Location: West Norwood Cemetery, London, England
Cause of Death: Puerperal Fever
Photo taken by: Robert Mason
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English author, one of the most famous cookery writers. Her husband was a publisher of books and magazines and Isabella wrote articles on cooking and household management for her husband's publications. Between 1859 and 1861, she wrote a monthly supplement to The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine which was published, at the end of 1861, as a single volume popularly known as Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. It was a guide to running a Victorian household, with advice on fashion, childcare, animal husbandry, poisons, the management of servants, science, religion, and industrialism. Of the 1,112 pages, over 900 contained recipes, such that another popular name for the volume is Mrs Beeton's Cookbook.
Most of the recipes were illustrated with coloured engravings, and it was the first book to show recipes in a format that is still used today. It is said that many of the recipes were actually plagiarised from earlier writers (including Eliza Acton), but the Beetons never claimed that the book's contents were original. It was intended as a guide of reliable information for the aspirant middle classes. Mrs Beeton is perhaps better described as its compiler and editor than as its author, many of the passages clearly being not her own words.
The day after the birth of her fourth child, in January 1865, Isabella contracted puerperal fever. She died a week later, aged 28.
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