1860s Victorian England. Sadly, the widowed undertaker, Cedric Brown, has a lot on his plate. As the desperate father works his fingers to the bone to provide for his seven unruly children, in the meantime, they have managed to drive out not one but seventeen nannies with their elaborate practical jokes and bad behaviour. Then, on a stormy night, the hideous government nanny extraordinaire, Nanny McPhee, sets foot in Cedric's household, bent on transforming the children's manners and the house. Will a dash of magic do the trick?