Category Archives: Georgian Gardens

The Trade of the Gardener

The Gardener from Little Jack of all Trades published by Darton & Harvey 1814 (all images via archive.org)

Stories about the real world and real lives were considered as interesting and exciting as pure fiction in children’s books of Georgian England. The trades were a popular subject – what people did and how things were made were described and illustrated with woodcuts, bringing these occupations to life for the young reader.

One such example is Little Jack of all Trades (1814) from Darton and Harvey, publishers of many children’s books from the later eighteenth century into the Victorian era. Author William Darton begins by likening workers in the various trades to bees in a hive, where everyone has their specific role to play within a larger inter-connected structure:

‘all are employed – all live cheerfully and whilst each individual works for the general good, the whole community works for him. The baker supplies the bricklayer, the gardener and the tailor with bread; and they, in return, provide him with shelter, food and raiment: thus, though each person is dependent on the other, all are independent.’

I was delighted to see that the book includes a profile of a gardener, who appears alongside other practical tradespeople such as the carpenter, blacksmith, cabinet maker, mason, bookbinder, printer and hatter (to cite but a few examples).

The gardener in the illustration is handing a large bouquet of flowers to a well-dressed woman – most probably the wife of his employer. Our gardener is a manager – his two assistants behind him are engaged in digging over the soil and watering a bed of plants, while we learn his specialist skills include grafting and pruning.

In the background a heated greenhouse extends the season for the production of fruits and other crops (smoke from the building’s stove is visible rising from the chimney on the right of the picture). All the tools of the gardeners’ trade remain familiar to us today:

‘the spade to dig with, the hoe to root out weeds, the dibble to make holes which receive the seed and plants, the rake to cover seeds with earth when sown, the pruning hook and watering pot.’

From a present day perspective, it’s interesting that Darton’s description of the gardener makes the connection between gardening and well-being:

‘Working in a garden is a delightful and healthy occupation; it strengthens the body, enlivens the spirits, and infuses into the mind a pleasing tranquillity, and sensations of happy independence.’

William Darton (1755 – 1819) was an engraver, stationer and printer in London and with partner Joseph Harvey (1764 – 1841) published books for children and religious tracts. His sons Samuel and William Darton were later active in the business. A full account of the evolution of the company with its various partners and offshoots is explained on the British Museum website – see link below.

Darton and Harvey’s books for children always contain plentiful illustrations and, while stylised, are packed with details of clothes, buildings and interiors, conveying a powerful sense of working life in the early 19^th century.

Today in England the status of gardening as a skilled trade has been undermined and eroded – so it’s pleasing to see the gardener in this book taking his place alongside other trades as an equal partner. I’ve included below the text for the gardener’s profile and some images of other tradespeople from Little Jack of all Trades, together with a link to the book at archive.org. I hope you will take a look at your leisure.

Little Jack of all Trades published by Darton & Harvey 1814

Hackney’s Botanical Cabinet

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The Botanical Cabinet 1819 (images The Biodiversity Heritage Library)

Taking a walk along Mare Street in Hackney, east London today it would be hard to imagine this urban street was once home to one of the most celebrated plant nurseries in England. Loddiges’ Paradise Field Nursery was founded in the mid-1770s by German born Joachim Conrad Loddiges (1738 -1826), and continued by his son George Loddiges (1786 – 1846) as The Hackney Botanic Nursery Garden. With its range of heated glasshouses the nursery was famous for growing newly discovered plants from around the globe including the Americas, the Caribbean, Australia and the far East.

Loddiges published annual catalogues listing the vast range of plants they stocked, but these were not illustrated. However, as a nursery specialising in plants that were new to cultivation in England, it was desirable to show customers what they looked like, particularly for those too far away to visit the gardens easily. So from 1817 Loddiges started to produce The Botanical Cabinet, a magazine with to showcase their plants.

The Botanical Cabinet was very similar in format to William Curtis’s hugely successful Botanical Magazine (established in 1787 and still published by Kew Gardens), celebrated for its colourful botanical illustrations.

The engraver George Cooke (1781 – 1834) provided the coloured engravings for Loddiges’ magazine from its inception until 1833 when it ceased publication. Alongside his illustrations, the magazine provided cultivation instructions and information about which part of the world each plant came from. It also recorded stories about the extensive network of plant collectors who would send seeds to the nursery, or supply plants for the nursery to propagate – an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of early 19^th century plant hunters.

Cooke’s illustrations of the Loddiges’ hot houses from the 1818 magazine give some idea of the scale and ambition of the nursery. The Hackney Society publication Loddiges of Hackney (1995) by David Solman provides an in depth study of the nursery’s establishment and eventual decline in the 1850s, as rising land prices in the area made it uneconomic to continue. Various members of the Loddiges family are buried in the nearby St John-at-Hackney church and Abney Park Cemetery.

Below are some of Cooke’s beautiful engravings showing the variety of plants that found their way to The Botanical Cabinet – from forest trees to tiny alpines. Links to the 1818 and 1819 magazines are at the end of the post.

Sarracenia purpurea from The Botanical Cabinet 1819

This very singular plant is a native of North America, in bogs and swamps. It has long been known in this country, having been cultivated before the year 1640, by Tradescant, who was Gardener to King Charles the First.

Passerina Spicata from The Botanical Cabinet 1819

This is a native of the Cape, and was introduced about the year 1787. It is a pretty greenhouse plant. Its delicate white flowers, though small, are very neat and pleasing, and it continues in bloom a long time during the autumnal months.

Hedysarum carneum from The Botanical Cabinet 1819

We raised this elegant plant many years since from Caucasian seeds, but very soon lost it. Lately, however, we have obtained a fresh supply, which has produced us two or three plants, from one of which our figure was taken.

Primula minima from The Botanical Cabinet 1819

We received this elegant little plant from our friend Mr Schleicher, of Bex. It flowered several times in the course of the summer. Our drawing was taken in the month of July: it represents the whole plant of its natural size, being scarcely one inch in height, and surmounted by a single flower, which was larger than the whole plant, and of great beauty.

Arum triphyllum zebrinum from The Botanical Cabinet 1819

Cineraria aurantiaca from The Botanical Cabinet 1819

This is a native of the Alps of Switzerland. We raised it from seeds received in 1817 from our friend Mr Schleicher, of Bex. It is a hardy perennial, and we consider it a very ornamental plant.

Eucalyptus cordata from The Botanical Cabinet 1819

A native of Van Dieman’s Island (Tasmania). From its robust habit and rapid growth, it will soon become a tall tree. The whiteness of its leaves and branches gives it a most interesting appearance, but the flowers are not showy.

Camellia japonica variegata from The Botanical Cabinet 1819

This was one of the first varieties of the Double Camellias seen in this country. It was brought over from China sometime about the year 1792. We remember to have seen the first plant, soon after this period, at Sir Charles Raymond’s, Valentine House, Essex.

Stapelia bufonis from The Botanical Cabinet 1819

The curious plant which is now before us flowers in the latter part of the summer. The blossoms are extremely interesting: their interior surface is wholly rough, with wrinkled protuberances, which together with its livid colour, have occasioned it to be named, as resembling a toad. It is a native of the arid deserts of South Africa, and was introduced about the year 1800.

Hakea pugioniformis from The Botanical Cabinet 1819

Seeds of this plant were received among some of the first arrivals from Botany Bay. It is a free grower, and attains the height of four or five feet, forming a handsome greenhouse shrub, and producing plenty of flowers.

Lilium pumilum from The Botanical Cabinet 1819.

We received this beautiful plant from our friend Mr Busch, at St Petersburgh, who sent it us, as being a different plant from the pomponium, which it unquestionably is. Being a native of Russia, it is perfectly hardy, and may either be kept in a pot (which we prefer) or planted in a border.

Banksia paludosa from The Botanical Cabinet 1819.

A native of New South Wales, whence it was introduced, according to the Kew catalogue, in 1805.

Elevation of the steam apparatus for heating hothouses, &tc at Hackney. The Botanical Cabinet 1818

Ground plan of the Houses at Hackney. The Botanical Cabinet 1818

William Cowper’s Gardens

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Cowper’s Summer House engraved by James Storer.
‘Had I the choice of sublunary good,
What could I wish that I possess not here?’ Book III, The Task

It’s probably fair to say that William Cowper’s poetry is not as well known today as that of Wordsworth or Coleridge, the Romantic poets he is said to have influenced. But in his lifetime Cowper was hugely successful, with copies of his epic poem The Task running to multiple editions. Cowper’s love of the English rural landscape, and his appreciation of gardens is well recorded both in his poetry and in accounts of his life.

In The Garden, (Book III, The Task) Cowper celebrates the gardener’s skill in sowing seeds, planning flower borders and pruning, but is withering about the large scale improvement of gardens, and costly changes made to the landscape by figures like Capability Brown:

Improvement too, the idol of the age,
Is fed with many a victim. Lo, he comes!
Th’ omnipotent magician, Brown, appears!
Down falls the venerable pile, th’ abode
Of our forefathers — a grave whisker’d race,
But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead,
But in a distant spot; where, more expos’d, ⁠
It may enjoy th’ advantage of the north,
And aguish east, till time shall have transform’d
Those naked acres to a shelt’ring grove.
He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn;
Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise:
And streams, as if created for his use,
Pursue the track of his directing wand,
Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow,
Now murm’ring soft, now roaring in cascades —
Ev’n as he bids! Th’ enraptured owner smiles. ⁠
‘Tis finish’d, and yet, finish’d as it seems,
Still wants a grace, the loveliest it could show,
A mine to satisfy th’ enormous cost.
Drain’d to the last poor item of his wealth,
He sighs, departs, and leaves th’ accomplish’d plan
That he has touch’d, retouch’d, many a long day
Labour’d, and many a night pursu’d in dreams,
Just when it meets his hopes, and proves the heav’n
He wanted, for a wealthier to enjoy!

William Cowper (1731 – 1800) worked in the legal profession in London, for which he seems to have felt ill suited, and after experiencing a personal crisis, was moved by his family to St Albans for treatment where he stayed until 1765. After his recovery Cowper lived in Olney where he formed a friendship with John Newton (they wrote hymns together) and then in nearby Weston Underwood where he wrote some of his best known poetry.

Such was Cowper’s continuing popularity in the years shortly after his death in 1800, an illustrated guide book was published by Islington based engravers James Storer and John Greig. Cowper, illustrated by a series of views, in, or near, the Park of Weston-Underwood, Bucks (1804) provides a commentary on the poet’s life, information about Cowper’s house and garden, and identifies key locations in Weston Park mentioned in The Task that the general public could visit. This detailed account gives valuable insight into the design of gardens from this period, including the plants and features used. The authors also describe changes to the gardens and landscape since Cowper’s time, and reveal that the ‘fav’rite elms, That screen the herdsman’s solitary hut;’ (from Book I of The Task) were in fact poplar trees.

The book opens with an engraving (above) of Cowper’s summer house, which he used in the summer months as quiet place to write. According to Cowper, this tiny building had previously been used by an apothecary, and its dimensions are recorded as being six feet nine inches by five feet five. Cowper accessed this building from his walled garden by crossing a neighbour’s orchard.

In this wall a door was opened, which being separated from his garden by an orchard, he rented a passage across the latter, for which he paid one guinea per annum: from this circumstance the place was called Guinea Field.

The section of the book which describes Weston Park (belonging to George Courntenay) and its surroundings begins with an invitation to walk with the authors, taking in scenes that would have been familiar to Cowper:

We propose, therefore, to follow him with as little deviation as possible in his ramble; and as there are many who may wish to gratify themselves with a sight of the places to which he has given celebrity, who are unacquainted with a way so indirect, we shall, for their accommodation, return by the road, and, by this proceeding, give a ready clue to every object.

The first place of interest is the Peasant’s Nest, a cottage referred to by Cowper in The Task and this view is taken from the high walk in the park, the only place from which it can be seen to advantage. If you look very closely, there are three men harvesting corn in the field in front of the cottage.

The Peasant’s Nest
‘Oft have I wish’d the peaceful covert mine.’

The next stop is a rustic bridge, built some sixty years previously for the purpose of keeping up a piece of water in the Park: it spans a deep brook, forming a scene remarkable for its wild and romantic beauty, which, after winding its latent course along the bottom of a woody vale, meanders through the Park ..

(Our concept of ‘wild’ nature must have changed in two hundred years, as the scene in the engraving is, to modern eyes, one of pastoral tranquility).

The Rustic Bridge

The alcove, which was erected at the same time as the bridge is reached via a steep path shaded by oaks and elms. In the engraving it looks as though the avenue of trees is being extended, with wooden structures arranged around the trunks of sapling trees to prevent them being damaged by cattle.

The Alcove from the Avenue.
‘How airy and how light the graceful arch’

View from the Alcove.
‘ – Now roves the eye:
And, posted on this speculative height,
Exults in its command.’

The area around the alcove is protected from sheep by a chain link fence, inside of which is a border of shrubs and flowers.

The Wilderness.
‘Here, unmolested through whatever sign
The sun proceeds, I wander.’

From the Avenue we enter the Wilderness by an elegant gate, constructed after the Chinese manner. On the left is the statue of a lion, finely carved in a recumbent posture; this is placed on a basement, at the end of a grassy walk, which is shaded by yews and elms, mingled with the drooping foliage of the laburnum, and adorned with wreaths of flaunting woodbine;

The urn in the engraving contains the ashes of one of George Courtenay’s favourite dogs, with an inscription by Cowper.

The Temple in the Wilderness.
‘Whose well roll’d walks
With curvature of slow and easy sweep’

In front of the Temple is a hexagon plat, surrounded with a beautiful variety of evergreens, flowering shrubs, and elms, whose stems are covered with a mantle of venerable ivy.

Weston Lodge
The Residence of the late William Cowper Esq

The authors disapprove of changes made to Cowper’s garden at Weston Lodge:

..it has a good kitchen garden, and an orchard, which was formerly Cowper’s Shrubbery; but the pursuits of its present possessor differing, in some degree, from those of the poet, every appearance of this kind is obliterated, except that an officious flower occasionally rears its head, and, in tacit terms, upbraids the destroyers of such a scene.

Weston House
(from the Grove)
The Seat of George Courtenay Esq

The Elms
‘There, fast rooted in their bank,
Stand never overlook’d our fav’rite elms,
That screen the herdsman’s solitary hut;’

Out of respect for Cowper, the authors have called this stand of trees The Elms, which they believe are in fact poplars:

In compliance with our intention to illustrate the poet, we have retained the name he has conferred, though we were convinced, from ocular demonstration, it was erroneous; and have also received a communication from Mr Courtenay, who observes, that Cowper wrote the passage in The Task, which refers to these trees, under the influence of a mistake, and he had often told him of the circumstance.

The Shrubbery
‘The Saint or Moralist should tread’
This moss grown alley.’

Many of the lines related to gardens in The Task suggest Cowper recognised their healing qualities. The Moss House was a place of silence Cowper valued as a retreat when his feelings were at a low ebb, and he placed a board inside containing lines of his poetry. The original board was stolen, so was replaced with another containing these lines from The Task:

No noise is here, or none that hinders thought.
Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,
Charms more than silence. Meditation here
May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.

More Children and Gardens

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Dame Truelove’s Tales by Elizabeth Semple (1817)

My previous post considered gardens as described and illustrated in children’s literature from the early 19th century. I found so many examples, I’ve decided to continue the theme, this time focusing on three books where children are depicted as active gardeners, encouraged by their parents and sometimes by the family’s gardener.

These ‘realistic’ stories with characters and events drawn from daily life are interwoven with messages concerning conduct of life. This development of domestic realism follows a similar pattern to that in adult fiction in the early nineteenth century, with the novels of Jane Austen being the most obvious example. In all these accounts, acquiring an understanding of gardening and the cultivation of plants is valued as a positive and productive way for children to spend their time, and children are often given a section of ground to cultivate for themselves as a reward for good behaviour.

Caroline, in Dame Truelove’s Tales is the youngest of the child gardeners. Pictured above with a little garden rake and a watering can, she asks her father for a garden of her own. Caroline and her three siblings share an area of ground where they practice gardening, but she has become frustrated with this arrangement, as her brothers and sisters show no aptitude for the activity and, worse, they are causing damage to her own efforts:

Dame Truelove’s Tales by Elizabeth Semple (1817)

Caroline’s wish is granted and the next day she finds an area has been planted with shrubs and flowers by Nicholas, the family’s gardener. Caroline will weed and water the garden and Nicholas will help her with tasks she is not yet strong enough to do herself.

In The Gardeners from The Keepsake; or, Poems and Pictures for Childhood and Youth, four children are pictured carrying tools in readiness to start their work in the garden.

To the garden we will go,
Take the rake, the spade, the hoe,
Dig the border nice and clean,
And rake till not a weed be seen.

Then our radish-seed we’ll sow,
And mignionette, a long, long row,
And ev’ry flowret of the year,
Shall have a place of shelter here.

The poem goes on to describe the children growing flowers to decorate a maypole for the May Day celebration.

The Keepsake; or, Poems and Pictures for Childhood and Youth (1818)

Also from The Keepsake, is a series of poems about the four seasons. In Summer children are pictured helping to spread freshly mown grass to dry in a hay meadow, and in Autumn they harvest hazel nuts from the woods. The poems with their description of the weather, plants and the seasonal activities that are going on in the surrounding countryside convey a connection to the landscape and nature which seems sadly remote from what many of us experience today.

The Keepsake; or, Poems and Pictures for Childhood and Youth (1818)

Long and thick the grass is grown,
Ready for the mower’s care,
When his scythe has laid it low,
To the hay-field we’ll repair.

Each shall have a fork and rake,
To spread it widely to the sun:
Many hands together join’d,
Make the labour quickly done.

The Keepsake; or, Poems and Pictures for Childhood and Youth (1818)

When Maria’s task is done,
We will to the nut-wood go;
Each a bag and hooked stick,
Down to pull the cluster’d bough.

Oh! How tempting ripe they hang:
Softly, softly pull them down,
Lest the bright, brown nuts should fall,
And leave the empty husk alone.

Bags and pockets all are full,
And evening says we must not stay;
With heavy loads we’ll hasten home,
And come again another day.

The Juvenile Gardener. Written by a Lady, for the use of her own children with a view of giving them and early taste for the Pleasures of a Garden, and the Study of Botany (1824)

As a shallow kind of person, I was initially rather disappointed with The Juvenile Gardener as it contains only one black and white illustration (in contrast to other books from this period, with their numerous colour plates). Also, the children Frank and Agnes Vernon, and the narrator herself, are depicted as such paragons they are not wholly believable. However, for anyone interested in the history of English gardens, these are evocatively described by the knowledgeable author.

Two gardens feature in the story, the first located in the north of England where the family live, and the second is Seaview in Hampshire, which belongs to an uncle. Here is a description of the flower garden at Seaview as it appears in late summer:

The smooth lawn, the numerous flower-beds, of different forms; the stages of hardy green-house plants, brought here for the summer; the trellis covered with roses and carnations; – all combined to form a scene of great beauty. ..But what pleased them most was a walk from the flower-garden to a summer-house, on each side of which was a hedge of dahlias, of every colour and shade in full bloom.

As Frank learns to appreciate gardens by means of practical experience in his own section of the family garden, Mrs Vernon teaches both children about botany and wild flowers. She mentions William Curtis’s Flora Londinensis as the best book to consult on the subject and recommends Sowerby’s British Botany and Curtis’s Botanical Magazine for images of exotic plant introductions.

The gardeners employed by the families are both characters in this narrative. The Vernon’s gardener William has the task of planting a garden for their son Frank in the spring, and chooses annual flowers and vegetables that will produce a quick and satisfying result for a young child. He also teaches Frank about weeds, how to take cuttings of herbs and to recognise the seeds of vegetables and flowers.

Maclaren is the gardener at Seaview, in Hampshire, who is pictured in the book’s one engraving (above) feeding goldfish with Mrs Vernon and her children. We learn that he was so upset by a former employer’s ten children wreaking havoc in the garden, that he resigned his post – and he is suspicious of Frank and Agnes until he realises they can be relied on to behave themselves outdoors.

But the most remarkable garden they visit (in spite of being the least grand) comes at the end of their visit to Hampshire when the children visit a ship of war. Unlikely as it seems, the midshipmen have planted a garden on board the ship:

Frank smiled when they took him to a gallery outside the cabin-windows, to see their garden, which consisted of some large boxes filled with earth, in which grew some lettuces, radishes, and cabbages, which were not in the most flourishing state; but Frank was convinced, that on a long voyage, even these vegetables would afford a treat to those who could not procure better.

If ever there was a garden asking for a picture, it must be this one?

Links: all texts available via archive.org

Dame Truelove’s Tales

The Keepsake

The Juvenile Gardener

Children and Gardens

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Shepherd and his flock pass by a cottage garden from Little Mary; or, the Picture-book by Sabina Cecil 1823 (printed and sold by John Marshall, 140 Fleet Street, London (NB. Text on frontispiece actually notes date of publication as 1800.)

Gardens belonging to the general public are rarely as well documented as the grander gardens of the wealthy. So it was a happy surprise to find how frequently gardens of middle class (and some working people) are described and pictured in a sample of children’s literature from the early 19th century.

While the gardens mentioned in these stories might not always represent actual places, the images and descriptions provide vivid glimpses of how gardens looked and were used by their owners and visitors. We also sense some tension in the relationship between children and gardens. Although gardens are viewed as positive places for children to play and learn about plants, they are also places of potential danger. A genre of books teaching moral conduct show the pitfalls that await reckless children out of doors, such falling out of trees, drowning in open water or being attacked by bees.

The books I’ve consulted, many written by women, are from the Internet Archive’s Children’s Library, made available by various US universities (see links at the end of this post).

Little Mary; or, the Picture-book by Sabina Cecil (1823) is a picture book designed for young children, using hand coloured illustrations and bold text suitable for children learning to read. A series of household objects and plants are discussed, including a crocus and a moss rose. The characteristic mossy growths on the sepals of the moss rose are clearly visible in the illustration of this fashionable plant. Mary’s visit to Tatton Park where she sees deer for the first time is also recorded.