English recipe book

English medical and culinary recipe collection in various hands, with a few miscellanous commonplaces. The main component of the text is a fair copy suite of recipes in a fine, mid-18th century calligraphic hand (ff. 1-31v), but without obvious intellectual arrangement and with few cited authorities: the only medical one seems to be a 'Mr Clement', whose recipe for rheumatism is transcribed (f. 6). Several later contributors have added further recipes and commonplaces, including biographical details of a certain Thomas Steward (1703-1770), of Lewisham (f. 36); a copy of the deed of appointment of one James Owen as 'menial servant and waterman' to the Duke of Newcastle, in 1795 (f. 37); and an account of the 'subscribers to Mr Hone after 3 trials 3 separate days (pleaded is [sic] own Cause' (ff. 41-42), [a reference to the notorious trials of the political writer and publisher William Hone (1780-1842) for blasphemy in December 1817].

An additional booklet containing further recipes in various later 18th and/or early 19th century hands has been bound in and constitutes ff. 43-61.