Beeton, Isabella Mary (1836–1865)

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Beeton, Isabella Mary (1836–1865)

English authority on cooking and domestic science, best known for her popular book Household Management. Name variations: Mrs. Beeton. Born Isabella Mary Mayson in Cheapside, London, England, in 1836; died in England in 1865; eldest daughter of Benjamin (a soft-goods merchant) and Elizabeth Mayson; married Sam Beeton, in 1856; children: four sons, two of whom died in childhood.

So popular were her writings on domestic science among her Victorian audience, Isabella Mary Beeton may well be considered the Martha Stewart of her day. Beeton was also a talented pianist and accomplished linguist. Stricken with puerperal fever—a disease contracted in childbirth before the advent of modern antiseptics—she would die two months short of her 29th birthday, at the height of her career.

Born in Cheapside, London, England, in 1836, Beeton was the eldest daughter of Benjamin and Elizabeth Mayson. Isabella grew up in an enormous family of 21, most of the children were born during her mother's second marriage to Henry Dorling, a widower who arrived with four children of his own. Although cooking was not considered a suitable pursuit for a proper Victorian young lady, Isabella could not help but occasionally find herself in the kitchen, given the size of her family. After her marriage in 1856 to publisher Sam Beeton, she began writing articles for her husband's newest undertaking, The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine. Aimed at the young, middle-class Victorian woman, the new publication boasted the first "agony column," which offered advice on the pressing social problems of the day. After the loss of her first two children, one to croup at three months and another to scarlet fever at the age of three, Isabella became more involved in the magazine and found solace

in work. She tried out all of the recipes sent to the magazine and experimented with her own; she traveled to Paris for fashion plates and illustrations and consulted experts for advice on financial and health matters.

Beeton's lavishly illustrated book Household Management was four years in preparation. It became a reference "Bible" for homemakers, containing information, as well as recipes, on nutrition, budgeting, and every aspect of kitchen management, down to a discussion of appropriate footwear: "Do not go about slipshod. Provide yourself with good, well-fitting boots. You will find them less fatiguing in a warm kitchen than loose, untidy slippers." Eventually the Dictionary of Cookery was extracted from the main volume and became a bestseller.

Beeton reveled in the birth of two more sons in 1863 and 1865. After her second son was born, however, she contracted the fever that would take her life, but not before she had encouraged an entire generation of Victorian women to regard household management as an art.