Stories from the Stores: blacksmith’s ledger of John Packard Smith of Chipping Ongar, A13540 (D/F 326)

Posted on March 6, 2013 by admin

Account books and ledgers can be an excellent way of finding out about details of daily life in the past. Archivist Sarah Dickie rifles through the ledger book of John Packard Smith, blacksmith of Chipping Ongar, and turns up some unusual details of early twentieth century life…

John Packard Smith is listed in the 1908 Kelly’s Directory of Essex as a blacksmith, cycle agent and repairer. We found a couple of entries in 1911 for repairing and fitting cycle tubes but this does not feature as a large part of his work. The accounts in the ledger show that Smith’s work was predominantly as a blacksmith and farrier. For example on 13 August 1913 he made ‘a new steel plate to Deerings Binder Knife, Filing out [w]hole of New Casting & Fixing to Knife & Rivets’ for a sum of 2 shillings 3 pence for Mr. Bennett of Little Myles. Shoeing horses took up a great deal of his time, e.g. 22 May 1908 ‘To 3 shoes and one Bar shoe & dressing foot with tar 3s 6d’ for Mr. Brown of New House Farm (Greenstead-juxta-Ongar).

Front cover – showing how well used the ledger was

The ledger is extremely detailed and we get know a lot of personal details; Smith shoed horses called Druid, Pantaloon, Cardinal and Match Girl for Mr. H.E. Jones, whilst he made nuts and bolts for McNoble the builders to do repairs at ‘The Bear’, a pin for a boiler plug at Blake Hall and new gutter brackets for High Ongar Rectory. In this throwaway age it is surprising to see how many everyday objects were repaired. There are bills for a new hoop for a wine cask, repairing the woodwork on a wheel barrow wheel as well as fitting horse shoes for the Cheshire Regiment in June and July 1915. Many of his customers were farmers so it is no surprise that he was repairing harrows, undertaking major works on a hay shaker and supplying a new thumb screw for a churn.

Accounts for Mr Jones, who was obviously a regular customer, naming the horses he brought to be shod.

Amongst his customers was the Eddison Steam Rolling Co. (shortening long reversing rod), Miss Bishop of Roden House School (soldering music stand), Bishop’s Stortford and Epping Gas Co. (mending and strengthening a generator bar), Mr. Bianchi of Hall Farm, Greenstead-juxta Ongar (repairing kitchen range) and Mr. Britton of the ‘Two Brewers’ [High Ongar] (shoeing horses).

This volume provides a wealth of detail on local businesses and individuals, as well as fascinating information on the work of a blacksmith at the beginning of the twentieth century just before the motor car took hold.

Graveyard Shift

Posted on March 4, 2013 by admin

North Road Burial Ground in Southend-on-Sea had – like many graveyards – languished somewhat unloved for several years. It has now, however, been the lucky recipient of 12 months of love and attention from the Shared Spaces project.

Shared Spaces was set up by Blade Education, a Southend-based not-for-profit organisation, and involved local volunteers and nearby Westborough Primary School in investigating and preserving the heritage of the cemetery. The project wanted to reconnect local people with the past of their town through the stories of the people buried at the cemetery, and also to show that graveyards can be used as a beneficial educational resource, linking today’s generations with those of the past.

Students from Westborough Primary School searching the gravestones for people’s stories

Over 8,000 people are buried on the site, and the project has not only sought to create a database of all their names, but to research some of their life stories. This information is being made available in a free online database, and will also be deposited with the ERO. Heritage trail boards have also been installed at the cemetery, to serve as a reminder about the real lives lived by the people buried there.

One such story was that of Thomas Kerridge, a hansom cab driver who drove people between the Blue Boar Hotel and Southend Victoria railway station. One day in 1925, Thomas was badly injured when he was kicked in the chest by the horse which pulled his cab. He survived the kick, but the wound became infected, and in an age before antibiotics Thomas died a few days later, aged 46. His wife Sarah was left with little income and seven children aged between 13 years and 6 weeks old. It is believed that Thomas was buried at North Road because his family lived close by.

Photograph of Thomas Kerridge

The school children have been an integral part of the project, and not only have they learned about the history of their town, they have had lessons in the graveyard including gardening, photographer, and nature hunts. They have also had the opportunity to learn about their own family histories, with ancestors from all over the world.

To find out more about the project and to search the database online, visit http://bladeeducation.wixsite.com/northroaddatabase You can also find out more about Blade Education here.

Nature hunt at North Road Burial Ground

Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton, aka Fanny and Stella

Posted on February 21, 2013 by admin

We have been busy preparing copies of one of our more unusual sets of photographs to go on display in Chelmsford Library, before going on tour to other libraries around the county.

We are very fortunate to have c.7,000 images from the Spalding family (three generations of the family, all named Fred, worked as professional photographers), taken in the last half of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century.

One of the more unusual sets of photographs within the collection is a series of portraits of two young men, Frederick William Park and Ernest Boulton, taken in c.1869.

Park and Boulton were popular theatrical players during the late 1860s, and were better known as their female alter egos, Fanny and Stella.

Fanny and Stella, photographed in Chelmsford by Fred Spalding, c.1869 (D/F 269/1/3712)

Fanny and Stella, photographed in Chelmsford by Fred Spalding, c.1870 (D/F 269/1/3712)

Along with several other players they were performing with in Chelmsford, the pair commissioned the portraits from Spalding, and copies of the photographs were sold in great numbers, presumably to their audiences.

Female impersonation was a fairly widespread and acceptable form of entertainment, but the pair found themselves in trouble when they began to take their act off stage. Often travelling to and from their performances in costume, initially they attracted little attention, but eventually they gained a certain moral notoriety, visiting theatres in female dress as patrons and frequenting the Burlington Arcade dressed as and claiming to be women. They were arrested by the Metropolitan Police in 1870 and involved in a major court case at Queen’s Bench in May 1871. Park and Boulton were charged with “conspiring and inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence”.

Amongst the evidence produced at the trial was the existence of “an album with photographs beautifully executed of Boulton in female attire”. Possibly this could have included Spalding’s studio portraits.

It is not known whether Park’s family connections in the legal sphere – his father was one of the Masters of the Court of Common Pleas – had any significant part to play in the trial, for Park’s father appeared as a witness for the defence and the two men were eventually acquitted. The verdict was greeted with popular acclaim and Park and Boulton disappeared from the public eye for good.

A selection of Spalding’s portraits of Boulton and Park will be on display in Chelmsford Library throughout March, before touring around other libraries around the county. The display marks the publication of a new book investigating the case by Neil McKenna, Fanny and Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England, which will shortly be available to borrow from Essex Libraries.

Neil McKenna will be reading extracts from his book and taking questions at Chelmsford Library on Thursday 14 March 2013 at 7:30pm as part of the Essex Book Festival. To book tickets please call the Box Office on 01206 573948 or book online.

Shire Hall: Past, present and future

Posted on February 7, 2013 by admin

Shire Hall is one of Chelmsford’s most significant landmarks, and features heavily in our collections of images of the historic city centre. From its opening in 1791 until 2012, Shire Hall served as the County Court. As the County Council asks residents to submit ideas for the building’s future, we took a look back through the archives to see what they reveal about the Hall’s past.

Shire Hall replaced two earlier buildings which served as the county’s court rooms. The Tudor Market Cross, or Great Cross, had been built in 1569, replacing an earlier Medieval building, and it served as both market place and court house. The ground floor was open-sided, with enclosed galleries above, as depicted in John Walker’s map below. Despite the fact that it was open to the street and dusty, draughty, and noisy, the county Assizes and Quarter Sessions courts were conducted in the open piazza on the ground floor, and corn merchants conducted their trade there on Friday market days.

At some point between 1569 and 1660 a second, smaller court building was built, apparently on the west side of the Great Cross, known as the Little Cross. While the Great Cross continued to host the Crown Court, the Little Cross hosted the Nisi Prius (civil) Court.

Extract from John Walker’s 1591 map ofChelmsford, showing the north end of the High Street, with the Tudor Market Cross building in the centre of the market place (D/DM P1)

In October 1788, the Tudor court houses were condemned by the Quarter Sessions as ‘not in a fit condition for transacting the publick [sic] business of the County’, and the County Surveyor John Johnson was commissioned to build a new ‘Shire House’.

The authorities quickly settled on a site for the new building at the north end of the High Street, between the market place and the churchyard, which was then occupied by the existing court houses and several private properties. The new building was to be set further back from the market place, offering some relief to the traffic bottleneck at the top of the High Street.

We are fortunate to have John Johnson’s original plans for the building, including elevations of the south, west and north sides of the buildings, and plans of each of the four storeys, with the plan for the ground floor including internal layouts for the Nisi Prius and Crown Courts. In 1789, a county rate was levied to raise £14,000 to buy the site and construct the new building.

Plans and elevations for the ‘County Hall of Essex’, 1788 (Q/AS 1/1)

The builders of Shire Hall encountered some of the problems experienced today when working on enclosed sites in built-up areas; the old courts were not demolished straight away as they had to carry on functioning, and the churchyard could not be turned into a builder’s yard, so a field was leased in Duke Street to assemble and store materials and carry out preparative carpentry and masonry work. Contractors complained bitterly about the extra time, effort and monetary cost of transferring materials, and also the interruptions to their work caused by the running of the court, and by the annual fairs in May and November.

Despite these challenges, the new building was completed in 1791, and the old courts demolished, revealing the impressive Portland Stone façade of the new Shire Hall.

Shire Hall soon after its opening. Engraving by J. Walker after an original picture by Reinagle, 1795 (I/Mb 74/1/59)

The three central arches of the new building led into a large hall, which replaced the old Market Cross and functioned as market space and corn exchange. Beyond the market hall at the back of the ground floor Nisi Prius and Crown Courts, and a retiring room for judges. A grand staircase lit by a glazed dome led out of the market hall up to the grand jury room and the ‘county room’ or ballroom, which took up the whole of the front of the first floor. There was also a small waiting room for witnesses and an office for the Clerk of the Peace and his records. The building’s façade included three emblematic figures by John Bacon, representing mercy, wisdom and justice.

On 3 June 1791 the Chelmsford Chronicle gave its verdict the transformation to the town centre. The new building ‘…exhibits a splendid object to all persons coming up the town; this elegant building when completely finished will not only do credit to the taste and spirit of the magistrates of this opulent county, and honour to the architect, but will be of the greatest service and accommodation to every person frequenting the public meetings.’

Hundreds of thousands of cases have since been heard in the court rooms of Shire Hall since that time, including witchcraft trials in which women were sentenced to be burned alive, and trials which sentenced people to transportation for what would now be considered minor offences.

Shire Hall has also been the focal point of many grand occasions inChelmsford. Not least of these were the judges’ processions which opened the Assizes each year (where the most serious cases were heard). This was a tradition that continued until the late nineteenth century; prolific photographer and Mayor of Chelmsford Fred Spalding, reminisced in the 1930s:

‘Even the coming of the Judge to open the Assize has altered. It was a great event in my young days – the High Sheriff with his carriage and four horses, trumpeters, marshals, footmen with powdered wigs. I can remember the late Mr. John Joliffe Tufnell ofLangleys, Gt Waltham was Sheriff. A procession of tradesmen, farmers and others from the town and surrounding villages of nearly a mile long, went out to Broomfield to meet him and accompany him to Church with the Judge.’ (D/Z 206/1/93)

Engraving by J. Ryland showing the judges’ procession through Chelmsford High Street before the opening of the Assizes, attended by the High Sheriff and his officers. Pre-1788 (I/Mb 74/1/109)

Shire Hall has also been the iconic backdrop to the many large gatherings of Chelmsford residents in Tindal Square which have accompanied momentous occasions such as pronouncements of new monarchs and election campaigns, as well as social gatherings.

George V is proclaimed King from the steps of Shire Hall by the High Sheriff of Essex, Ralph Bury, 1910. Photograph by Fred Spalding (SCN 1445)

Election of 29 October 1924, candidates addressing the public in front of Shire Hall. Photograph by Fred Spalding (SCN 3396)

Dance in the ballroom, c. 1924. Photograph by Fred Spalding (SCN 4476)

The exterior of the building is little changed today; the west side was extended in 1851, and the east side remodelled in 1903-06.

Shire Hall in 1895, with addition on the west side, and the clock added to the pediment (I/LS/CFD/00011)

The interior, however, underwent more radical changes in 1935-6, when the lobby, courts, picture room and stairwell were substantially reconstructed by the County Architect J. Stuart, bringing in Art Deco aspects. These features are today considered to be an essential part of the building’s architectural character, but they were not universally accepted at the time. Fred Spalding, who took a particular interest in Shire Hall, was dismayed by the changes:

‘…alas!, what of the interior? During 1936, the architects of the present day, have altered it to such an extent that those who knew it, now fail to recognise it. The vestibule has had all its stately columns removed and now looks more like the entrance of a modern cinema. The Crown Court and Nisi Prius Court have been strip[p]ed of all their old solemnity…The whole atmosphere is changed.’ (D/Z 206/1/93)

Photograph of the Crown Court room in Shire Hall, taken by Fred Spalding before the alterations in 1936 (D/Z 206/1/89)

Court room after the 1930s alterations (SCN 4191)

The vestibule before 1936 alterations. Photograph by Fred Spalding (D/Z 206/1/89)

The vestibule after the 1930s alterations (SCN 4211)

Shire Hall is an important focal point in Chelmsford’s history, and in the present cityscape. Listed at Grade II*, it is recognised as a building of great significance.

If you would like to find out more about this Chelmsfordian icon, you can search for Shire Hall on Seax, or see Hilda Grieve’s magnificent history of Chelmsford The Sleepers and the Shadows, available in the ERO Searchroom and libraries across the county. To find out more about Shire Hall’s architect, see John Johnson, 1732-1814: Georgian Architect and County Surveyor of Essex, by Nancy Briggs, again available in libraries around the county and the ERO Searchroom (in the ERO library and also for sale).

To take part in the future use of Shire Hall consultation visit www.theshirehall.com or email shire.hallconsultation@essex.gov.uk.

The closing date for comments and expressions of interest is Friday 15 February 2013.

The 1953 Floods in Essex

Posted on January 31, 2013 by admin

On the night of Saturday 31 January 1953 a severe storm coincided with a high spring tide in the North Sea, and the resulting tidal surge caused great devastation all along the east coast. In eastern England 307 people were killed, 120 of them from Essex. The worst hit communities in the county were Canvey Island, where 58 died, and Jaywick, where 37 people were killed (5% of the population). A major operation was mounted to rescue as many people from the flooded areas as possible. Along the east coast of the UK, 30,000 people were evacuated from their homes.

Damage was caused to over 1,600 km of coastline, as well as to thousands of homes. It is estimated that the damage in monetary terms today would be over £5 billion.

It was of course not just England that was affected by the floods; 19 people died in Scotland, 28 in Belgium, and a staggering 1,836 in theNetherlands. Over 230 people also died on ferries, fishing boats and other vessels which were in the North Sea that night.

We have been going through some of the many documents in the ERO which tell some of the stories of the floods in Essex, a small sample of which will be on display in our ‘Document of the Month’ case in the Searchroom throughout February.

To the sea – rescuers at work in Jaywick (D/Z 35/15) (Photo: Reuters)

Fire Brigade log book reporting phone calls to say that Jaywick was completely flooded (D/Z 35/3/1)

Tilbury underwater (D/Z 35/15) (Photo: Southend Standard).

Albermarle St & Alexander Road, Harich (T/Z 241/1)

Photograph of the junction of Albermarle Street and Alexandra Road in Harwich. The flood in Harwich was described as a two metre high wall of rolling water. Eight people drowned trapped in their basements in Main Street (T/Z 241/1) (Photo: Harwich and Dovercourt Standard).

The ground floor and playground of Harwich Junior School were flooded to a depth of 1½ metres (T/Z 241/1).

Harwich police station telephone log (D/Z 35/6/1)

This note in the Harwich police station telephone log tells us that at the army base on Bramble Island, near Harwich, the magazines had been breached by the flood waters. High explosives had floated away and the police and public were advised to be on the look out for them, and not to touch them (D/Z 35/6/1).

Photograph of Peter Pan’s Playground, Southend (D/Z 35/15) (Photo: Southend Standard). At Southend the effects were not as severe as at Canvey. The Kursaal flooded, along with the Gasworks and Southchurch Park.

Letter from Mr E. Staunton (C/DC 11/Fd43)

Letter written month after the floods by Mr E. Staunton of Benham Road, Canvey to Essex County Council to pass on the ‘thanks and gratitude’ of himself and ‘friends in this area’ to the fireman who sounded the air raid siren ‘thus giving us a chance to dress and find out over the telephone what was the meaning of the warning’ (C/DC 11/Fd43).

A selection of these documents will be on display in the Searchroom throughout February. Others can be ordered to view in the Searchroom. Find out how to visit us.

To find out more about the floods, why not go to hear Patricia Rennoldson Smith talk about her new book The 1953 Essex Flood Disaster: The People’s Story as part of the Essex Book Festival.

The return of Sargant Wilson: deeds in family history

Posted on January 2, 2013 by admin

Archives Assistant Edd Harris blogs for us about just a few of the things family historians can learn from property deeds…

Do you remember our friend Sargant Wilson? At the beginning of October we discovered his marriage licence which told us that in 1834 at the age of 60 he married Karenhappuch Morgan, ten years his junior. We have come across the couple again although unfortunately in less happy times.

This document is an admission onto copy hold land (D/DCf M73). This is a type of land holding used when land is part of a Manor. The people who hold land from the Manor are recorded in the Manor Court Roll along with any payments or rents that they are due to pay as well as a description of the land and its previous owners. The new landholders are then provided with a copy of that entry in the Court Roll, hence the name ‘copy hold’.

In the recitals of this particular example from Southminster in 1844 (ten years after his marriage) we are told that Sargant Wilson has died. The land that he held has been passed back (surrendered) to the Manor. The admission then goes on to say that Sargant Wilson left the land to his wife by his will which is quoted at length, describing the property and revealing that it was bequeathed to him by his former wife Dorothy and that he had a son who predeceased him. It goes on to admit his second wife Karenhappuch onto the land in his place and collects a fine or payment for doing this.

This just goes to show that family history can move far beyond the usual records of births, marriages and deaths. We now know that Sargant Wilson had a previous marriage to a Dorothy with whom he had a son, he had written a will, held land in the Manor of Southminster and we have a rough date for his death, all from one document.

You can search for deeds on Seax by the name of a person or property. Not all deeds are catalogued to this level of detail however, in which case manorial court rolls may be helpful. These records can be challenging, but as we have seen in the case of Sargant Wilson they can also be extremely rewarding, not only for family history but for house history and local history too. If you would like any further advice, then talk to ERO staff in the Searchroom, e-mail us on ero.enquiry@essex.gov.uk, or telephone 01234 244644.

Schools on a Naze Adventure

Posted on October 24, 2012 by admin

ERO staff are frequently to be found not just in our building in Chelmsford, but all over the county. Our education officer Sarah Girling has been working with school children around Walton-on-the-Naze to find out about how this vulnerable bit of coastline was defended in the Second World War…

173 pupils from three Essex schools have been learning about their local World War Two history on the Naze at Walton this October.

On a trail around the Naze headland searching for remains of WW2 coastal defences

Frinton Primary, Walton-on-the-Naze Primary and Hamford Primary Academy School were involved in four days of visits to the militarised area of the Naze during World War Two, looking at surviving pillboxes and the area used for secret guided missile testing.

Roger Kennell of the Clacton Victoria County History group tells children about an infantry pillbox

Year 5s from Walton-on-the-Naze Primary School with teacher Liz Wilson, local historians Fred Nash and Roger Kennell, and ERO education officer Sarah Girling

They also climbed the Naze Tower, listening to a talk given by Michelle Nye-Browne, the manager of the 300 year old Grade II* listed building, which was used as a radar tower.

The Naze Tower

Inside the Naze Tower, learning about how it was used as a radar station in the Second World War

The Naze Tower in use as a radar station in WW2. Image reproduced courtesy of the Naze Tower.

Looking out from the top of the Naze Tower

As part of the European-funded World War Two Heritage project, pupils learned about the defences that were built during the Second World War and how they would have been used if German invasion forces had landed on the Essex coast.

Looking at a pillbox which has fallen into the sea. The coast at Walton has been eroded at a rate of 2 metres a year, and some of the WW2 defences have fallen off the cliff edge

Led by enthusiastic historians, Roger Kennell and Fred Nash, the children were inspired by the stories including an eccentric Brigadier, who when faced with a missile that was heading back to its launch site on the Naze, calmly raised a ‘colourful golf umbrella’ as the bits of broken metalwork fell to the ground.

Roger Kennell shows children the site where soldiers lived during wartime

The pupils had obviously learned something of the Second World War back at school but the visit was a chance for pupils to really understand how national and international events impacted their local community. The Naze itself was inhabited by the army and the RAF, making it their home for the duration of the war.

Pupils using the specially designed Four on a Naze Adventure workbooks to find out about the WW2 coastal defences at the Naze

The project will be continuing and will include a visit to the Essex Record Office for pupils to investigate local records that reveal what life was like for ordinary people living in Walton during the war, interviewing locals to find out about their memories, and holding a 1940s tea party at each school to celebrate the end of the project.

To find out more about the educational work of the ERO, visit our services for schools webpage.

This project is part of the EU Interreg-funded World War Two Heritage project taking place on both sides of the Channel.

Sharing Our History: Marconi in Chelmsford

Posted on October 18, 2012 by admin

On Wednesday 7 November, the ERO is hosting a University of Essex event focusing on the centenary of the opening of Marconi’s famous Chelmsford factory…

Do you have memories of working at or with Marconi? As part of the Festival of Social Science, the University of Essex is hosting an oral history event to commemorate Guglielmo Marconi, and the centenary of the opening of the world’s first purpose-built radio factory in New Street in Chelmsford.

Marconi, who is often credited with being the inventor of radio, first established his company in a former silk works in Hall Street in Chelmsford in 1898. But this soon became too small for his expanding operation, and in February 1912 work began on the 70,000 square foot factory in New Street. The works were opened in June that year.

Eight years later the factory played host to the first experimental wireless broadcast, which featured Dame Nellie Melba singing two arias. The signal was received throughout Europe and as far away as Newfoundland, Canada.

Marconi’s New Street factory

This free event is open to all, for people wanting to find out more about Marconi the man and the technological advances he made, as well as those who worked for Marconi, or who had relatives who worked there, to come along to share and record their memories.

Chaired by Martin Astell, Sound Archivist at the Essex Record Office, the event will feature a film and short talks by Peter Turrall, Chairman of the Marconi Veterans’ Association, who will talk about Marconi the man and how he came to be in Chelmsford, and Dr Geoff Bowles, curator of the Sandford Mill Museum, who will talk about the collection of Marconi artefacts which are held there.

Members of the audience will also be asked to share memories of Marconi’s history in Chelmsford.

Afterwards there will be free tea and cakes and a small exhibition relating to Marconi. A film crew will be on hand and those who wish to do so will be asked to take part in interviews which will then be placed on a website to form a lasting record of the event.

Entry is free and no booking is required: if you have any queries please email events@essex.ac.uk or phone 01206 872400

Wednesday 7 November 2.30-4.30pm

Essex Record Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6YT

Women at work in the Marconi factory

Men at work in the Marconi factory

‘To make a cake the Preinces of Oringes way’

Posted on August 29, 2012 by admin

We recently brought to you some recipes from the pen of Abigail Abdy, who lived in Kelvedon and Coggeshall in the 1660s and 1670s. She carefully recorded her recipes, for medicines and for food, in a book which she titled ‘Mrs Abigail Abdy her book’ (D/DU 161/623).

Abigail died in 1679, but this was not the end of the use of her book; two more hands fill the remaining pages.

The second hand is a mystery, but in the 1930s Miss A.D.Harrison made a conjecture who the third hand may have belonged to (D/DU 161/661).

Three years after Abigail’s death, her husband Sir Mark Guyon remarried, to a Mrs Augurs, his waiting-maid, and Miss Harrison suggests that it was Mrs Augurs who wrote the later recipes.

The author clearly had her sights set on high society, with her recipes including ‘The Kings majesties excellent receipt for the Plague’, and ‘To make a cake the Preinces of Oringes way’, which is another giant of a cake:

To make a cake The Preinces of Oringes way

Take nine pound of very good flower serced [sifted] and dried and a pound and a half of suger serced and dride a pound of Almons well beten an ounce of spices of all sorts mingell these well into the flower then take a pinte an a halfe of creame and three pound of butter and mingell in the creame a littell hotter then milke from the cow a pinte an a halfe of Ale yeast and pore in the yeast to the flower then pore in the creame with the butter melted in it then put in the eges which is to be foreteene halfe whites well betten then to one a lettell flower over it and cover it up hote and let it stand halfe an houer to worke and then make it up with nine pound of minced resons and put it into a paper hoope.

We especially like the instruction to use cream ‘a littell hotter then milke from the cow’.

More recipes from the archives coming soon!

Mrs Abigail Abdy her Booke

Posted on August 23, 2012 by admin

As The Great British Bake Off continues on BBC2, we bring you the second in our special series exploring some of the recipe books in our collections.

Today we look at another of our very earliest recipe books, written by Abigail Abdy, beginning in 1665 (D/DU 161/623).

Title page of Abigail Abdy’s book – reading ‘Mrs Abigail Abdy her book May the 24th 1665’

Abigail was born in 1644, the daughter of Sir Thomas Abdy of Felix Hall, Kelvedon, a lawyer and landowner. Sometime after 1670 she married Sir Mark Guyon, son of Sir Thomas Guyon, a rich clothier, becoming his second wife.

Much of the book is taken up with medical concoctions, for both humans and animals, such as ‘A very good Drink for ye Rickitts’, ‘A good Receipt for sore eyes, when one has the smallpox’, ‘To make the plague water’, ‘To make cordiall water, good against any infection, as the plague, small pox &c.’, and ‘A very good drinke for a Bullock’.

Given that the book was begun in 1665, during the Great Plague in London, it is not surprising that the recipes concentrate on warding off and treating infection.

Alongside these mixtures are recipes much more recognisable to modern eyes, such as these for macaroons and sugar cake:

Abigail Adby’s recipe for macaroons

To make mackaromes

Take 2 pound of Veliney Almonds to a pound of double refined sugar, it must be beaten & searced [sifted] then take your almonds and lay them in water, overnight, & let them lye till the next morning, & then blaunch [blanch] them & put them into a mortar, & beat them & as you beat them, put some sugar amongst them, & onely wet your pestle with rose water to keepe them, from oyling, this must be beat but half as much as Marchpain then take the whites of 2 or 3 eggs and beat them till they froath, then put the Almonds into a dish upon a Chafinedish [chafing dish] of Coales & put in the froath of your eggs, & keepe it stirring or else it will burne to the dish you must stirre it till it be through hott then lay it upon wafers the ovin must be something hotter than for marchpain.

Abigail Adby’s recipe for sugar cake – including the instruction to beat the mixture for an hour!

To make sugar Cakes

Take a pound of flower, halfe of it [rice] flower a pound of sugar finely sifted, 8 or 9 eggs halfe the whites, but all the yolkes, beat the eggs very well with rose water, then put in ye [the] flower, by degrees then beat it a little, then put in the sugar too by degrees it must be beaten about an houre then your Ovin bring of a good heat, beat them up, putting in a few Coliander seeds, then your pans being well buttered, put them in the Oven, being well hett, set them & when they be rissen take them out, knocking them out, scraping the botomes of the pans, then if they be not baked enough put them in againe, & let them stand a little longer.

Abigail died in 1679, aged just 35. Joseph Bufton, the Coggeshall diarist, records that she was buried quickly, late in the evening by torches, without a sermon, suggesting that she had died of an infectious illness, possibly the plague. This was not, however, the end for Abigail’s book – find out more in our next post, coming soon!

If you’re visiting the Record Office soon, look out for our display of recipe books in Reception, or pop up to the Searchroom to order Abigail’s book (D/DU 161/623), or Miss A.D. Harrison’s article about it (D/DU 161/661).

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