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The Victorian period, because of the colossal increase in personal wealth of sections of the population previously denied it,and because of its extraordinary economic activity, was also an age of tremendous personal possibility. The old-established and traditional society lost its strangle-hold on what a man could be, and anyone sufficiently blessed with energy, talent, good health and some good luck, could easily better himself (or herself) in ways that their immediate forbears could not. Even in the gardening world there were some remarkable success stories, many almost quintessentially Victorian. Of course, previous garden ages had had 'stars', men like Charles Bridgeman or 'Capability' Brown, who started off in the humblest of circumstances, but who ended as a modestly landed gentleman. Slightly earlier, William Kent, again of modest birth, became a society figure whose company was sought by great aristocrats, and much of whose life was spent amidst the very grandest surroundings. However, such stories had really been very few, certainly from the end of the seventeenth century, and in any case, the real 'stars' of earlier periods had really been the rich patrons for whom the work of these men was done. While a few of them had, even in their own day, been household names amongst the gardening classes, there were rather few vehicles for the promulgation of their ideas or to bolster their fame. Such refined exclusivity was doomed, and once the Victorian media became economically important, then 'fame' and its attendant financial rewards became both an enticing prospect for gardeners who could write, or who were potential entrepreneurs, as well as for the owners of the media, who needed famous contributors to help market their their books and magazines. In any case, the Victorian passion for experts (or 'practical' men, as famous gardeners were often called), seemed to ensure that most gardeners who reached to the top of gardening tree, say men who became head-gardener or curator of one of the botanic gardens, or a major public park, or even for one of the great landowners, had quite considerable status, even that of minor stars. They seemed to have easy access to the media, to wealthy clients needing new gardens designed, and even to venture capital sufficient to set up magazines and other businesses. Most of their erstwhile employers seem also to have been quite happy to give their head-gardeners sufficient time and opportunity to develop themselves. Perhaps their proteges' hoped-for fame reflected on a patron's garden. Of the male garden stars, one, Paxton, ended with a knighthood and a comfortable 'first rate' Italianate stucco villa. Another, Robinson, ended with a Stuart manor house set in a very pleasant estate. Several of the others retired into prosperous middle class life in remote Aberdeenshire, or in the less accessible suburbs of London. All of them started virtually penniless. Paxton, born in 1803, the seventh son of a poor farmer, started work as a garden boy in the nearby 'big house' at Milton Bryan at the age of seventeen. His employers were astute enough to encourage him, and three years later he was sent to work amongst the circular flower beds of Wimbledon House (then owned by the Duke of Somerset). He quickly commenced to garden at Chiswick House (where the London Horticultural Society had leased a garden), and where he had his first momentous meeting with his future mentor and employer, the Duke of Devonshire. Moving swiftly to Chatsworth, he soon began experiments with both glasshouse design and with publishing, and was almost immediately taking a hand in the history of garden design, engineering and architecture. An indulgent and delighted employer furthered his career, and exciting projects flowed in almost ceaselessly, culminating with the fantastic Crystal Palace. He was soon an MP, and became more interested in town planning (macro-gardening almost), rather than gardening. A comparable though less spectacular story is that of David Beaton, born in 1802 near Strathconon in Rosshire (continuing the tradition of the previous century, when many of the well-known gardeners and almost every head-gardener, were of Scottish extraction). The family (his father managed a firm of cattle dealers who exported black cows from the Highlands), spoke Gaelic, and his grandmother fed him on fantasies of lost nobility; he was, apparently, twenty third generation of first-born men after the loss of the Isle of Skye, when two brothers and their followers raced for it in boats. He started his studies expecting a middle class career, but bad harvests and the Napoleonic wars ruined his father's business, and so the young man had to go into service. He was educated by his first employers, who sent him to Inverness Academy as a companion for their son. Beaton wasn't an academic success, and had to take up employment as a gardener with Sir William Cumming Gordon at Forres. In spite of the 'bothy system' , that actually seems to have been an enjoyable experience for the servants were treated as part of the family and there was dancing, frequent 'routs', and hunting. He then worked for a nursery in Perth, for the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, then took fortune in his hands and sailed for London in 1830. The move worked and he soon had a job, and only a few years later was working as head gardener at Shrublands, an important Victorian garden with one of the few terraced sites of which Robinson would eventually approve (not surprising, as Robinson was called in as a design consultant). Thereafter, he began to write for the 'Gardener's Chronicle' and the 'Cottage Gardener', and become a notable hybridiser of new flowers, making enough money to retire at the age of fifty. An engraving of the man shows a large raw-boned Highlander, tight lipped, close, and opinionated; rather a daunting man to have as a gardener. In contrast is a man whose obituary of 1889 described him as the most prominent gardener of the age, who designed gardens great and small (mostly great) all over the country and in Europe, but who seems to have been modest enough to keep insisting that he be called a 'gardener', and who wrote rather badly (though he did edit two unexciting magazines; the 'United Gardeners and Land Stewards Journal' and the 'Gardeners and Farmers Journal'). Robert Marnock was born at Kintore in Aberdeenshire in 1800, became a garden boy, soon a skilled gardener, and soon moved South. He won a competition for the design of the new Sheffield Botanical Garden, and at once became its curator. Soon after that he made what was widely thought to be an outstanding design for the Regent's Park site of the Royal Botanical Society of London, so naturally, in 1841, he was appointed curator of that garden. He seems to have also had time to set up a business, for he advertised in various magazines that as his new duties were to be onerous, he was taking a partner in his seedsman and nursery venture based in Hackney. The new partnership called itself 'Marnock and Mawle', and was selling various rare plants certainly for the next few years. As a designer he seems to have followed on from the work of Humphry Repton, producing ingeniously contrived landscapes, with informal flower gardens near the domestic quarters. He eschewed terraces, vases, and stonework almost entirely, so when he retired from Regents Park (he was presented with a service of silver plate at a dinner at the 'London Tavern', Bishopsgate, on the 7th August, 1862 - tickets were a guinea each), he eventually began to write for William Robinson's 'The Garden', and formed part of the anti-bedding claque (this included Wolley Dod, Canon Ellacombe, G. W. E. Loder, William McNab and Miss Jekyll). It was Marnock who helped Robinson's early career, and no doubt why he remained a contributor to Robinson's magazines; however good he was at the design of gardens, he wasn't much good with a sentence. He finally accumulated enough money finally to retire once more to Aberdeenshire, where he lived quietly with his daughters until his death. Of course, Robinson
himself was a perfect contrast, handling the language with brio,
money with great astuteness, but gardens with a much more leaden
touch..... ================================================================================================== If you have
enjoyed reading thus far, the whole book, plus an appendix on Victorian
flowers and small garden design, is available now for Kindle or
PC. It costs just 3.99 dollars, or the UK equivalent.
It will soon also be available, illustrated, as a paperback in
'author's edition' |
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