Harriet Wheelock / Tuesday 22 March 2011 Archive Item of the Month – the Countess of Aldborough’s Recipe Book The item I have chosen to highlight this month is a recipe book which belonged to Anne Elizabeth Stratford, 2nd Countess Aldborough. As well as recipes for food the volume also contains a number of recipes for the home treatments of illnesses. Anne Elizabeth Stratford, 2nd Countess Aldborough Anne Elizabeth Henniker was the daughter of John Henniker, 1st Baron Henniker, and was probably born in the 1750s or 1760s. In 1787 she became the second wife of Edward Augustus Stratford, 2nd Earl Aldborough (c.1741-1801). The 2nd Earl had built homes in London and Dublin; he was a member of both the Irish and British House of Commons, and from 1778 Governor of County Wicklow. The Countess's Recipe Book must date from between the time of her marriage in 1787 and her death in 1802; she died at Aldborough House in Dublin the year after he husband. Aldborough House, Dublin The book contains a variety of recipes for culinary dishes, details of 'experiments in artificial mineral water', lists of preserves and a list of 'sundries for our garden in Dublin', which contains a short description of the garden and lists of trees, flowers, fruits, vegetables and shrubs for the garden. Towards the back of the volume are a number of recipes for home treatments for a range of aliments from cures for tooth ache, colic and piles, to instructions 'to expel an earwig from the head'. Page from the Countess of Albdorough's Recipe Book On occasions a note at the end of the instructions indicates where the recipe originated from, either the name of the friend or physician who provided it or if it was taken from the newspaper. The sharing of home cures and treatments between family and friends seems to have been a fairly common practice at this time. This volume is one of two collections of cures donated to the archive in the bequest of Dr Kirkpatrick. The other is Valuable Receipts, & various cures for many disorders. Collected by Mary Barnewall of Greenanstown in the county of Meath, Ireland, May 19th 1752. Page from Mary Barnewall's Recipe Book These two items represent a rare glimpse into the ordinary person's experience of medicine, something that is generally missing from the majority of the records in the archive which tend to be dominated by the voice of the medical profession. Other items in the collections which give the patient more of a voice are a collection of over 100 letters written to Dr Kirkpatrick by his patients, and some research carried out by Dr Fleetwood into the traditional cures and remedies in county Leitrim (JF/2/1/7). The absence of the patient's voice in the archive collections is something that has been identified as a weakness in our collections, and which we hope to address in the future developments of the archival collections.