Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/165

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Raeburn
159
Raffald

rate quality. Three hundred and twenty-five, including some of the finest and most characteristic, were exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1876.

Raeburn's character was expressed in his manly, dignified, and searching art. His kind and generous disposition made him, we are told, 'one of the best-liked men of his day,' and he lived in close friendship with all that was honourable and distinguished in his native country. An industrious worker, he yet found time for many pursuits and accomplishments. He was an enthusiastic fisherman, golfer, and archer, made occasional essays in architecture, and had a passion for miniature shipbuilding and modelling. 'His conversation', says Scott, 'was rich, and he told his story well.'

His wife outlived him for some ten years. Of their two sons, the elder, Peter, died at the age of nineteen, after having shown signs of considerable artistic gifts. Henry, who inherited the two properties, Deanhaugh and St. Bernard's, further became possessor of the estate of Howden by his marriage with the beautiful Miss White, but finally made his home at Charlesfield, near Mid-Calder. This was the house Dr. John Brown described as 'overrun with the' choicest Raeburns.' Henry Raeburn the younger had seven children, but his sons died without issue, and Charlesfield, with its treasures, passed to his eldest daughter, who, married Sir William Andrew, C.I.E.

Raeburn's best portrait (by himself) is now in the possession of Lord Tweedmouth: it was engraved in stipple by Walker. A marble bust by Thomas Campbell (1822) is the property of the Misses Raeburn, the painter's granddaughters. A medallion, commonly ascribed to James Tassie, is partly by Raeburn himself; it is inscribed 'H. Raeburn, 1792.'

[Life of Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A., by his great-grandson, William Raeburn Andrew, M.A., 1894, with Appendix of pictures exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1876; Allan Cunningham's Lives of British Painters, ed. Heaton; Redgrave's Century of Painters, and Dictionary of Artists of the British School; Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves and Armstrong; Dr. John Brown's Introductory Essay to Elliot's Works of Sir Henry Haeburn, with photographs by T. Annan; Allan Cunningham's Life of Sir David Wilkie: Sir Walter Scott's Journal; Lockhart's Life of Scott; Stevenson's Virginibus Puerisque: an essay on Some Portraits by Raeburn; Catalogue of the Loan Collection of Raeburn's Works at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1878; Catalogues of Exhibitions of Works of the Old Masters at Burlington Home; A Tribute to the Memory of Sir Henry Raeburn, by Dr. Andrew Duncan, being the doctor's discourse to the Harveian Society of Edinburgh for 1824 (Historical Tracts); Catalogue of the National Gallery of Scotland.]

W. A.

RAFFALD, ELIZABETH (1733–1781), cook and author, daughter of Joshua Whitaker, was born at Doncaster in 1733, and baptised on 8 July in that year. After receiving a fair education, she passed about fifteen years—from 1748 to 1763—in the service of several families as housekeeper, her last employer being Lady Elizabeth Warburton, of Arley Hall, Cheshire. She married John Raffald, head gardener at Arley, on 3 March 1763, at Great Budworth, Cheshire. The couple settled at Manchester, and during the next eighteen years Mrs. Raffald had sixteen daughters. At first she kept a confectioner's shop; then took the Bull's Head Inn, Market Place, and, at a later period, the King's Head, Salford. She was a woman of much shrewdness, tact, and strength of will, and had, with other accomplishments, a good knowledge of French. She gave lessons to young ladies in cookery and domestic economy, opened what was probably the first registry office for servants in Manchester, and assisted in the continuance of ‘Harrop's Manchester Mercury,’ and in starting ‘Prescott's Journal,’ another local newspaper. In 1769 she published her ‘Experienced English Housekeeper, for the Use and Ease of Ladies, Housekeepers, Cooks, &c., wrote purely from Practice … consisting of near 800 original Receipts;’ of this work thirteen genuine editions (from 1769 to 1806), and at least twenty-three pirated or spurious editions, appeared. R. Baldwin, the London publisher, is reported to have paid Mrs. Raffald 1,400l. for the copyright in 1773. Her portrait, from a painting by P. McMorland, first came out in the eighth edition, 1782. The portraits in the spurious editions are untrustworthy. In 1772 she compiled and published the first ‘Directory of Manchester and Salford.’ A second edition followed in 1773, and a third in 1781. She also wrote a book on midwifery, under the guidance of Charles White [q. v.], the surgeon, but she did not live to print it. It is believed to have been sold in London by her husband, but if published it bore some other name. She died suddenly on 19 April 1781, and was buried at Stockport parish church, where many of her husband's ancestors were interred. Raffald, who was an able botanist and florist, but of improvident and irregular habits, died in December 1809, aged 85, and was buried at Sacred Trinity Chapel, Salford.

[Harland's Manchester Collectanea, vols. i. ii. (Chetham Society); Palatine Note-Book, i. 141;