Eliza Acton

Eliza Acton was an English food writer and poet. She produced one of Britain’s first cookery books aimed at the domestic reader. Modern Cookery for Private Families was published in 1845. It included the first recipes in English for Brussels sprouts and for spaghetti.

About Eliza Acton in brief

Eliza Acton was an English food writer and poet. She produced one of Britain’s first cookery books aimed at the domestic reader. Modern Cookery for Private Families was published in 1845. It introduced the now-universal practice of listing ingredients and giving suggested cooking times for each recipe. It included the first recipes in English for Brussels sprouts and for spaghetti. The book has been admired by English cooks in the second part of the 20th century. It influenced many of them, including Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson, Delia Smith and Rick Stein. She was born in 1799 in Sussex and raised in Suffolk. She ran a girls’ boarding school before spending time in France. While in France Acton had an unhappy relationship with a French army officer. She wrote at least one poem while in France, which she dated in 1826. In 1857 Acton published The English Bread-Book for Domestic Use. The work consisted of a history of bread-making in England, a study of European methods of baking and numerous recipes. It was eclipsed by the success of Isabella Beeton’s Book of Household Management, which included several recipes plagiarised from Acton’s work. Acton wrote some longer poems after returning to England, including some that she no longer needed to provide names of subscribers to the book. She also wrote a collection of poetry, which was published by Longman in 1828. She died in 1839 in Ipswich, Suffolk, and is buried in St Paul’s Church, Ipswich.

She is survived by her husband, John Acton, a brewer, and his wife Elizabeth, née Mercer. She had six sisters and three brothers, and was the eldest of six children. The family lived in a house adjoining the St. Peter’s Brewery, where John took employment running Trotman, Halliday & Studd, the company that owned the brewery. By 1800 the family had moved to Ipswich,. where they lived in an adjoining house adjoining St.Peter’s Brewery. It is not known when she left England, but it is likely that she travelled in 1823. The food historian Elizabeth Ray, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, states that Acton travelled abroad for the good of her health, because she had a weak constitution. She left the school and opened another in September 1819 with her sisters, this time at nearby Great Bealings; the school moved three miles to Woodbridge in 1822 and had probably closed by 1825. She later wrote that on the bottom of one of her poems she wrote that she had been writing poetry at least 1822, as she was at the time in Paris. In October 1826 328 copies were printed of the book, and a reprint was needed within a month. As was the practice for publishers at that time, Acton provided the names of those who had pre-paid for a copy—who were listed inside the work; nearly paid for a copies of the work.

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