To have not known that Mrs Beeton died at 28?

[QueenOfTheAndals]

I fell down a Wikipedia hole, wound up on her page and saw she was only 28 when she died. I always assumed she was an plump elderly housewife, not a young woman who didn't even make it to 30. Apparently her husband gave her syphillis and she lost several children before dying of puerperal fever, poor woman.

Her biography says she died of peurpal fever, probably caused by her Dr during childbirth, not washing his hands.

She was the equivalent of a social media “influencer” of her time. Selling a fantasy of an ideal lifestyle. Pretty impressive businesswoman really.

Interestingly much of Mrs B's success was that MrB was a publisher.

Also she was the first cookery writer to write the ingredients and method separately, so you can see what u need before u start.

Prior to her, recipes were something like...

'First catch your rabbit. Take an onion and boil it with the rabbit and a pinch of pepper...take two large carrots... etc etc (I am sure someone else can do this much better than I can)

"Her biography says she died of peurpal fever, probably caused by her Dr during childbirth, not washing his hands."

Interestingly, in the childbirth section at the Thackray Medical Museum it states that women who had midwives at their births back then were less likely to die, because they only attended births. Women who had doctors were more likely to die because the doctors didn't wash their hands between patients.

My mum has a proper original Mrs Beeton. It's beautiful - used and worn, but beautiful. I keep trying to get it off her It was my grandma's and had been passed down - as firstborn daughter, I feel it should be mine now....

I had no idea she'd died at 28.

Plus, many doctors who attended labouring women in hospitals had often come straight from the mortuary. Without changing clothing or washing their hands.

No it is wrong to out her success purely down to her husband. She was a businesswoman. She invented the idea of a plump older Mrs Beeton. She knew that there was a growing class of middle class women who were expected to manage servants and run a house, but had had little or no training for this. She saw the gap in the market and filled it. Her book was promoted as and became popular to give to a newly wed woman as wedding present.
Indeed the biography said that she was the leader in her marriage and was very involved in the publishing company. She could not cook much.She was an editor and journalist.
The reason Mr Beeton is blamed for the syphilis is because many argue he caught it during one of his affairs when with Mrs Beeton.

Bit harsh blaming the husband for giving her syphillis- I'm sure it wasn't intentional!

Well given that his using prostitutes may have caused her to have several miscarriages and her live children to be born with congenital syphillis, which is believed to have caused death in infancy of at least one of them, not harsh at all.

I've just started reading a really interesting book about her so I did know she died young. However, yet to catch up on the rest of it!
In case anyone's interested the book is - "The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton" by Kathryn Hughes.

Yep, I’ve heard that. She wanted to write poems I think, but wasnt getting published so it was suggested tht she write something more commercially viable. A LOT of the book was plagiarised

And it’s a deeply aspirational book, prescribing a fantasy lifestyle based on incomes, house sizes and servant numbers considerably superior to those her actual readership (aspirational middle class) would have had. So in a sense she is absolutely the ancestor of anyone selling a lifestyle brand today, whether it’s cookery, interiors etc.

Aunt Bessie isn't real either

Nor Mr Kipling.

Nor Mr Muscle.

Like, Mrs B was a real person but with an invented persona.
You know what I mean.

Like Katie Price vs Jordan

But Captain Birdseye is real.

Well cheating on someone is slightly different to giving them a terminal illness. But if acquired on her honeymoon then not even cheating.

Presumably, while the recipes weren't actually hers, the household management things would have been? That would have been things she'd learnt from her own mum, passed down t hrough a few generations, and which she herself would have practised.

I imagine she had a cook so I didn't expect the recipes to be her own in any sort of meaningful way.

How sad, I hadn't realised. I read somewhere (London Transport Museum perhaps?) that she was thought to be the first female commuter, travelling in to the office with her husband. Not sure if that's accurate but she's fascinating either way.

No she did research for the household management bits. She was a working woman.

She also ran a soup kitchen in her home during a bad winter.

I did not know that either.

Is Barry Scott from Cillit Bang real? My little ones obsessed with him.

'First catch your rabbit. Take an onion and boil it with the rabbit and a pinch of pepper...take two large carrots... etc etc (I am sure someone else can do this much better than I can)

Elizabeth David still wrote like this 70 odd years later. Or rather, she chose that narrative style on purpose, to show cooking is as easy as purchasing a pepper or Italian salami in post-war London.

Can I just say, if syphilis story is indeed true, poor prostitutes too. They would have died in poverty, unlike Mrs Beeton, after a harsh life.

My MIL has a Mrs Beeton book that was given to her as a wedding present. It had been updated to have relevence to a 60s housewife, there is even a section on managing the household for the working woman. I love reading that book whenever we visit and imagining MIL as a young woman reading about how one should go about arranging a teenagers' dance party at home (roll up the carpets, allow the records to be played at a louder than usual volume, stick to cider or punch rather than allowing spirits and make sure the girls are escorted home afterwards)

I am hoping to inherit the book one day. MIL is wealthy and has many beautiful things but she has hinted that the book will be mine when she goes and I'm happy with that.

I'd always thought she'd caught an infection during childbirth, from the doctor or midwife's ring

Juan Sheet is real.

If you want a quick summary of her life have a look here: www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk

She was one of 4 when her mother was widowed, her mother then remarried a widower with 4 children of his own and they went on to have another 13 children between them!