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Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management

Mary brought in the most wonderful object to share with us, a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, dated 1915.

First published as a book in 1861, the book best known as Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, also published as Mrs Beeton’s Cookery Book, was an extensive guide to running a household in Victorian Britain, all about cookery, household work, marketing, prices, provisions, trussing, serving, carving, menus, etc., etc

Producing the book was a remarkable achievement as during the writing she went through difficult pregnancies – her first two children died in infancy – and she herself died at the age of 29 giving birth to her fourth child. The Book of Household Management only became available as a complete book in 1860 but is regarded as one of the most extensive guides on how to run a household in Victorian Britain.

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The Farmers’s Boy

THE FARMER’S BOY by Patrick McGill

 

When I went o’er the mountains a farmer’s boy to be,

My mother wept all morning when taking leave of me;

My heart was heavy in me, but I thrept that I was gay;

A man of twelve should never weep when going far away.

 

In the country o’er the mountains the rough roads straggle down,

There’s many a long and weary mile ’twixt there and Glenties town;

I went to be a farmer’s boy, to work the season through,

From Whitsuntide to Hallowe’en, which time the rent came due.

 

When Virgin pure, the dawn’s white arm stole o’er my mother’s door,

From Glenties town I took the road I never trod before;

Come Lammastide I would not see the trout in Greenan’s burn,

And Hallowe’en might come and go, but I would not return.

 

My mother’s love for me is warm; her house is cold and bare:

A man who wants to see the world has little comfort there;

And there ’tis hard to pay the rent, for all you dig and delve,

But there’s hope beyond the mountains for a little man of twelve.

 

When I went o’er the mountains I worked for days on end,

Without a soul to cheer me through or one to call me friend;

With older mates I toiled and toiled, in rain and heat and wind,

And kept my place. A Glenties man is never left behind.

 

The farmer’s wench looked down on me, for she was spruce and clean,

But men of twelve don’t care for girls like lads of seventeen;

And sorrow take the farmer’s wench. Her pride could never hold

With mine when hoeing turnip fields with fellows twice as old.

 

And so from May to Hallowe’en I wrought and felt content,

And sent my wages through the post to pay my mother’s rent;

For I kept up the Glenties name, and blest when all was done,

The pride that gave a man of twelve the strength of twenty-one.