Manuscript notebook owned by Nanny Gummersall containing recipes

A manuscript notebook containing recipes, religious extracts and an account of a journey to Scotland in 1834.

The book originally belonged to Nanny Clayton from Bierley in Bradford. She started the notebook in 1824 recording extracts from the Bible.

Nanny married Benjamin Gummersall in 1829. She turned her book upside down and signed it with her new name and home, Nanny Gummersall, Dudley Hill. She then began to write in the book from the back forwards.

Nanny's first entry as a married woman is the 'Christmas Hymn' by the Reverend William Carus Wilson taken from the magazine 'The Children's Friend'. She continues with more quotations from religious texts.

The book contains recipes in two different hands, neither of which are Nanny's, although there is a recipe on a loose scrap of paper for a 'Remedy for Ruhmatic' in her handwriting.

Many of the recipes are for cakes or buns including tipsy cake, lunch cake and raspberry buns. There are recipes for dandelion beer, forcemeat and cough medicine. Pages appear to have been torn out of the notebook before the recipes. One recipe for Parkin is on a torn off scrap of striped white and green wallpaper.

The notebook has also been signed by a 'J Gumersall' of Wyke who was probably a later owner of the volume and a relation of Nanny's.

Nanny Clayton was born c.1803. She married Benjamin Gummersall of Birstall in Bradford on 27 February 1829. Benjamin was a card maker, a card being a metal, toothed instrument for combing wool. He probably employed card makers at Gummersall and Company at Dudley Hill, Bradford and owned freehold lands and tenements there. The electoral roll of 1845 shows Benjamin living in Tyersal Gate, Pudsey, but still having property at Dudley Hill. It is likely that Nanny took over the card making business after Benjamin's death, as 'The London Gazette' of 22 July 1864, records that a Nanny Gummersall card maker of Bradford was adjudicated bankrupt on 29 March that year.

This part of the collection is fully accessible and not subject to restrictions under the Data Protection Act.

Purchased from Modern First Editions, January 2018.

Material in this part of the collection is in copyright. Photocopies or digital images can be supplied by the Library for research or private study. It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain the copyright holder's permission to reproduce for any other purpose. Guidance is available for tracing copyright status and ownership.

The notebook originally belonged to Nanny Gummersall (née Clayton). It was later owned by someone who signed themselves 'J. Gumersall'. The notebook contains writing in at least two other hands so may have at least four owners.