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Agnes Marshall
Agnes Bertha Marshall (born Agnes Beere Smith; 24 August 1852 – 29 July 1905) was an English culinary entrepreneur, inventor, and celebrity chef. An unusually prominent businesswoman for her time, Marshall was particularly known for her work on ice cream and other frozen desserts, which in Victorian England earned her the moniker "Queen of Ices". Marshall popularised ice cream in England and elsewhere at a time when it was still a novelty and is often regarded as the inventor of the modern ice cream cone. Through her work, Marshall may be largely responsible for both the look and popularity of ice cream today.
She began her career in 1883 through the founding of the Marshall's School of Cookery, which taught high-end English and French cuisine and grew to be a renowned culinary school. She wrote four well-received cookbooks, two of which were devoted to ice cream and other desserts. Together with her husband Alfred, Marshall operated a variety of different businesses. From 1886 onward, she published her own magazine, The Table, which included weekly recipes and at times articles written by Marshall on various topics, both serious and frivolous.
Although she was one of the most celebrated cooks of her time and one of the foremost cookery writers of the Victorian age, Marshall rapidly faded into obscurity after her death and was largely forgotten. However, technology invented or conceptualised by Marshall, including her ice cream freezer and the idea of creating ice cream with the use of liquid nitrogen, have since become repopularised.
For years it was believed that Agnes Bertha Smith was born on 24 August 1855 in Walthamstow, Essex, and was the daughter of John Smith, who worked as a clerk, and his wife Susan.
Recent research has discovered that she was three years older than she claimed; and her birth certificate shows that she was in fact born on 24 August 1852 in Haggerston, in the East End of London, as Agnes Beere Smith, the illegitimate daughter of Susan Smith. Her birth was registered in the customary fashion for illegitimate births under her mother's surname, and giving the father's name, 'Beere', as an extra forename. She was raised by her maternal grandmother, Sarah Smith, in Walthamstow, and can be found living there in the 1861 census.
Her mother Susan then had three further illegitimate children with a man named Charles Wells: Mary Sarah Wells Smith (1859), John Osborn Wells Smith (1863) and Ada Martha Wells Smith (1868). Susan and Charles Wells were married in 1869, and the children thereafter discarded the surname Smith.
Nothing is known of how, where or when she learned to cook. According to a later article in the Pall Mall Gazette, she had "made a thorough study of cookery since she was a child, and has practiced at Paris and with Vienna's celebrated chefs". In the preface to her first book, Marshall wrote that she had received "practical training and lessons, through several years, from leading English and Continental authorities". This seems unlikely, coming from a poor background in the East End of London, and the 1878 birth certificate for her daughter Ethel describes her as a domestic servant. She is probably the eighteen year-old, born in Walthamstow, working as a kitchen maid in Ayot St Lawrence, Herts., in the 1871 census.
In April 1878, "Agnes Beer [sic] Smith", domestic servant, gave birth to a daughter, Ethel Doyle Smith, in Dalston and the birth certificate indicates that the father's name was Doyle, and not, as generally assumed, her future husband. A few months later, on 17 August 1878, she married Alfred William Marshall, son of a builder named Thomas Marshall, at St. George's Church, Hanover Square. The couple had three children: Agnes Alfreda (called "Aggie", born 1879), Alfred Harold (born 1880), and William Edward born 1882). Daughter Ethel was raised as one of the family; and at some date Agnes changed her second forename to Bertha.
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Agnes Marshall
Agnes Bertha Marshall (born Agnes Beere Smith; 24 August 1852 – 29 July 1905) was an English culinary entrepreneur, inventor, and celebrity chef. An unusually prominent businesswoman for her time, Marshall was particularly known for her work on ice cream and other frozen desserts, which in Victorian England earned her the moniker "Queen of Ices". Marshall popularised ice cream in England and elsewhere at a time when it was still a novelty and is often regarded as the inventor of the modern ice cream cone. Through her work, Marshall may be largely responsible for both the look and popularity of ice cream today.
She began her career in 1883 through the founding of the Marshall's School of Cookery, which taught high-end English and French cuisine and grew to be a renowned culinary school. She wrote four well-received cookbooks, two of which were devoted to ice cream and other desserts. Together with her husband Alfred, Marshall operated a variety of different businesses. From 1886 onward, she published her own magazine, The Table, which included weekly recipes and at times articles written by Marshall on various topics, both serious and frivolous.
Although she was one of the most celebrated cooks of her time and one of the foremost cookery writers of the Victorian age, Marshall rapidly faded into obscurity after her death and was largely forgotten. However, technology invented or conceptualised by Marshall, including her ice cream freezer and the idea of creating ice cream with the use of liquid nitrogen, have since become repopularised.
For years it was believed that Agnes Bertha Smith was born on 24 August 1855 in Walthamstow, Essex, and was the daughter of John Smith, who worked as a clerk, and his wife Susan.
Recent research has discovered that she was three years older than she claimed; and her birth certificate shows that she was in fact born on 24 August 1852 in Haggerston, in the East End of London, as Agnes Beere Smith, the illegitimate daughter of Susan Smith. Her birth was registered in the customary fashion for illegitimate births under her mother's surname, and giving the father's name, 'Beere', as an extra forename. She was raised by her maternal grandmother, Sarah Smith, in Walthamstow, and can be found living there in the 1861 census.
Her mother Susan then had three further illegitimate children with a man named Charles Wells: Mary Sarah Wells Smith (1859), John Osborn Wells Smith (1863) and Ada Martha Wells Smith (1868). Susan and Charles Wells were married in 1869, and the children thereafter discarded the surname Smith.
Nothing is known of how, where or when she learned to cook. According to a later article in the Pall Mall Gazette, she had "made a thorough study of cookery since she was a child, and has practiced at Paris and with Vienna's celebrated chefs". In the preface to her first book, Marshall wrote that she had received "practical training and lessons, through several years, from leading English and Continental authorities". This seems unlikely, coming from a poor background in the East End of London, and the 1878 birth certificate for her daughter Ethel describes her as a domestic servant. She is probably the eighteen year-old, born in Walthamstow, working as a kitchen maid in Ayot St Lawrence, Herts., in the 1871 census.
In April 1878, "Agnes Beer [sic] Smith", domestic servant, gave birth to a daughter, Ethel Doyle Smith, in Dalston and the birth certificate indicates that the father's name was Doyle, and not, as generally assumed, her future husband. A few months later, on 17 August 1878, she married Alfred William Marshall, son of a builder named Thomas Marshall, at St. George's Church, Hanover Square. The couple had three children: Agnes Alfreda (called "Aggie", born 1879), Alfred Harold (born 1880), and William Edward born 1882). Daughter Ethel was raised as one of the family; and at some date Agnes changed her second forename to Bertha.
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