The Compleat Housewife

Or, Accomplished Gentlewoman’s Companion

Author: E. Smith
Edition: 16th
Place: London
Date: 1758
MSU Libraries Call Number: XX TX705 .S53 1758

The Book

The Compleat Housewife was a popular manual including recipes, dishes to make and during which seasons to make them, home medicine remedies, and other advice on how to be, as the title suggests, a good and complete housewife. Of note are cures for mad dog bite, worms, scurvy, and kidney stones. There’s also a recipe to induce an “excellent vomit,” instructions on how to remove mildew from linen, and advice on how to prepare eel and swan.

In its own words, The Compleat Housewife contains “a collection of upwards of Six Hundred of the (most) approved” recipes for different dishes, “Bills of Fare for every Month in the Year,” and “above Three Hundred Family Receipts of Medicines.”

Its author is listed as E. Smith. This is Eliza Smith, a popular 18th century cookbook writer who was herself a housewife for over thirty years.

The first edition of The Compleat Housewife was published in 1727, and became very popular amongst budding housewives. In 1742, a new edition became the first cookbook to be published in the colonies.

The particular copy that I’m analyzing is the 16th edition of the book. It cost five shillings and was printed in London for a long list of booksellers in the area:

• Charles Hitch, a bookseller in London’s Paternoster Row, then the epicenter of publishing
• L. Hawes, a bookseller in Paternoster Row
• John Rivington and James Rivington, sons of Charles Rivington, founder of the London-based publishing company Rivington & Co
• James Fletcher I, a bookseller in Oxford whose family was friends with the Rivingtons.
• John Ward, who sold books in Cornhill
• W. Johnston
• Stanley Crowder, a bookseller in Paternoster Row
• Peter Davey, a bookseller on Ave-Maria Lane in London
• Bedwell Law, another bookseller on Ave-Maria Lane in London
• Thomas Longman, an English publisher who founded Pearson Longman, a prominent publishing house
• Mary Cooper, a well-known female bookseller in Paternoster Row
• R. Ware, who sold books at the Bible and Sun in Ludgate Hill, London
• Samuel Birt, who sold book on Ave-Maria Lane
• James Hodges, a bookseller near the London Bridge.

Provenance

The book has speckled calf boards, and the first board detaches from the rest of the book. There is severe weathering on the front and back covers, and five missing/removed leaves between pages 388 and 389. There are multiple foldout illustrations after page 396.

There is provenance data scattered across the book, including ink blots, markings, and two unsigned recipes penciled in the back.

But the majority of the evidence of how and from whom this book was passed down is on the front pastedown.

Kelham writes that it is “the year of our Lord,” 1761, which is three years after this edition’s printing, and that she is “In Barbican.”

The Barbican, according to a map of London from 1746, was the name of a street north of the river Thames, between Aldersgate and Cripplegate wards. These days, the area is a performing arts centre of the same name.

According to Ancestry Library Edition, there was an Ann Kelham who christened her daughter, Mary, at Saint Botolph Bishopsgate in June 1752, a twenty minute walk from the Barbican. But in 1760, burial records show that Mary died.

A year after the death of her child, Kelham would have signed her name on this book on being a housewife. If this was an attempt to save a marriage after an irrevocable loss, it didn’t work: her husband, Joseph Kelham, remarried in 1763.

It appears as though Ann Kelham herself then remarried years later, on April 2, 1769, to John Hallet. They were married at St. Bride’s Church on Fleet Street, also a twenty minute walk from the Barbican. The marriage records call her a “spinster,” at the time a label for an older, unmarried woman. This makes sense, since at the time Kelham would have been at least six years unmarried.

At some point the book ended up in the hands of Thom. J. Bramah, who signed his name at the top of the book but didn’t add a date.

This appears to be Thomas Joseph Bramah, who was born in 1815 and lived in Middlesex, England all his life. He was baptised that year at St. George’s Church in Hanover Square, a few miles away from where Ann Kelham’s daughter was christened. Though the record does not show whether Bramah had a wife to give this book to, he otherwise appears to be the best match for this signature.

A century later, “F. E. Beak” signed their name and the date Feb. 5, 1917 into the book. It seems this is one of two people:

• Florence E. Beak, who was 43 at the time with a 15 year old daughter and 8 year old son. She never left England. This book would have helped her manage a household with two young, hungry children in it.
• Francis Elizabeth Beak, who was 57 years old at the time. In her 20s, she moved from England to the U.S., but still had half-siblings abroad. Three years after arriving in the states, she married Henry J Gray, another Englander. This book would have helped her cook and take care of her husband.

The latter Beak would explain how the book ultimately ended up in the person library of Sheila and Marilynn Brass, creators of heirloom cookbooks who lived in Boston. The sisters once had their own cooking show, the Food Flirts. They donated their personal collection of thousands of historic cookbooks to MSU in 2o21. Sheila died in 2022.

Bibliography

“Ann Kelham.” Ancestry Library Edition. Ancestry. Accessed 2026. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/collections/1624/records/306041011?tid=&pid=&queryId=82cabb80-5f68-4aea-9e36-4440aa9f0bb6&usePUBJs=true&_gl=1*1n59j6l*_up*MQ..*_ga*ODc2NDQyMTgxLjE3NzM4NjcyNDQ.*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*czdmN2Y4ODY2LTMzZWEtNGE3OC05M2YxLTIwMjlhNzU1ZDM2NiRvMSRnMSR0MTc3Mzg2NzMxNiRqNjAkbDAkaDA.*_ga_LMK6K2LSJH*czdmN2Y4ODY2LTMzZWEtNGE3OC05M2YxLTIwMjlhNzU1ZDM2NiRvMSRnMCR0MTc3Mzg2NzI0MyRqNjAkbDAkaDA.

“Florence E Beak.” Ancestry Library Edition. Ancestry. Accessed 2026. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/family-tree/person/tree/169638754/person/142200024995/facts.

“Frances Elizabeth Beak.” Ancestry Library Edition. Ancestry. Accessed 2026. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/family-tree/person/tree/24613295/person/1541733926/story?usePUBJs=true&_gl=1*xt9jy0*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTI3MTkxMzY0NC4xNzczODcyMDcw*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*czdmN2Y4ODY2LTMzZWEtNGE3OC05M2YxLTIwMjlhNzU1ZDM2NiRvMSRnMSR0MTc3Mzg3MjE5OCRqNjAkbDAkaDA.*_ga_LMK6K2LSJH*czdmN2Y4ODY2LTMzZWEtNGE3OC05M2YxLTIwMjlhNzU1ZDM2NiRvMSRnMCR0MTc3Mzg3MjA3MCRqNjAkbDAkaDA.

Jajuga, Elise. “MSU Libraries Receives Significant Estate Gift to Support Culinary Collection.” Michigan State University Libraries, March 21, 2024. https://lib.msu.edu/news/article/2024-03/msu-libraries-receives-significant-estate-gift-support-culinary-collection.

“Joseph Kelham.” Ancestry Library Edition. Ancestry. Accessed 2026. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/collections/61867/records/862870?tid=&pid=&queryId=9255e976-d774-4b51-bd4a-79a5e1838438&usePUBJs=true&_gl=1*hgo4i8*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTc2NDA1MTA1LjE3NzM4NjgwOTE.*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*czdmN2Y4ODY2LTMzZWEtNGE3OC05M2YxLTIwMjlhNzU1ZDM2NiRvMSRnMSR0MTc3Mzg2ODE5MiRqMzAkbDAkaDA.*_ga_LMK6K2LSJH*czdmN2Y4ODY2LTMzZWEtNGE3OC05M2YxLTIwMjlhNzU1ZDM2NiRvMSRnMCR0MTc3Mzg2ODA5MCRqNjAkbDAkaDA.

Mitchell, Christine M. “JASNA News.” Jane Austen Society of North America. Accessed 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20101010004203/http://jasna.org/bookrev/br261p22.pdf.

Smith, Eliza. The Compleat housewife: or, accomplished gentlewoman’s companion. 16th ed. London, 1758.

“Thomas Joseph Bramah.” Ancestry Library Edition. Ancestry. Accessed 2026. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/family-tree/person/tree/185500918/person/222423926506/facts?usePUBJs=true&_gl=1*ys1be4*_up*MQ..*_ga*NDMxNTQ1ODUxLjE3NzQ0OTU5MDA.*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*czdmN2Y4ODY2LTMzZWEtNGE3OC05M2YxLTIwMjlhNzU1ZDM2NiRvMSRnMSR0MTc3NDQ5NTk3OSRqNTAkbDAkaDA.*_ga_LMK6K2LSJH*czdmN2Y4ODY2LTMzZWEtNGE3OC05M2YxLTIwMjlhNzU1ZDM2NiRvMSRnMCR0MTc3NDQ5NTkwMCRqNjAkbDAkaDA.

Theo Scheer. HST 475.

Thanks: Prof. Liam Brockey, Tad Boehmer.

Spring 2026.