30 Facts About Elizabeth Raffald

Elizabeth Raffald was an English author, innovator and entrepreneur.

Elizabeth Raffald left her position when she married John, the estate's head gardener.

The couple moved to Manchester, Lancashire, where Elizabeth Raffald opened a register office to introduce domestic workers to employers; she ran a cookery school and sold food from the premises.

Elizabeth Raffald is possibly the inventor of the Eccles cake.

Elizabeth Raffald began a business selling strawberries and hot drinks during the strawberry season.

Elizabeth Raffald died suddenly in 1781, just after publishing the third edition of her directory and while still updating the eighth edition of her cookery book.

Elizabeth Raffald's recipes were heavily plagiarised by other authors, notably by Isabella Beeton in her bestselling Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.

Elizabeth Raffald was given a good schooling, which included learning French.

John opened a floristry shop near Fennel Street; Elizabeth Raffald began an entrepreneurial career at the premises.

In 1769 Elizabeth Raffald published her cookery book, The Experienced English Housekeeper, which she dedicated to Lady Warburton.

The neighbour was Joseph Harrop, who published the Manchester Mercury, a weekly newspaper in which Elizabeth Raffald had advertised extensively.

Elizabeth Raffald described the book as a "laborious undertaking" that had damaged her health as she had been "too studious and giving too close attention" to it.

The historian Kate Colquhoun observes that Glasse and Elizabeth Raffald "wrote with an easy confidence", and both were the biggest cookery book sellers in the Georgian era.

In 1771 Elizabeth Raffald released a second edition of The Experienced English Housekeeper, which included a hundred additional recipes.

John was made master of the business and Elizabeth Raffald provided food, chiefly soups.

Elizabeth Raffald updated The Manchester Directory and a third edition was published; she was compiling the eighth edition of The Experienced English Housekeeper and was writing a book on midwifery with Charles White, the physician and specialist in obstetrics.

The copyright for the midwifery manuscript seems to have been sold; it is not known if it was ever published, but if it was, Elizabeth Raffald's name did not appear in it.

Elizabeth Raffald remarried and returned to Manchester after his money had run out.

Elizabeth Raffald reformed on his return, and joined the Wesleyan Methodist Church, where he attended chapel for the next thirty years.

Elizabeth Raffald died in December 1809, aged 85 and was buried in Stockport.

Colquhoun considers that the recipes Elizabeth Raffald wrote were those that appealed to Middle England, including "shredded calves' feet, hot chicken pies and carrot puddings, poached eggs on toast, macaroni with parmesan, and lettuce stewed in mint and gravy".

Colquhoun admires Elizabeth Raffald's turn of phrase, such as the advice to reserve water from a raised-pie pastry, as "it makes the crust sad".

Elizabeth Raffald published three editions of The Manchester Directory, in 1772,1773 and 1781.

Elizabeth Raffald's work was plagiarised heavily throughout the rest of the 18th and 19th century; the historian Gilly Lehmann writes that Elizabeth Raffald was one of the most copied cookery book writers of the century.

Writers who copied Elizabeth Raffald's work include Isabella Beeton, in her bestselling Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management ; Mary Cole's 1789 work The Lady's Complete Guide; Richard Briggs's 1788 book The English Art of Cookery; The Universal Cook by John Townshend; Mary Smith's The Complete House-keeper and Professed Cook ; and John Farley's 1783 book The London Art of Cookery.

Handwritten copies of individual recipes have been located in family recipe books around England, and Queen Victoria copied several of Elizabeth Raffald's recipes, including one for "King Solomon's Temple in Flummery", when she was a princess.

Ayto states that Elizabeth Raffald was possibly the person who invented the Eccles cake.

Elizabeth Raffald played an important role in the development of the wedding cake.

Elizabeth Raffald has been admired by several modern cooks and food writers.

Steve Hamilton, Arley Hall's general manager stated that Elizabeth Raffald is "a huge character in Arley's history and it is only right that we mark her contribution to the estate's past".