Ann Bagnall
Teacher who later in life branched out as an independent publisher of ‘lost’ classic cookbooks
ANN BAGNALL, who has died aged 90, made a lasting contribution to the world of food literature and social history when, aged 60, she set up a publishing company specialising in historic cookbooks and guides to household management.
Southover Press brought 18 lost classics back to print. Rather than producing facsimiles, the strategy was to republish in an accessible way, often with scholarly introductions by high-calibre food historians such as Peter Brears, Ivan Day and Pamela Horn, plus glossaries and slight adjustments to help the modern reader and cook. Collectively, these books bore witness to a sophisticated story of English food and domestic life and offered a unique insight into social history, geography and science as well as fascinating and often usable recipes.
Ann O’grady Bagnall was born on March 25 1927 to John Haly, a retired naval officer and his wife Marie (née Mcgregor), who came from Tasmania. The most significant part of Ann’s early learning was at Ancaster Gate school in Bexhill, run by Aldous Huxley’s sister, a classicist, where there were no text books and an approach that sparked a lifelong love of learning, especially for history.
She later went to Bedgebury Park School at Goudhurst, but when her parents fell on hard times had to leave in midyear. An anonymous benefactor stepped in to support her through art school and she also worked at a hotel, an experience that led to an understanding of “Downstairs” as well as “Upstairs”.
Ann’s interest in book design began as part of her studies at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London in the 1940s, but wartime paper rationing meant the book trade had slimmed down and instead she went into advertising and then became a teacher of art and art history.
A brick was hurled through the window on her first day of her first job at a school in the East End. She ended up in more salubrious positions at Lewes Girls’ Grammar, Southover Manor and Hove Girls’ Grammar. Publishing was to come on retirement.
Ann Bagnall’s skill was in choosing excellent and sometimes unusual texts. On her hunt for old cookbooks in antiquarian bookshops, she discovered the characterful cookbook by William Verrall, the 18th-century publican and chef at the White Hart in
Lewes. The book’s dishes, such as turkey braised with chestnuts and ham hock with peach fritters, could grace a gastropub menu today.
The success of this first book lead to more, each one done on a shoestring and financed by the sales of its predecessor. The Complete Servant by Samuel and Sarah Adams (1825), republished by Southover in 1989, offers an inside view of the domestic life of the late Georgian era. A facsimile of the 1861 first edition of Beeton’s Book of Household Management was significant as it was the only edition produced entirely by Isabella Beeton with her publisher husband Samuel.
After her death in 1865 and sale of the copyright, “Mrs Beeton” evolved into a brand name and later editions introduced Edwardian flimflammery and a fancy French bias. The early volume is the original collection of recipes all tried out in Isabella Beeton’s own kitchen by herself, her cook and her kitchen maid, with a commonsense emphasis on practicality and local ingredients, and is much more in tune with today’s tastes.
Another important Southover reprint was Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845), a book much admired by food writers. Along with The Experienced English Housekeeper by Elizabeth Raffald (1769) and The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie (1909) – a favourite of the late food writer Clarissa Dickson Wright – such works have become relevant again because of their attention to ingredients and seasonal cooking.
Other Southover books included Thomas Dawson’s Elizabethan cookbook The Good Housewife’s Jewel (1596/7), The Boke of Kervynge (The Book of Carving, 1508), which transports you into the medieval world with its instructions on how to joint a rabbit, cut up a flat fish or lay out a tablecloth, and works by Alexis Soyer, the celebrity chef of Victorian Britain.
Ann Bagnall and her list were given the accolade of a Glenfiddich Special Award in 1998.
Ann lived with her husband Nicholas, a long-serving Sunday Telegraph journalist, and their two children in a former cowman’s cottage built into a bay of a tithe barn. They moved there in 1958 and turned a tumbledown hovel into a hospitable home where they entertained with good food and conversation, a domestic version of her publishing.
Nicholas died in 2016, having been cared for by Ann after a stroke; they were married for 63 years. The Southover list was bought by Equinox Books on Ann Bagnall’s retirement in 2007 and a number remain in print today.
Ann Bagnall, born March 25 1927, died September 8 2017