1842 on the occasion of Queen Victoria's first visit to Scotland.

In 1827 John Eliza Acton was declared bankrupt, and the company in which he was a partner was dissolved; one of his business partners was involved in the claim against him.

Eliza Acton reportedly declined the poems, and suggested that she write a cookery book instead; Hardy considers the story apocryphal.

Eliza Acton wrote that each recipe had been cooked and "proved beneath our own roof and under our own personal inspection".

Some time after Modern Cookery was published, Eliza Acton moved from Tonbridge to Hampstead, north west London.

Eliza Acton became the cookery correspondent for the weekly magazines The Ladies' Companion and Household Words, and began writing research for a book on nourishment for the ill, Invalid Cookery.

Eliza Acton interrupted her research to write a new edition of Modern Cookery.

Eliza Acton had been disappointed that she had not been able to add as much information into the 1855 edition about bread-making as she wanted to, but decided, despite her health, that she would take on the subject in a new work, The English Bread-Book for Domestic Use.

Eliza Acton included information about the adulteration of bread by flour millers and bakers of the time, which included the addition of alum and what she called "other deleterious substances".

Eliza Acton, who suffered from poor health for much of her life, died at home on 13 February 1859, at the age of 59.

Eliza Acton was buried four days later at St John-at-Hampstead church, London.

Lee Christine O'Brien, in her examination of 19th-century women's poetry, considers that Eliza Acton "participated in a poetic field the richness of which eclipsed her own output".

O'Brien sees that, through the high quality of Eliza Acton's prose, Modern Cookery is a unique cultural document.

Many of the dishes Eliza Acton describes belong, according to David, to the 18th century and, with increasing industrialisation and urbanisation of the 19th century, the staple foods described were already being replaced.

Elizabeth Ray observes that while Acton "is basically a very English cook", many of the recipes are labelled as French dishes, and foreign food is given its own chapter.

Eliza Acton was willing to learn from foreign food cultures, and wrote "Without adopting blindly foreign modes in anything merely because they are foreign, surely we should be wise to learn from other nations".

Eliza Acton's recipe for Publisher's Pudding, which contains cognac, macaroons, cream and almonds, "can scarcely be made too rich", while the Poor Author's Pudding is made with milk, bread, eggs and sugar, and is a more simple dish.

Acton's works remained out of print until 1968 when a selection of her recipes was collected into The Best of Eliza Acton, edited by Elizabeth Ray and including an introduction by Elizabeth David.