Miss Ramsay Whiteside: the trials of a cookery teacher

 

'Cookery class at the Ladies' High School', Illustrated Sydney News, 19 January 1884, p. 9.

Ramsay Whiteside was the first teacher of cookery in government schools in New South Wales. We do not know what prompted her to come to Sydney but no doubt she had high hopes of a successful career. Unfortunately, despite her excellent qualifications, her good theoretical and practical knowledge, and her pleasant manner, this was not to be. In the end she was thwarted, not by the climate, although she found the heat of the summer months unbearable, but by politics.

 

Miss Whiteside arrived in Sydney in January 1880 bearing a first-class diploma from the Liverpool School of Cookery and glowing testimonials as to her ability as a teacher, from the likes of the president of the Northern Union of Cookery, the Duke of Westminster and the reverend Cannon Wilberforce of Winchester Cathedral.[1] One of her first acts was to write to the Council of Education offering her services as a teacher at the ‘training school’.[2] Her timing could not have been worse. The Council was due to be abolished when the Public Instruction Act came into force on 1 May 1880, and in the political climate her offer was speedily rejected.[3]

 

Having to make her own way Whiteside was fortunate that her credentials and connections earned her vice-regal patronage. Her first cookery demonstration at the Temperance Hall in February, was attended by the governor’s wife, Lady Loftus, the wife of the chief justice, Lady Stephen, and Mrs Barker, wife of the Anglican Bishop of Sydney, among other leading members of local society.[4] The following month she was invited to give a demonstration at Government House.[5] She subsequently ‘placed her services at the disposal of the various clergymen of Sydney’, and planned to give demonstrations in their respective parishes as required.[6]

 

Whiteside was described as ‘the cleanest, tidiest, neatest and most winsome cook’, with a ‘winning way’ (although the illustration above suggests a stern appearance) and ‘eloquent in the advocacy of her mission’.[7] But despite these favourable comments on her appearance, not everyone was impressed. A correspondent to the Sydney Mail deemed her classes ‘not suitable for the bush’ noting that it was ‘all very fine to turn out nice dishes with a gas stove and all sorts of proper saucepans’ but what would Miss Whiteside do ‘with a camp-oven and the big fire in a bush fireplace’.[8] She also found she had some stiff opposition from Mrs Macpherson, who had been trained at the National Training School for Cookery and taught at the Edinburgh School of Cookery, and Miss Fidler, who also had qualifications from the Edinburgh school.[9] Miss Whiteside decided to try her luck elsewhere, travelling first to Goulburn, then Victoria (Geelong and Melbourne), and Tasmania finally returning to Sydney, via Melbourne, in July 1881.[10]

Sydney Morning Herald, 20 March 1880, p. 1.

 

The correspondence is incomplete but it would seem that on her return Whiteside was finally approached by the Department of Public Instruction to give her recommendations regarding cookery classes in public schools. In October 1881 she duly set out her suggestions – demonstrations for 1½ hours followed by a 2-hour practical class, preferably given at a central school, pupils should be from the higher classes, 12 pupils to a class. She also outlined some of the expenses involved, such as the need for the supply of equipment, foodstuffs, water and gas. She stipulated that ‘my return to England for a year after giving 12 months initiation of the cookery teaching is requisite’ in which case she had already written to England for a suitably qualified teacher to act as her assistant who would then carry on the classes in Whiteside’s absence. Finally, she indicated the salary she expected and the remuneration for her assistant, whose first-class passage to Sydney she assumed the Department would pay along with her return passage to England should she wish to leave after two years.[11] What the then Minister for Public Instruction, Sir John Robertson, made of these confidently stated proposals and Whiteside’s conditions is not recorded. Whatever his thoughts, Robertson resigned from the Parkes’ ministry in November 1881 and was replaced by Francis Suttor. 

 

Whiteside wrote again in January 1882 asking to be informed as to ‘what steps have been taken towards the scheme for teaching cookery in the public schools’ as she only awaited definite instruction to begin work at once. She reiterated that she required leave to return home for twelve months at the end of the year, and requested that there should be no lessons in January and February, the hottest months when ‘cooking lessons would be equally trying for teachers and pupils’.[12]

 

What terms Suttor agreed with Miss Whiteside can only be surmised from subsequent events but by March she was busy acquiring the necessary equipment to begin her classes and was eventually officially appointed as Teacher of Cookery effective from 1 May until 31 December 1882 on a salary of £300 per annum.[13] Classes commenced at 127 Macquarie Street, in rooms renovated for the purpose in the building occupied by the Department of Public Instruction, in the week commencing 5 June 1882.[14]

 

Miss Whiteside’s most pressing problem for the remainder of the year was making arrangements for the disposal of the food prepared in the classes.[15] The intention was that it should be sent to the Hyde Park Asylum, but Mr. King, the manager, was unenthusiastic from the beginning. The back and forth about the quality of the food and how it could be conveyed to the asylum continued until Mr King’s suggestion that it be sent to the soup kitchen ‘where it would doubtless be acceptable’ was implemented.[16]

 

Come October Whiteside was anxious for confirmation that the school would be closed throughout January, February and March, presumably in accordance with the agreement she had made earlier in the year.[17] There was no mention of her taking leave of absence and returning to England for the next year nor any mention in the extant correspondence of any highly qualified teacher having been imported as her assistant. She was also concerned to know what arrangements were in hand for the following year.[18]

 

When the classes were originally mooted at the beginning of 1882 it was anticipated that 146 girls would attend and there would be 12 pupils in each class.[19] In the event the numbers of girls attending had been much less, down to only 75 in the final term, so that Miss Whiteside was only teaching classes of, at most, nine girls at a time and there was uneasiness about the expense. The Chief Inspector, Edwin Johnson, looked at ways to increase the cost effectiveness of the teaching but in the end the status quo was maintained for 1883, largely thanks to a change in government.[20] The Chief Inspector did however make his personal feelings known:

 I do not think practical cookery should be taught in connection with Public Schools or that it can be taught without involving an expenditure altogether disproportionate to the value of the results likely to be achieved.[21]

In September 1883 the cooking school moved to a purpose-built building in the grounds of the new Sydney High School, the former St. James Denominational School, on Elizabeth Street.[22] Before Whiteside took her annual break, from the end of December until the first Monday in April 1884, she sent the Minister her recommendations for the extension of ‘the cookery scheme’.[23] These included establishing a training school for teachers and her giving up the work of teaching Public School students, to be resumed once she had trained enough teachers. She also offered her services to teach one day a week at the Hurlstone training college for female teachers.[24] She insisted that it was essential gas stoves be available at all schools where cookery was to be taught: ‘Ordinary stoves will not do for demonstrations as the teacher must face the pupil and they must see the whole of the operation’. Her final cryptic comment: ‘It seems a pity to begin a new system of teaching with a stranger, and one who will only be associated with the work for two months, nor is the height of the Sydney summer a very suitable time for recommencing with great energy such a warm branch of instruction as Cookery’ suggests that thought had been given to the employment of someone to at least cover for Whiteside in her absence if not take on some of the role she was intending for herself.

 

It is not clear what, if any, changes were made to ‘the cookery scheme’ in 1884. The Minister, George Reid, was replaced by William Trickett in May. In the same month the Technical College advertised for a teacher of cookery and Annie Fawcett Story was appointed to the position.[25] By the end of the year there were more rumblings about the expense associated with cookery school. The chief inspector, Johnson, requested District Inspectors Morris and Bridges to report on the cookery school, in particular the number of students attending and ‘whether the usefulness of the classes warrants the expenditure incurred’, and to make their recommendations.[26]

 

They reported favourably on the teacher: 

Miss Whiteside has evidently a good theoretical and practical knowledge of cookery, she has a pleasing manner, exercises good control over the pupils and is very painstaking and earnest. There are many points of excellence in her teaching, the pupils are taught to be clean, methodical, and exact and to understand the principles underlying the various processes.[27]

but noted that, since Whiteside only worked for nine months of the year, this must ‘seriously interfere with the effectiveness of her teaching’. They also observed that the appliances in the model kitchen were ‘too good’. The inspectors were of the opinion the equipment was far better than that found in the homes of the pupils consequently ‘much of the instruction given is to a great extent inappropriate and consequently of little practical value.’ Of the 263 pupils who had attended in 1884 many had only been to one or two lessons, only the girls from the Sydney High School attending regularly. As a result, they concluded the influence of the classes was very limited. Overall, they considered the results did not warrant the expenditure:

The appliances are so perfect and the work of cooking so minutely subdivided that a girl might pass through the entire course and yet be unable to light a fire or to prepare an ordinary meal when the fire was lighted.

Their final recommendation was that the classes should be discontinued but in the event that the classes were to be ongoing the gas stoves should be removed and ‘the pupils be instructed to cook by the aid of common fires’.

The advice to the Minister, that Miss Whiteside be informed that her services would not be required after 31 December 1884, came from John Maynard, who had replaced Johnson as Chief Inspector.[28] Despite these negative submissions Trickett remained wedded to the provision of cooking classes and Miss Whiteside remained in the employ of the Department throughout 1885, but her duties are not specified in extant documents.[29] At the end of that year she applied for leave of absence and at last returned to England.[30] While absent she was informed that ‘the cookery scheme was at an end’. [31]

 

When Ramsay Whiteside returned to Sydney early in 1887 the cookery scene had become more competitive. Annie Fawcett Story was teaching at the Technical College and training teachers at the Hurlstone college and Harriett Wicken had been giving lessons and demonstrations since her arrival in 1886. During 1887 and 1888 Whiteside was giving cookery demonstrations at various locations including the Women’s Exhibition in October where she would have come into contact with both Story and Wicken. The following year she also tried her hand at running a registry office for the placement of domestic servants and governesses, but she appears to have failed to find permanent employment and a steady income.[32]

Annie Fawcett Story resigned from her position at the Technical College in 1888 and Whiteside applied for the post but was unsuccessful. She believed she had been passed over because her diploma from the Northern Union was not as highly regarded as one from the National Training School in London, but it is also possible that the earlier report of the effectiveness of her classes counted against her.[33]

 

In July 1890 she made a personal appeal to George Reid, although he no longer had any direct involvement with cookery education. She explained that since her return her life had been ‘one of constant struggle and anxiety’ and hoped that Reid would put in a good word for her and help her obtain a position with the Department. Reid duly passed her letter on to the Minister, Joseph Carruthers, but the decision to appoint Annie Fawcett Story as Instructress of Cookery responsible for teaching in the public school system and in country technical colleges had already been made.[34]

 

Throughout the 1890s Ramsay Whiteside continued to give demonstrations on her own account and briefly teamed up with Mr Raleigh to promote his ‘Paragon’ gas stoves. Whether she ever applied to teach in the public school system again is not known. In 1895 she returned to England.[35]

 

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[1] For arrival see Australian Town and Country Journal, 17 January 1880, p. 35 ‘Shipping arrivals.’ For testimonials see Museums of History NSW State Archives (hereafter MHNSW-St. Ac.) NRS 3830 Education Department Files, 20/12602 Cookery 1882–1892; Sydney Morning Herald(SMH), 6 February 1880 p. 5 ‘News of the Day.’

[2] It is not clear which school Whiteside was referring to, Fort Street Model School? Hurlstone Training College was not open until 1882/3. Jean Peacock, A history of home economics in New South Wales (Home Economics Association of New South Wales: Sydney, 1982) p. 27 cookery ‘had been part of the training course for all female teachers since 1869.’

[3] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12602 Cookery 1882–1892, letter from Whiteside dated 29 January 1880; Council Minute no. 80-2483, dated 16 February 1880.

[4] SMH, 14 February 1880, p. 2. ‘advertising’; ‘Practical cookery’, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney) 28 February 1880, p 28.

[5] ‘Miss Whiteside's Cookery,’ Evening News (Sydney, NSW), Saturday 13 March 1880, p 3. At a later demonstration given in Government House the cooking apparatus was ‘furnished with supply from two of the gas brackets, conveyed by rubber tubing’

[6] Australian Town and Country Journal, 1 May 1880, p. 8.

[7] ‘Demonstrations in Cookery’, Evening News (Sydney), 19 February 1880, p 3.

 

[8] ‘Cookery. To the editor of the Sydney Mail’, The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW), 27 March 1880, p 589.

[9] Mrs Macpherson had been giving demonstrations in Melbourne from late 1879 (The Argus, 18 October 1879, p. 12 ‘Advertising’) and she and Miss Fidler were in Sydney from March 1880 (SMH, 20 March 1880, p. 1 ‘Advertising’), subsequently travelled to Brisbane (May), back to Victoria (September, October) and finally Tasmania (November, December). For more on Macpherson see John Webster, ‘Rachel V. Macpherson’, The Aristologist, No. 7 (2016), pp. 55–61. For Fidler see The Sydney Daily Telegraph, 24 March 1880, P. 3 ‘School of cookery’; 16 April 1880, p. 9 ‘Miss Fidler’s cookery class’. Fidler then went on to teach in Adelaide from July South Australian Register, 26 July 1880, p. 6 ‘Miss Fidler’s cookery lessons’. For Whiteside see also ‘Notes on current events’, Evening News (Sydney) 29 March 1880, p. 2; ‘Advertising’, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 April, 1880, p. 2.

[10] Whiteside was giving demonstrations in Goulburn from 9^th to 19^th August 1880 (The Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 12 July 1880, p. 2; 9 August 1880, p. 2); in Geelong from 28 September until 12 October (Geelong Advertiser 28 September 1880, p. 3 ‘Practical cookery’; 12 October 1880, p. 2); in Tasmania from 10 November 1880 until 14 March 1881 (Mercury, 11 November 1880, p. 2; 14 March 1881, p. 2); in Melbourne Argus, 20 April 1881, p. 4; returning to Sydney SMH, 18 June 1881, p. 2 and giving demonstrations Evening News 11 August 1881, p. 3 ‘Miss Whiteside’s cookery’; 20 September 1881, p. 1. 

[11] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Whiteside to Sir John Robertson, Minister for Public Instruction, 3 October 1881.

[12] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Whiteside to Wilkins, Under Secretary, 31 January 1882.

[13] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605 Whiteside to Suttor, 16 March 1882; Wilkins to Whiteside, 14 May 1882.

[14] SMH, 8 June 1882, p. 3 ‘Cookery in public schools’; Sydney Daily Telegraph, 8 June 1882, p. 3, ‘Lessons on cookery in public schools.’ MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605 Note from Wilkins dated 26 April 1882.

[15] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, letter from Whiteside dated 6 June 1882.

[16] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Lucy Hicks to King, 3 October 1882; King to C. Walker, 5 October 1882; letter from Whiteside, 10 October 1882; Whiteside to Wilkins, 28 March 1883; Miller to matron of Hyde Park Asylum, 5 April 1883; King to Under-secretary, 9 April 1883.

[17] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, letter from Whiteside, 10 October 1882.

[18] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Whiteside to Wilkins, 23 October 1882.

[19] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, memo from Wilkins, 26 April 1882.

[20] See MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Chief Inspector, Johnson, to Undersecretary, 17 October 1882; note on Whiteside to Wilkins, 23 October 1882; Chief Inspector, Johnson, to Wilkins 6 March 1883. There was also a change in government in January 1883, Henry Parkes was replaced as premier by Alexander Stuart, and Suttor was replaced as Minister for Public Instruction by George Reid.

[21] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Chief Inspector, Johnson, to Wilkins, 6 March 1883.

[22] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Whiteside to Edwin Johnson, Chief Inspector, 17 September 1883. SMH, 3 September 1883, p. 5 ‘News of the day’. SMH, 13 December 1883, p. 7 ‘Visit to the High School cookery class’; Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 15 December 1883, p. 1110.

[23] It is unclear to whom this letter was addressed. It begins ‘As you kindly said that I might write to you an informal letter on the subject in which we are both so much interested viz the extension of the cookery scheme I gladly avail myself of your permission to do so’, suggesting that the addressee may well be G. H. Reid, the then Minister. Reid only served as Minster of Public Instruction until 6 March 1884. 

[24] Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 3 February 1883, p. 209 ‘Hurlstone College, Ashfield’.

[25] SMH, 9 May 1884, p. 10.

[26] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Johnson, Chief Inspector, to Bridges, District Inspector, 26 October 1884.

[27] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Morris and Bridges, Memorandum to Chief Inspector, 1 December 1884.

[28] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Note signed by Maynard, 5 December 1884.

[29] In a letter she wrote later she claims to have been employed from ‘May or June 1882 till Xmas 1885’, MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Whiteside to Reid, 7 July 1890..

[30] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Whiteside to Under-secretary (Johnson), 23 October 1885.

[31] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Whiteside to Reid, 7 July 1890.

[32] Daily Telegraph, 23 March 1889, p. 9 (the Globe Registry Office); Australian Town and Country Journal, 22 June 1889, p. 45 (an office at the Globe news rooms).

[33] MHNSW-St. Ac., NRS 3830, 20/12605, Letter from Whiteside 1 July 1890, Whiteside to Reid, 7 July 1890. When Annie Fawcett Story resigned from the Technical College in 1888 Miss Mary Stewart Gill, graduate of the NTSC, took over the position. Gill’s tenure was short lived, she married in December 1888. The position was readvertised, and Harriet Wicken took over the post in January 1889. A position for a teacher of domestic economy was advertised in April 1888, SMH 30 April 1888, p. 14, ‘Advertising’. Marriage of Gill, SMH, 15 January 1889, p. 1, ‘Family Notices’. Position advertised Daily Telegraph, 7 November 1888, p. 8, ‘Advertising’; Mrs Wicken to conduct classes Australian Star, 15 December 1888, p. 7, ‘Board of Technical Education’

[34] For account of appointment see Report of the Minister of Public Instruction 1890, Appendix XVI, pp. 266-7. Also SMH, 6 June 1889, p. 7; MHNSW-St.Ac, NRS 3830, 20/12605, Story to Johnson, 7 July 1890.

[35] Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 19 October 1895, p. 828, Miss R. Whiteside is listed as a passenger on RMS Arcadia to London.

Deft fingers and dainty dishes

Mrs Macpherson's cookery class, Australasian Sketcher, 20 December 1879.

The rules of how a cookery instructress should look and behave had been established well before Harriett Wicken began her own career in Australia and reports of her classes suggest that she conformed to what was expected. Good instructors were practical but not didactic, they had a conversational, simple and easy way of explaining what they were doing. In the case of Mrs Macpherson, giving demonstrations in Brisbane, the audience was treated as ‘not being utterly ignorant of the elements of good cooking’ but were shown ‘how they may do it quickest and best, with the greatest economy and the most satisfactory results’.[1] 

Cooking lectures and demonstrations were hard work. Often conducted in crowded and hot conditions with limited equipment a successful demonstrator relied on physical stamina to maintain her schedule and an authoritative voice coupled with a certain amount of charisma to engage her audience. Reports of Wicken’s classes suggest that she had all the necessary qualifications. She was praised as an ‘efficient and painstaking teacher’, with an ‘admirably lucid manner’ who explained ‘minutely and clearly all her methods of making up’. [2]

All cookery demonstrators, walking the fine line between forging a public identity for themselves and reinforcing domestic values, needed to appear, like Mrs Macpherson, as represented on the front page of The Australian Sketcher, confident, efficient and businesslike while ensuring that they also remained ladylike and feminine without being frivolous.[3] Macpherson was described as appearing on the platform ‘exactly as if, as the lady of the house, she had just run to her kitchen to put the dinner on the way, and had hastily donned an apron and a pair of sleeves to save her dress’.[4] Mrs Wicken similarly fronted her classes ‘arrayed in a neat print frock with a large apron and a coquettish little cap.’[5] Neatly and dainty clad, sporting snowy white linen aprons, demonstrators ranged from attractive young women like Ramsay Whiteside, described as ‘most agreeable and winsome’[6] to the motherly and matronly, like Mrs Davis, demonstrator of gas stoves in Melbourne, who was referred to as ‘plump of person, rosy of countenance and beaming with good nature’.[7]One attendee of a class given by Mrs Fawcett Storey described her as the ideal of an instructress of cookery: ‘a pleasant, well-preserved little woman, apparently well aware of what she is about and what she is going to do, whose appearance is that of a strongly-marked intellect, combined with kindly decision of character and who has a facile power of conveying her knowledge to others, but who looks anything else but one’s preconceived ideas of a cook.’[8] Moreover it was evident that Annie Fawcett Storey had not commenced her education in the kitchen ‘and one feels thankful chance did not direct it to a scientific laboratory, where, no doubt, the mastering of her subject would have been equally certain but would have spoiled the “woman”.’ A cookery teacher needed to demonstrate that a scientific approach to cooking, and to household management in general, was neither antithetical to whatever might be considered appropriate womanliness, nor was cooking a menial task suited only to the servant class.

Various strategies were employed to illustrate that preparing economical meals was a suitably lady-like occupation - clean, orderly, simple and straightforward, in no way onerous and as far removed from household drudgery as possible. Overall the impression should be ‘that the kitchen is a deal nearer the drawing room than it is to the scullery’.[9] To that end demonstrators tended to use a limited number of pots and pans to show that cooking required no specialist equipment or an extensive, expensive array of utensils.[10] Mrs Macpherson ‘ostentatiously’ limited herself to ‘the machinery to be found in the humblest cottage’.[11] 

At the beginning of the class everything was laid out in front of the instructor in a neat and orderly fashion and all the equipment was, of course, spotlessly clean. Cooking was made to look effortless and in no way time consuming. Teachers were praised for their lissom, nimble fingers and dextrous handling of the materials they used,[12] their deft and dainty methods producing ‘dainty’ dishes that could be quickly made with simple materials. Emphasis was placed on garnishes and ‘the very effective look’ of the finished preparations, in some cases made from ‘the simple and ordinary remains of household food’.[13] Mrs Macpherson’s chief aim was ‘to show the dainty possibilities that lurk unsuspected in the despised scraps that to the thriftless cook seem not worth saving’.[14] The results were both economical and aesthetically appealing and the sort of dishes that a lady, and responsible housewife, might be expected to prepare, be happy to serve and also to eat. Daintiness represented the essence of how women should act.[15] Mrs Wicken and her ilk were the personification of modern, domestic feminism - intelligent women using modern technology to prepare dainty dishes while dressed in dainty clothes and demonstrating ‘dainty cleanliness’. [16]

Wicken’s publications – Fish Dainties, Australian Table Dainties and Appetising Dishes and later Dainty Foods – all capitalized on notions of daintiness, not just in the sense of femininity, but also the idea of something ‘dainty’ as a delicacy, requiring thought and care to prepare. [17] Dainty dishes, according to Wicken, required ‘dainty preparation’ and should be daintily served so that they looked appetising.[18] Dainty fare was also simple, easy to prepare, economical and easy to digest. [19] Daintiness implied something light and tasty, as distinct from something that was hearty, heavy or filling. These delicate and delectable dishes were more often associated with afternoon tea, the quintessential female activity, and breakfast or luncheon, the meals of the day most associated with women and children, rather than dinner, the meal presided over by the man of the house and designed to suite masculine tastes and appetites. 

In his gastronomic history of Australia, One Continuous Picnic, Michael Symons argues that the concept of daintiness was used by modern food companies to coax housewives to adopt ‘profitable frills’ like jelly and custard powder, co-opting lightness, prettiness and gentility as ‘part of a long campaign to twist the traditional caring concerns of women into petty materialist preoccupations’.[20] In Wicken’s Dainty Foods she does suggested chopped jelly as a garnish which ‘improves many sweet dishes’ and proposes the use of both jelly crystals and French gelatin, along with recommending a range of Fountain brand products. But Wicken’s favouring of French gelatin, for example, was not about promoting a particular brand. Before commercial gelatin was available making jelly of any sort was a tedious, messy, multi-stage process starting with calves’ feet which meant that jellies were only produced in kitchens employing large numbers of workers, either commercial establishments or wealthy homes. The use of French gelatin was part of producing light and dainty dishes, and making available something previously only a luxury, the feminizing and democratizing of day-to-day food production in the home. While the concept of daintiness was later harnessed to commercial concerns, for Wicken it was tied chiefly to the gentrification of the kitchen craft and the promotion of a nutritious diet. [21] A mainstay of all Wicken’s publications was the economical use of leftovers, to produce light, tasty dishes and equally the use of fresh fruit, vegetables and fish as wholesome ingredients which were quick and easy to prepare. Moreover these dainty dishes were ideally suited to the Australian kitchen.

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[1] The Telegraph (Brisbane), 7 May 1880, p. 2, ‘Mrs Macpherson’s cookery classes.’

[2] Ballarat Star, 19 November 1887, p. 2, ‘No title’; Robertson Advocate, 31 August 1906, p. 2 ‘Cookery classes at Bowral’; Darling Downs Gazette, 18 January 1896, p. 4, ‘Mrs Wicken’s cooking classes’.

[3] The Age (Melbourne), 18 February 1899, p. 13 ‘Cooking classes’ describing Mrs Ross demonstrator for the Metropolitan Gas Company as not appearing ‘neither super business-like nor frivolous.’

[4] The Telegraph (Brisbane), 7 May 1880, p. 2, ‘Mrs Macpherson’s cookery classes.’

[5] Australian Town and Country Journal, 17 March 1894, p. 35, ‘At a cookery lecture’; Darling Downs Gazette, 22 January 1898, p. 7, ‘Cookery lectures’; Evening Courier (Freemantle), 13 May 1903, p. 3 ‘Freemantle technical and evening classes.’

[6] Evening News (Sydney), 4 March 1880, p. 3 ‘Demonstrations in cookery.’

[7] Ovens and Murray Advertiser, 9 February 1895, p. 4 Billy Nutts ‘At a cookery lecture.’

[8] Letter to the editor from ‘XYZ’, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 8 March 1886, p. 7, ‘Cookery at the School of Arts’.

[9] Letter to the editor from ‘XYZ’, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 8 March 1886, p. 7, ‘Cookery at the School of Arts’

[10] The Telegraph (Brisbane), 1 May 1880, p. 2, ‘Mrs Macpherson’s cookery classes.’

[11] The Queenslander, 15 May 1880, p. 60 ‘Instruction in cookery.’

[12] Australian Town and Country Journal, 17 March 1894, p. 35 ‘At a cookery lecture’; Armidale Express and Newcastle General Advertiser, 16 January 1891, p. 3 ‘Advertising.’

[13] Darling Downs Gazette, 18 January 1896, p. 4, ‘Mrs Wicken’s cooking classes’; West Australian, 19 March 1903, p. 3 ‘Social notes.’

[14]  The Queenslander, 15 May 1880, p. 620 ‘Instruction in cookery’.

[15] Sherrie A. Inness, Dinner Roles: American women and culinary culture (Iowa: Iowa University Press, 2001) pp. 54–55. ‘

[16] Annmarie Turnbull, ‘An isolated missionary: the domestic subjects teacher in England, 1870–1914,’ Women’s History Review 3, no.1 (1994), p. 84

[17] Harriett Wicken, Fish Dainties (Melbourne: The Mutual Providoring Company Limited. 1892); 1897 Australian Table Dainties and Appetising Dishes (Melbourne: Ward Lock & Co., 1897); Dainty Foods (Sydney: Progressive Thinkers Library., 1911) 

[18] Wicken, Dainty Foods, introduction.

[19] Wicken, Dainty Foods, preface.

[20] Michael Symons, One Continuous Picnic: A Gastronomic History of Australia. 2nd ed. (Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 2007), p. 160.

[21] Gelatine  was heavily promoted as ‘dainty’. Davis Gelatine, Australian manufacturers, published Davis Dainty Dishes beginning in 1922 and available up until at least 1955. For the craze for gelatine, and Jell-O and the democratization of daintiness in America see Sherrie Inness, Dinner Roles: American women and culinary culture (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press) pp. 63–68. For the connection of daintiness and creativity to the plethora of cake recipes in Australian cookery books see Barbara Santich Bold Palates (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2012) pp. 187–200. 

Mrs Wicken at Sydney Technical College

The new Sydney Technical College building at Ultimo from the Report of the Minister of Public Instruction 1890.

Mrs Anne Fawcett Story began her tenure as teacher of domestic economy and cookery at Sydney Technical College in 1884.[1] When she resigned 1888 Miss Mary Stewart Gill, yet another graduate of the National Training School for Cookery, took over the position. Gill’s tenure was short lived. She married in December 1888, the position was readvertised, and Harriet Wicken was appointed to the post in January 1889.[2]

Sydney Technical College had begun in 1878 as an adjunct to the Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts. In 1883 the government assumed full financial responsibility for the college and appointed a Board of Technical Education. In 1889 the Board was dissolved, and responsibilities transferred to the Technical Education Branch of the Department of Public Instruction. Until purpose-built accommodation opened in Ultimo (in March 1891) the classes run by the Department of Public Instruction operated from various venues scattered throughout the city.[3] Wicken began teaching cookery in the new premises set up for the purpose at 301 Pitt Street, next to the Temperance Hall.[4]

Both Wicken’s schedule of classes and her remuneration were dependent on enrolments, and numbers in the classes were initially restricted by the temporary accommodation which she considered ‘not at all satisfactory’.[5] She was paid by the lesson at the rate of 10s per one hour lesson or 15s per two hour lesson, in addition to which she received a portion of the fees paid by her students.[6] Her overall salary then was dependent on how many students she could attract. It is perhaps also no surprise that her earnings were very much less than the fixed salary paid to some of the male instructors, who were also entitled to fees from students and, in some cases travelling expenses and reimbursement for cost of materials.[7]

An advertisement for Wicken’s classes in The Cook’s Compass indicates the basic schedule, although the details varied from term to term. On Tuesday she might give a practical lesson in the morning and a demonstration lesson in the afternoon, on Wednesday a demonstration in the morning and on Friday morning another practical class. If there were sufficient numbers another afternoon practice class could be arranged. In addition, special lessons in household management and private lessons in advanced cookery could be given on Wednesday afternoons.[8] Classes ran for around 90 minutes while demonstrations lasted two hours which resulted in somewhere between seven and eleven hours of face-to-face time per week.[9]

Wicken based her instruction on the course of study laid down by the National Training School in London, and the recipes were chiefly those from the Kingswood Cookery Book ‘carefully adapted to the needs of the Australian housekeeper’.[10] Her workload also involved giving free lectures under the auspices of the Technical College in order to promote interest in the classes.[11] In between times she organized all the raw materials for the classes and supervised the preparation and cleaning required.

By 1891 the cookery classes had moved into accommodation at the newly opened college in Ultimo, where the course of study comprised plain and advanced cookery and household management. Conditions were still not perfect:

Considering that there has been no opportunity for the students to make such dishes as require long preparation and are difficult to carry away, the progress has been satisfactory, and the difficulty of teaching them practically soups, gravies, stews, &c., will be overcome when a daily luncheon is served. The number of students has been large, and there is every reason to expect an increase in the coming year.[12]

Selling the products of the cooking classes to the students at the college for lunch was one way of recouping some of the costs associated with materials required. 

Unfortunately for Harriett her years at Sydney Technical College coincided with a nation-wide economic Depression, at its worst between 1892 and 1894, strikes by workers (1890-1894) and severe drought in 1894. In 1893 funding for technical education was cut to almost half that allocated in 1892 and the Department of Public Instruction was forced to instigate retrenchment and reduction in salaries to make ends meet.[13] Twelve branch schools were closed, some subjects were discontinued altogether and others allowed to continue but without government funding:

The teachers of the following subjects were allowed to continue teaching, to be remunerated only by the fees of the students, and to defray all expenses of lighting, cleaning, &c. Short-hand, Book-keeping, Mathematics, Calligraphy and Correspondence, Tailors' Cutting, Design, Cookery, Dresscutting, and Dressmaking.[14]

Understandably there were teachers who declined to accept these conditions and their classes lapsed. Those who continued had to raise their fees, which naturally resulted in fewer students. Harriet Wicken was one of those who soldiered on but numbers in her classes fell dramatically, and she needed to find other sources of income to cover her costs.[15] She no doubt received some revenue from sales of her books and must have had some financial arrangement regarding the recipes she provided for Muskett’s Art of Living in Australia, published in 1893. In April she requested time off during the week to conduct private classes for Mrs R. Bowman of Parramatta, given that ‘money is so hard to get just now’ and the numbers in her classes were much smaller than they had been.[16] Later in the year she gave a series of classes in Maitland and was paid by the local council to give a demonstration of cooking on a gas stove.[17]

Harriett was far from idle offering courses over six to eight lessons for a variety of causes in different venues– for the wives and daughters of railway employees at the Railway Institute, for factory girls at their club rooms, for the Newtown Presbyterian Church Ladies’ Guild in the Newtown Town Hall, at Miss Shiel’s College in Manly and in Ashfield Town Hall – along with a weekly cookery lecture at the School of Arts in Sydney.[18]

Harriett also proved herself enterprising when faced with the challenge of finding rewarding employment. Possibly the most lucrative of all her ventures was a series of well-publicised lectures and demonstrations for the Fresh Food and Ice Company in 1894, promoting fish cookery and the use of the ice chest.[19] The following year, with the assistance of Miss Keagan, one of her former pupils, she took a room at the School of Arts where she was to give demonstrations, afternoon teas were to be served and Miss Keagan would take orders for cakes and pastries. There is nothing to indicate the success or longevity of this venture.[20] Although her Technical College salary was reinstated in 1895, Harriett also tried her hand at journalism with a column in the Australian Home Journal which lasted from May 1895 until June 1896.[21]

Perhaps Wicken’s most strategic move was to extend her cooking classes to Queensland. In January 1896 she gave classes in Toowoomba attended by large groups of women as reported in the Darling Downs Gazette and the Toowoomba Chronicle.[22] In May Wicken provided the Brisbane Technical College with her proposals for conducting classes for them (it is not clear from the extant correspondence who initiated this move) which were accepted.[23] The grounds on which Joseph Maiden, the Superintendent of Technical Education recommended Wicken be allowed to teach in Brisbane indicate how advanced technical instruction was in New South Wales:

In various ways during the last few years most of the Australian colonies (including NZ) have appealed to this branch for information to help them start technical classes, advice in the selection of a teacher or examiner, and in the choice of apparatus etc. We have also been asked to recommend teachers who have passed through the college. It is readily granted that we take the lead in the broad subject of technical education and I think it is a very desirable and friendly act to the educational authorities of another colony to help them wherever we reasonably can.[24]

Wicken’s leave of absence was duly approved but there was a sting in the tail. At the Brisbane Technical College she was to conduct classes in cookery, for which she would receive £25 plus all fees above that amount, and ideally, for an addition 5s, also provide instruction in clear starching.[25] This was a generous offer for only one month’s work but Wicken was required to cover the expense of providing a substitute teacher in Sydney and take full responsibility for the teaching of her ‘locum tenens’.[26] Wicken left her classes in Sydney in the hands of her assistant, Mrs Arthur (Jane) Small, and two of her students who had passed with honours, and proceed by train to Brisbane for one month.[27]

Her arrival had been much anticipated, and her classes were well attended but Wicken worked hard for her £25, offering a busy schedule, commencing on 24 June.[28] At her last class on 17 July, Mr McConnel, the Secretary of the Brisbane Technical College, thanked her for the ‘thorough and ungrudging way’ in which she had ‘carried out the onerous work which had been pressed into so short a time’ and announced she would soon become a resident of Brisbane and take charge of the Ladies’ Department of the Brisbane Courier and The Queenslander.[29]

So ended Mrs Wicken’s association with Sydney Technical College. Applications were sought from ‘people competent to teach cookery’ with experience in teaching both plain and advanced cooking and the ability to give instruction in fruit preserving, jam making, pickling, etc and, ironically given their earlier fractious relationship, Fanny Fawcett Story was appointed to fill Harriett’s place in August 1896.[30] The salary was now £100 per year plus a portion of the fees paid by students.

Whether Wicken had gone to Brisbane with the intention of finding long-term employment there it seems she preferred the offer of a stable role as journalist to the more arduous one of teacher. Harriett and her son Arthur relocated to Brisbane in August 1896.[31] Part of her decision to move to Queensland must have been prompted by Arthur’s deteriorating health. She eventually purchased a small cottage in the centre of the town of Dalby, 200 kilometres or so inland form Brisbane, and opened The Kingswood Sanatorium, with separate bedrooms for four male residents, one of whom was Arthur.[32] Their time in Queensland was short. Both Harriet and Arthur had returned to Sydney by the time Arthur died on 5 July 1898.[33]

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[1] Mrs Fawcett Story’s appointment was announced in Evening News, 21 May 1884, p. 6 ‘Board of Technical Education’.

[2] A position for a teacher of domestic economy was advertised in April 1888 (Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) 30 April 1888, p. 14, ‘Advertising’. For Gill see The Australian Star, 26 May 1888, p. 7, ‘Board of Technical Education’. Marriage of Gill, SMH, 15 January 1889, p. 1, ‘Family Notices’ (marriage to Hugh Patterson). Miss Gill’s marriage was equally short-lived, see Evening News (Syd.), 7 November 1895, p. 6 ‘Divorce court’ and Wagga Wagga Advertiser, 9 November 1895, p. 2, ‘A matrimonial disagreement.’ Position advertised Daily Telegraph, 7 November 1888, p. 8, ‘Advertising’; announcing Wicken’s appointment SMH, 26 January 1889, p. 12.

[3] See Alan Barcan, Two Centuries of Education in New South Wales (Sydney: University of NSW Press, 1988), pp. 146, 157–8.

[4] Australian Star, 15 December 1888, p. 7, ‘Board of Technical Education’.

[5] Report of the Minister of Public Instruction 1890, Appendix XIX Report on Technical Education, with annexes, p. 285. SMH 27 November 1890, p. 9. ‘Technical college cooking class’.

[6] Daily Telegraph, 7 November 1888, p. 8, ‘Advertising’. Undated correspondence at Museums of History NSW-State Archives (hereafter MHNSW-St. Ac.), NRS 3830, Education Department Files, 20/12605, Cookery 1882-1892, indicates that Wicken received 50% of the fees collected from students. The other 50% went towards recovering some of the costs of provisions.

[7] Undated schedules of salaries at MHNSW-St. AC. NRS 3830, 20/12605, listing amounts to October 1889.

[8]. Mrs. H. Wicken, The Cook’s Compass (Sydney: J.G. Hanks Co., 1890), advertising for the Technical College, p. 98.

[9] SMH, 18 May 1889, p. 3 ‘Advertising’.

[10] Report of the Minister of Public Instruction 1890, p. 285.

[11] For example, SMH, 24 May 1889, p. 3, ‘lecture’; 23 August 1889, p. 8 ‘lectures’

[12] Report of the Minister of Public Instruction 1891, Appendix XVIII Report on Technical Education with annexes, p. 183.

[13] Barcan, pp. 157, 158. 

[14] Report of the Minister of Public Instruction 1893, Appendix XX Report on Technical Education with annexes, p. 127. See also SMH, 19 January 1893, p. 5, ‘Technical Education Department. The proposed reduction in classes’; Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 5 August 1893, p. 288, ‘Hausfrau’s Lucky Bag. A visit to a kitchen.’

[15] For wrangling over the cost of gas consumed in the cookery classes see MHNSW-St. AC. NRS 3830, 20/12606, Bridges to Undersecretary, 28 March 1893; Wicken to Johnson 11 April 1893; Wicken to Johnson, 21 August 1893; John Bruce to Bridges 11 September 1893; Wicken to Suttor, 3 January 1894.

[16] MHNSW-St. AC. NRS 3830, 20/12606, Wicken to Bridges, 21 April 1893. See also Cumberland Mercury, 22 April 1893, ‘Local and general’ p. 4. Classes began in the first week of May, Cumberland Mercury, 6 May 1893, p. 4 ‘Local and general’

[17] The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, 28 October 1893, p. 4, ‘Local news’; 7 November 1893, p. 4, ‘Local news’; 11 November 1893, p. 4, ‘East Maitland Borough Council.’

[18] Railway Institute, Evening News, 3 April 1894, p. 6 ‘Brevities’; Factory girls, Daily Telegraph, 30 May 1894, p. 4 ‘Working girl’s club’; Newtown, SMH, 24 May 1894, p. 7 ‘Popular cookery’; Miss Sheil’s, Daily Telegraph, 16 June 1894, p. 2 ‘Cookery class’; Ashfield Town Hall, Evening News, 28 August 1894, p. 3; Sunday Times, 28 April 1895, p. 2, ‘The factory girl’s club’.

[19] Evening News, 11 May 1894, p. 5, ‘Fish dinner lectures,’ and Australian Star, 17 May 1894, p. 2, ‘How to cook fish’.

[20] Freeman’s Journal, 6 April 1895, p. 9, ‘Woman’s column’.

[21] Report of the Minister of Public Instruction 1894, Appendix XX Report of Technical Education with annexes, p. 111, the teaching of classes for which no salaries were paid was continued, but in the final term of 1894 the teachers no longer paid for lighting and cleaning. Report of the Minister of Public Instruction 1895, Appendix XIX Technical Education with annexes, p. 109, Wicken’s salary reinstated. Wicken’s column in Australian Home Journal ran from 1 May 1895 until June 1896. Noted in ‘Women’s Column,’ Freeman’s Journal, 8 June 1895, p. 9.

[22] Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser, 7 January 1896, p. 2, ‘Local and general news’; Darling Downs Gazette, 11 January 1896, p. 43 ‘Mrs Wicken’s cooking class’.

[23] MHNSW-St. AC. NRS 3830, 20/12608, D. R. McConnel to Maiden, 7 May 1896, ‘Mrs Wicken has written to us in regard to proposed cookery lessons to be held here in the winter’; McConnel to Maiden, 11 May 1896; McConnel to Undersecretary for Public Instruction, 29 May 1896. David Rose McConnel was the secretary of the Brisbane Technical College. Joseph Henry Maiden was Superintendent of Technical Education in New South Wales, having taken over from Frederick Bridges in 1894. Bridges was now the Chief Inspector.

[24] MHNSW-St. AC. NRS 3830, 20/12608, Maiden to Chief Inspector, 18 May 1896.

[25] Clear starching was a process of using a transparent starch solution to stiffen fine, loosely woven fabrics like muslin without clogging the loose weave or thickening the fabric with visible traces of starch. MHNSW-St. AC. NRS 3830, 20/12608, McConnel to Maiden, 11 May 1896. 

[26] MHNSW-St. AC. NRS 3830, 20/12608, Maiden to Chief Inspector, 18 May 1896.

[27] MHNSW-St. AC. NRS 3830, 20/12608, Wicken to Maiden, 14 May 1896; Wicken to Morris, 19 June 1896. Dr. R. N. Morris had been appointed Superintendent of Technical Education, replacing Maiden, in June 1896, see Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 13 June 1896, p. 1247 ‘Grading the Education Department’, and Evening News, 20 June 1896, p. 9 ‘Technical College.’ Arrival in Brisbane, Brisbane Courier, 23 June 1896, p. 5, ‘Overland passengers.’

[28] Brisbane Courier, 3 June 1896, p. 1 ‘Classified advertising’ and p. 4, ‘Technical college cookery classes’; 20 July 1896, p. 3 ‘Woman’s World.’

[29] Brisbane Courier, 20 July 1896, p. 3, ‘Woman’s World’. The Queenslander was the weekly summary and literary edition of the Brisbane Courier, published on Saturday. ‘Woman’s World’ appeared daily in Brisbane Courier and was a column of social gossip. The ‘Ladies’ Column’ in the Queenslander was more comprehensive with recipes, fashion advice, housekeeping tips etc. Harriett’s ‘Ladies Column, writing as ‘Hafra’, ran from 15 August 1896 to 6 November 1897, see Queenslander, 15 August 1896, p. 316 and 6 November 1897 p. 901.

[30] Advertisement, Evening News, 21 July 1896, p. 8. Evening News 25 August 1896, p. 6, ‘Cooking and domestic economy’. Confirmation of appointment MHNSW-St. AC. NRS 3830, 20/12608, Bridges to Undersecretary, 23 March 1897. For the relationship between Harriet Wicken and Fanny Fawcett Story see ‘Cooking Up a Storm, part two’, 1 May 2024.

[31] Brisbane Courier, 3 August 1896, p. 5 ‘Overland Passengers’. 

[32] Kingswood Sanitorium was officially opened on 16^th September 1897. For opening of Sanatorium Queenslander, 18 September 1897, p. 578, ‘Sanatorium at Dalby’.

[33] ’ SMH, 6 July 1898, p. 1, ‘Family notices’; Brisbane Courier, 11 July 1898, p. 4, ‘Family Notices’. SMH, 7 July 1898, p. 10 ‘Family Notices’, Arthur Smith Wicken members of the guild of St. Lawrence requested to attend the funeral of their brother and then to Waverley cemetery. For details of Harriet Wicken’s subsequent activities see ‘Mrs Wicken: her career as a cookery teacher in Australia’.