



MANUSCRIPT RECIPE BOOK – MURRAY FAMILY OF SCOTLAND Culinary receipt book of Catherine Fincastle, 1836 onwards; with a late nineteenth century manuscript recipe book bearing the monogram of Gertrude Coke; and another, dated 1844, including verses by Felicia Hemans and others written out amongst the receipts (3)
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MANUSCRIPT RECIPE BOOK – MURRAY FAMILY OF SCOTLAND
Footnotes
RECEIPT BOOK OF CATHERINE MURRAY, COUNTESS OF DUNMORE, PROMOTER OF THE HARRIS TWEED INDUSTRY, dating from her marriage to Alexander Murray, Viscount Fincastle in 1836. She was to bear the name Catherine Fincastle only for a short time as her husband acceded to the earldom of Dunmore a few months later. Many of the recipes herein reflect her Russian heritage; her mother (also Catherine) was the daughter of Semyon Romanovich, Count Vorontsov, Russian ambassador to the Court of St James. In 1845, on the death of her husband, she inherited the Dunmore estate on the Isle of Harris, where, in a time of great economic hardship '...She recognized the quality of the tweeds made by the women of Harris, and perceived the sales potential of the fabric... The Harris tweed industry owes its development and subsequent success substantially to her action and inspiration.' (Christine Lodge, ODNB). The second recipe book included in the lot, which contains several recipes copied from the first, bears the monogram of Gertrude Coke, third daughter of Thomas Coke, 2nd earl of Leicester, of Holkham, Norfolk, who married Catherine's son Charles Adolphus Murray, 7th earl of Dunmore in April 1866.