Flyleaf of a Cash Book Kept by Ann Home (ref: HOJ/1/3)

Ann Home was the wife of James Home who became Professor of Materia Medica at the University of Edinburgh in 1798. Home maintained properties at York Place and at Cowdenknowes in the Scottish borders and Ann was responsible for the housekeeping. Her meticulous accounting is revealed in the eight cash books she kept from 1803-1846.

This book is dated 1815-1821 and in common with many of the others, she used the front covers to attach numerous notes by pins or glue. These notes often reveal more about their domestic life than the dry lists of figures inside. Here she has left a note for herself at the top left that ‘door of small front room to get hinges’. Below that is a list of lamps needed in the house ‘2 in Frank’s room; 3 on dining room chimney piece’. On the other side of the page is a list of tasks to be done in 1822 including ‘night stand for strangers room’, and more interestingly ‘six liquor glasses’.

At the back of the volume is a receipt, or recipe, for preparing sheep’s skins for mats and a recipe for wine made from currants. Most endearingly of all she has listed the weight of all her children, Colonel Home and Dr Home but is careful to draw a line through the space next to her own name.

• A larger version of the image is available here