Introduction to Elizabeth Raffald

Book excerpt: 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.