Member-only story
Amazing Accomplishments of 19th Century Female Entrepreneur
This British woman held patents, ran a school, wrote books, and sold merchandise
Agnes Bertha Marshall was born in 1855. Not much is known of her early life, aside from the fact that she grew up in a British middle class family. In 1883, when she was 28 years old, she moved to London where she started the Marshall’s School of Cookery.
On opening day, no one showed up.
Instead of giving up, she changed her tactics, and took out ads in newspapers. She advertised that she would teach domestic cooks how to do “high class” cookery. At the time, this meant an emphasis on French dishes.
These ads were targeted towards middle-class British families who aspired to imitate the upper-classes.
Her marketing campaign was so successful, she was teaching up to 40 students a day, 5–6 days a week. This kept her really busy, but she realized there was a ceiling on how much she could earn doing this.
And Mrs. Marshall was ambitious.
She also had a passion for ice-cream, but this was an expensive and labor intensive product to make. Ice had to be brought in from places like Norway, which made it pricey. Then it needed to be hand-cranked for 30–40 minutes in…
