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Hannah Glasse (1708 – 1770) was an English cookery writer of the eighteenth century. She is best known for her cookbook, The Art of Cookery, first published in 1747. The book was reprinted within its first year of publication, appeared in 20 editions in the 18th century, and continued to be published until 1843.

Note: Details of Hannah Glasse's life emerge from occasional remarks in her own letters that have been preserved in the archives of her father's family, the Allgoods of Northumberland. To which can be added references to her in public documents. However no satisfactory biography currently exists that unites the two.

Hannah Glasse was christened on the 28th March 1708 at St Andrews, HolbornLondon. Her mother was said to have been Hannah Reynolds, a widow. Her father Isaac Allgood, a landowner of Brandon and Simonburn both in Northumberland, had recently married to Hannah Clark, the daughter of a London vintner. Hannah Glasse was brought up in Isaac’s home at Simonburn near Hexham, together with his legitimate children Lancelot and Isaac. She once described her mother in a letter as being a 'wicked wretch!"

During her childhood Hannah Glasse formed a relationship with her father's youngest sister, Margaret Widdrington, with whom she corresponded through most of her adult life. The surviving letters are the major source of information about Hannah's personal life. Ill health brought both Isaac Allgood and his wife Hannah Clark to early graves, in 1725 and 1720 respectively. By which time Hannah Glasse had married John Glasse on 5 August 1724 at Leyton. Hannah's letters reveal that from 1728-1732 the couple held positions in the household of the 4th Earl of Donegall at Broomfield, Essex. Thereafter they seemed to have lived in London.

Hannah Glasse’s identity as the author of one of the most popular of 18th-century cookery books was not finally confirmed until 1938, when the historian Madeline Hope Dodds of Gateshead settled the matter. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy was published by subscription in 1747, and also sold at 'Mrs. Ashburn’s China Shop' according to the title page. A second edition appeared before the year was out..The book did not reveal its authorship, except generally with the signature 'By a Lady'. This permitted the erroneous claim it was in fact written by John Hill. In Boswell’s Life of Johnson, a dinner party is recounted in which the publisher Dilly suggests Hill was the true author. Johnson was not convinced.

In 1747, the same year in which her book appeared, John Glasse died. In the same year also Hannah Glasse set herself up as a 'habitmaker' or dressmaker in Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, in partnership with her eldest daughter Margaret. It seems no records of this undertaking have survived. In 1754 Hannah Glasse became personally bankrupt. Her stock was not auctioned after the bankruptcy, as it was all held in Margaret’s name. However on 29 October 1754 Hannah was forced to put her most prized asset, the copyright for The Art of Cookery, up for auction.

On 17 December 1754 the London Gazette stated that Hannah would be discharged from bankruptcy (issued with a certificate of conformity) on 11 January 1755. In the same year she and her brother Lancelot repaid the sum of £500 they had jointly borrowed of Sir Henry Bedingfeld two years before. She remained in her lodgings at Tavistock Street, but Hannah once again fell into dire financial difficulties and was consigned on the 22 June 1757 to Marshalsea debtor's prison.

In July 1757 Hannah was transferred to Fleet Prison, where she remained, probably for several months. No record remains of her release date, but she was a free woman by 2 December 1757, as on this day she registered three shares in The Servants Directory, a new book she had written on the managing of a household. It was not a commercially successful venture, although its plagiarized editions were popular in North America . Her daughter continued to pay the rates on the Tavistock Street premises.until 1758, when it was listed as empty.

In 1760 Ann Cook published Professed Cookery which contained a 68-page attack on Hannah Glasse and her work. Ann Cook lived in Hexham, and was reacting to an alleged campaign of intimidation and persecution by Lancelot Allgood. In the same year, Hannah published her third and last work The Compleat Confectioner. It was reprinted several times, but did not match the success that Hannah had enjoyed with The Art of Cookery.

Nothing is known about the last decade of Hannah Glasses's life besides an announcement in the London Gazette that 'Mrs. Hannah Glasse, (half-)sister to Lancelot Allgood, had died on 1 September 1770, aged 62'.

Children of John and Hannah Glasse

Lancelot Glasse was christened 1 July 1736 at the parish church of St Andrews in Holborn, London.

Isaac Allgood Glasse was christened 19 September 1738 at the same church. It is believed he attended Eton College. He was a junior official or 'writer' with the East India Company by 1754, and witnessed a document in 1756 on the ship Edgecote

George Buck Glasse was christened 2 January 1740 at the same church. He is believed to have attended Eton College. He was of the crew of HMS Sunderland, a Royal Naval ship, when it sank in a storm on 1 January 1761 near Pondicherry India

Margaret Glasse the eldest may have been born at Broomfield, Essex. She is said to have emigrated to Jamaica and died there before 1770.

Catherine Glasse married a Mr Hart

Hannah Glasse nothing is known of her

Eliza Glasse was christened 27 July 1741 at the parish church of St Andrews in Holborn, London.

Elizabeth Mary Glasse was christened 7 December 1743 in the same church

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hannah Glasse", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0