Hilda Leyel (née Wauton) (6 December 1880 – 15 April 1957), who wrote under the name Mrs. C. F. Leyel, was an expert on herbalism and founded the Society of Herbalists (later the Herb Society) in England in 1927, as well as a chain of herbalist stores called the Culpeper House herb shops. Leyel was the author of a book on herbalism, called Elixirs of Life, among other works on the subject, as well as the cookery book The Gentle Art of Cookery. She was a fellow of the Royal Institution and an officer of the Académie française. Background and early career Leyel was born in London and educated at Uppingham School, a fee-charging independent school for boys where her father Edward Wauton was a teacher. While still young, she developed a precocious interest in herbs and flowers and after leaving school studied medicine. She worked briefly with Frank Benson, who was an actor-manager. In 1900, at the age of 19, she married Carl Frederick Leyel, a theatrical manager five years her senior. The couple had two sons. They were said to be unhappy and divorced in 1922. (Carl remarried to Nancy Mary Manfield the following year, but it was a short marriage as he was thrown from a horse in 1925 and died as a result of the injuries.) Carl and Hilda began their married life in a flat in Lincoln's Inn, London's legal district. There she began to entertain, developing an interest in food and wine. The influential friends she made at this point in her life rallied to her support in 1922 when she was prosecuted for running the Golden Ballot, a charity which raised money for ex-servicemen and various hospitals. Her acquittal helped to establish the legality of such ballots. She was elected a life governor of St Mary's, the West London, and the Royal National Orthopaedic hospitals. Herbalism Leyel became very interested in herbalism, and with her academic training in botany, she studied the work of the herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, among others. She wrote The Magic of Herbs in 1926, and in 1927 she opened Culpeper House on Baker Street, a shop selling herbal medicines, food and cosmetics; these proved very successful, especially with women. She founded the Society of Herbalists, a non-profit organization, for the study and application of herbalism. In 1941 the society's existence was threatened by the Pharmacy and Medicines Bill, which