Exploring Lady Hackett's Guide: Vintage Recipes and More

This website will be devoted to the marvellous old Australian book called Lady Hackett’s Household Guide. This rather quaint piece of Australiana, extensive and very practical, was originally published in 1916, just after the outbreak of WWI, and was republished in 1940 just after the outbreak of World War II. The author, Dr Deborah Buller Murphy, aimed to provide a resource for Australian homemakers during ‘the difficult times that lay ahead of (them)’. She donated the profits of the new guide to the Red Cross.

My copy from the 1940’s came from my grandmother, who gave it to my mother, who gave it to me. I was fascinated by it as a (rather nerdy) child and read it extensively. At that age, I particularly liked the practical household hints and the recipes for old-fashioned sweets, but the book is a treasure trove of all kinds of recipes which are budget-friendly and minimise waste.

It was for these reasons that I thought the book would make a worthwhile topic for a blog. I would like to bring this piece of vintage Australian publishing and social history to a wider audience online by featuring its recipes and household hints. I hope this topic would be of interest because it takes an old book, which is out of print and only available in libraries or via old book sellers, but which is highly relevant to our lives today, dominated as they by cost-of-living concerns and the desire to reduce waste. I plan to trial and review some of the more intriguing/practical suggestions and document their success, or failure, on the website. I hope the end result will be both entertaining and informative.

The overall aim is to bring this book and its contents to a wider audience and so I hope you will get in touch with your feedback and requests- and that you also give some of these recipes and hints a try!