MANUSCRIPT RECIPE BOOK - LAURENCE STERNE & YORKSHIRE

Recipe and household book kept by the Croft family of Stillington Hall, North Yorkshire, mid eighteenth to early nineteenth century

Footnotes

'AT STILLINGTON THE FAMILY OF THE CROFTS SHOWED US EVERY KINDNESS': RECEIPT BOOK FROM THE HOUSEHOLD OF LAURENCE STERNE'S NEIGHBOURS AND FRIENDS, THE CROFTS OF STILLINGTON.

Laurence Sterne wrote his literary masterpiece, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman whilst incumbent of St Nicholas Church, Stillington, Yorkshire, a position he held from 1745 until his death in 1768. Although revered in London and Parisian society after its publication, he remained unpopular in his home parish – maybe because he chose to reside in Sutton-in-the-Forest, two miles away, or maybe due to his preference for shooting and other less salubrious pursuits over his ecclesiastical duties. However, he did become close friends with the Croft family at Stillington and Stephen Croft (1712-1798) became an intimate friend and correspondent, who helped Sterne and his wife out financially, as well as championing his works in Yorkshire society and giving him the means to travel to London to promote his book. As Sterne himself writes: 'I remained twenty years at Sutton, doing duty at both places. I had then very good health. Books, painting, fiddling and shooting were my amusements... at Stillington the family of the C__s showed us every kindness; 't was most truly agreeable to be within a mile and a half of an amiable family who were every cordial friends.' (Letters of the Late Rev. Mr. Laurence Sterne, to his Most Intimate Friends, Vol. I, 1776, p.8.). Indeed Croft is widely credited with saving the manuscript of Tristram Shandy from certain destruction. After a fine dinner at Stillington, Sterne chose to read an early draft of his novel to the assembled company. Replete with food and wine, the audience, so the story goes, '...fell asleep, at which Sterne was so nettled that he threw the Manuscript into the fire, and had not luckily Mr Croft rescued the scorched papers from the flames, the work wou'd have been consigned to oblivion.' (John Croft, 'Anecdotes of Sterne vulgarly Tristram Shandy' in The Whitefoord Papers, ed. WAS Hewins, Oxford, 1898). Stephen's brother John Croft also comments in his Anecdotes that Sterne was a 'constant Guest at my brother's Table' (Ian Campbell Ross, Laurence Sterne, A Life, Oxford, 2013, p.101) and, although much of this volume seems to date from after Sterne's time at Stillington, it would however be interesting to speculate whether he sampled any of the receipts included herein.

A member of the famous Croft wine-shipping dynasty, Stephen Croft rebuilt Stillington Hall to much admiration, 'was not only an active Whig but also a man who shared Sterne's tastes in painting, music, and literature: in years to come he could commission Joshua Reynolds to paint his portrait [and] act as a director of the York Assembly Rooms...' (Campbell Ross, p.101).