Mrs Katharine Palmer, 'A Collection of ye best Receipts'

Date:
1700-1739
Reference:
MS.7976
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Mrs Katharine Palmer, 'A Collection of ye best Receipts'. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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Description

'A Collection of ye best Receipts most approved and fittest in Cookery, preserving, and all manner of Housewifery, physick & Chirurgery. Carefully selected from ye best & ye most choice & authentick Manuscripts. Anno 1700. Of which you will find ye exact Tables in ye End of this book. By Mrs Katharine Palmer' Two Tables (indexes) at end to cookery and medicinal recipes respectively, 2pp of tables of weights and measures, and on the final leaf extra remedies in several different hands, 'Bolus Arthriticum', 'For ye Bite of a Mad Dog', 'For ye bite of a Viper' (the latter 'published in ye Dayly Advertiser of July 24, 1734'). A few loose recipes, including 'For a dropsy', as reported 'in 'The London Dayly Post June 15, 1739'. A number of recipes are dated much earlier (1617), possibly copied in from other sources. Additions in several other hands. Includes numerous attributed items. Named physicians include Dr Willis (several recipes), Dr Stevens, Sir Theodore Mayerne (several recipes), Dr Short, Dr Hamey (several recipes), Dr Bates, Dr Hatton, Dr Meveril, Dr Deodatus, Dr Tresham, Dr Denton, Dr Ratcliffe, Dr Bathurst, Dr Lower, as well as 'Mrs Herbert (ye great Midwife)'. Members of the aristocracy named are Anne, Duchess of York, the Duchess of Lauderdale (several recipes), Lady Rowston, Lady Robinson, Lady Glanvil, Lady Katherine Seymour, Lady Lucy Bright, Lady Down, Lady Keelyn, Lady Jacobs, Lady Clark, Lady Clark, Lady Fermanagh, Lady Norcliffe, Lady Falmash,Sir William Courtney, Sir George Whitmore, Mrs Ernle, Mrs Fettiplace, Mrs Tresham, Mrs Anne Marriott of Hampton Court (and Mr Marriott) and others are also mentioned. 'To make Oil of Swallows' p 199 and several recipes for snail-water, p 80, p 211, p 225; 'An Excellent Water for ye Jaundice' , pp 113-114, also features snails and earthworms.

Publication/Creation

1700-1739

Physical description

1 volume 274 pp; 1-257 paginated in original , title page, 16 pp unnumbered at end. Bound volume, original boards. 225 mm x 182 mm. Additions in several hands. Some loose pages inserted.

Acquisition note

Purchased from H P Kraus Rare Books and Manuscripts, November 2001

Biographical note

Mrs Katharine Palmer was almost certainly Catherine Ernle (1673-1731), daughter of Sir John Ernle, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who married Ralph Palmer (1668-1755), great-nephew of Baldwin Hamey (1600-1676) the younger, on 24 February 1699. The coincidence of the date of her marriage with the date of commencement of the volume strongly suggests that the compilation marked her recent change of status. Ralph Palmer was his great-uncle's favourite and protégé: he erected a monument to him in St Luke's church Chelsea in 1717, and wrote his biography, 'The Life of the Most Eminent Dr Baldwin Hamey', 1733, now in the library of the Royal College of Physicians (Ibid., pp. 168, 191, 216-17). There are several receipts ascribed to 'Dr Hamey' in the volume, and a loose prescription dated 26 February 1674/5 for 'Mr Palmer' which is endorsed thus: 'these are Dr Hameys pills under his own hand … my father used them frequently on all little occasions …'. The compiler of the volume, or someone close to her, evidently had access to Hamey's papers, as one entry reads 'a purging diet drink to clean the blood found among Dr Hameys papers 1666' (MS.7976, p. 205). Ralph Palmer inherited Hamey's manuscripts and eventually passed them to the library of the College of Physicians (Keevil, op. cit., pp. 188-89, 215).

Location of duplicates

Microfilm reference: AMS/MF/213.

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Accession number

  • 991