The Manchester Directories 1772 1773 1781 By Elizabeth Raffald

In 1772 Manchester was a fast growing town thanks to the rise in industrialisation. Elizabeth Raffald was a busy entrepreneur involving herself in numerous business ventures. She ran a shop, a cookery school, a coaching inn, a servant's employment register, wrote a cookbook and supported the local newspaper financially, wrote a manuscript on midwifery and so much more. She produced her 1769 cookbook, The Experienced English Housekeeper and saw a need for a directory of traders and notable people. Only 3 years after producing her cookbook she had compiled the first ever directory for Manchester, followed by a second a year later as the town grew and addresses were improved. She produced a third directory in 1781. After she died in 1781 it took another 7 years before anyone else attempted another directory. Elizabeth Raffald was truly a pioneer of her time. For more about Elizabeth see 'The Experienced English Housekeeper of Manchester' by Suze Appleton

In 1772 Manchester was a fast growing town thanks to the rise in industrialisation. Elizabeth Raffald ran a shop, a cookery school, a coaching inn, a servant's employment register, wrote a cookbook and supported the local newspaper financially, wrote a manuscript on midwifery and so much more. She was innovative so it was only logical that she would be the first with the innovation of a directory of traders and notable people, and only 3 years after producing her cookbook she had compiled a 60 page guide to the locations and trades of many residents, a year later increasing it to 78 pages as the town grew and addresses were improved. She produced a third directory in 1781 after placing advertisements in the Manchester Mercury for people wishing to be included. After she died in 1781 it took another 7 years before anyone else attempted another directory. Elizabeth Raffald was truly a pioneer of her time. For more about Elizabeth see 'The Experienced English Housekeeper of Manchester' by Suze Appleton.

In 1772 Manchester was a fast growing town thanks to the rise in industrialisation. Inventions to improve the textile practices, that were the mainstay of its residents, were springing up all around the area, bringing more and more traders and merchants into the town. Elizabeth Raffald was a busy entrepreneur involving herself in numerous business ventures. She ran a shop, a cookery school, a coaching inn, a servant's employment register, wrote a cookbook and supported the local newspaper financially, wrote a manuscript on midwifery and so much more. She was innovative in her own field of cookery, creating many new dishes which she included in her 1769 cookbook, The Experienced Housekeeper, so it was only logical that she would be the first with this innovation too. She saw a need for a directory of traders and notable people and only 3 years after producing her cookbook she had compiled a 60 page guide to the locations and trades of many residents, a year later increasing it to 78 pages as the town grew and addresses were improved. She produced a third directory in 1781 after placing advertisements in the Manchester Mercury for people wishing to be included. After she died in 1781 it took another 7 years before anyone else attempted another directory. Elizabeth Raffald was truly a pioneer of her time. For more about Elizabeth see 'The Experienced English Housekeeper of Manchester' by Suze Appleton

In 1772 Manchester was a fast growing town thanks to the rise in industrialisation. Inventions to improve the textile practices, that were the mainstay of its residents, were springing up all around the area, bringing more and more traders and merchants into the town. Elizabeth Raffald was a busy entrepreneur involving herself in numerous business ventures. She ran a shop, a cookery school, a coaching inn, a servant's employment register, wrote a cookbook and supported the local newspaper financially, wrote a manuscript on midwifery and so much more. She was innovative in her own field of cookery, creating many new dishes which she included in her 1769 cookbook, The Experienced Housekeeper, so it was only logical that she would be the first with this innovation too. She saw a need for a directory of traders and notable people and only 3 years after producing her cookbook she had compiled a 60 page guide to the locations and trades of many residents, a year later increasing it to 78 pages as the town grew and addresses were improved. She produced a third directory in 1781 after placing advertisements in the Manchester Mercury for people wishing to be included. After she died in 1781 it took another 18 years before anyone else attempted another directory. Elizabeth Raffald was truly a pioneer of her time. For more about Elizabeth see 'The Experienced English Housekeeper of Manchester' by Suze Appleton

Elizabeth Raffald was an amazing woman, achieving a great many things in a short time. She was an author, innovator, benefactor and entrepreneur as well as a mother and a wife. From the age of 15 she was in service as a housekeeper to great families and at the age of 30 began her career in business. She began with catering, included a school and employment office before writing this cookbook which contains her own original, innovative recipes, giving us wedding cake, stock cubes, Eccles cakes and much more that we take for granted. She gained a huge reputation for her confectionery skills, while running shops and a coaching inn, giving financial aid to the only newspaper in Manchester at the time, producing the town's first ever directory in 1772, (only the second after London), supporting several poor widows of the area, collaborating on a book of midwifery, and having 9 children.

The great Elizabeth Raffald used to be a household name, and her list of accomplishments would make even the highest of achievers feel suddenly impotent. After becoming housekeeper at Arley Hall in Cheshire at age twenty-five, she married and moved to Manchester, transforming the Manchester food scene and business community, writing the first A to Z directory and creating the first domestic servants registry office, the first temping agency if you will. Not only that, she set up a cookery school and ran a high class tavern attracting both gentry and nobility. She reputedly gave birth to sixteen daughters, wrote book on midwifery and was an effective exorciser of evil spirits. These achievements gave her notoriety and standing in Manchester, but it all pales in comparison to her biggest achievement; her cookery book The Experienced English Housekeeper. Published in 1769, it ran to over twenty editions and brought her fame and fortune. But then disaster; her fortune lost, spent by her alcoholic husband. Bankrupted twice, she spent her final years in a pokey coffeehouse in a seedy part of town. Her book, however, lived on. Influential and often imitated (but never bettered), it became the must-have volume for any kitchen, and it helped form our notion of traditional British food as we think of it today. To tell Elizabeth’s tumultuous rise and fall story, historian Neil Buttery doesn’t just delve into the history of food in the eighteenth century, he has to look at trade and empire, domestic service, the agricultural revolution, women’s rights, publishing and copyright law, gentlemen’s clubs and societies, the horse races, the defeminization of midwifery, and the paranormal, to name but a few. Elizabeth Raffald should be revered, not unknown. How can this be? Perhaps we should ask Mrs Beeton…

Elizabeth was an amazing woman, achieving a great many things in a short time. She was an author, innovator, benefactor and entrepreneur as well as a mother and a wife. From the age of 15 she was in domestic service as a housekeeper to great families including the Warburtons of Arley Hall, Cheshire, where she married the head gardener and at the age of 30 beginning her career in business. She began with catering, included a school and employment office before writing a cookbook which contained her own original, innovative recipes, giving us wedding cake, stock cubes, Eccles cakes and much more that we take for granted. She went on to gain a huge reputation for her confectionery skills, while running shops and a coaching inn, giving financial aid to the only newspaper in Manchester at the time, producing the town's first ever directory in 1772, supporting several poor widows of the area, collaborating on a book of midwifery, and having 9 children.

This extra special edition, created in 2019, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the first printed recipe for wedding cake, contains a reproduction of the first edition of the original cookbook from 1769; includes an Appendix with the additional recipes featured in the second edition issued in 1771; AND includes an introduction by Suze Appleton containing references to source material from her research. It was Elizabeth Raffald's innovation for rich fruit cake with double icing for wedding cake which began a long lasting tradition. Her book also contains many other innovative recipes in the original 800 recipe book. This edition also contains an extract of the fiction of Elizabeth's life, An Uncommon Woman, currently in progress, to be released in 2020.