Reproduced by permission of Chronica Horticulturae
SIGNIFICANT BRITISH FIGURES
Some of the people whose stories follow were fairly prominent in their day, and there is considerable information about them. For those who are more obscure, the little information that is available has had to be gleaned indirectly. The same will be seen as the story moves from the United Kingdom to France and later to the United States.
The criterion I used to keep the list within bounds was a somewhat arbitrary limit of eight cultivars per breeder. There are records of more than 150 British men raising chrysanthemums seriously before 1900. If a breeder had introduced eight or more cultivars, I included his name. I only ignored this self-imposed rule in a few instances.
William Bull, Sr. (1828–1902), Chelsea, London
William Bull, the “new plant merchant,” acquired a portion of John Weeks’s nursery in Chelsea in 1861. In 1863, he leased additional space from Weeks. He purchased the nursery outright in 1874, changing the name to Bull’s Establishment for New and Rare Plants. By 1878, he had become well known for introducing numerous new plants. He specialized in greenhouse plants, particularly orchids, and in pelargoniums, fuchsias, and verbenas. ‘Chelsea Gem’, a pelargonium he introduced in 1880, is still grown.
When Bull died (c. 1902), he had just over three acres with greenhouses. He left his business to his sons William and Edward: William Junior died in 1913, but Edward continued the business until 1920. William Bull had served on the RHS Floral Committee.
Henry Cannell (1833–1914), Swanley, Kent
Henry Cannell began his career as a jobbing gardener but was very ambitious and eventually built up a large nursery and floral business before succumbing to financial problems and ending up in bankruptcy. At its peak, the firm was well known both nationally and internationally, but the death of three of his four children had the inevitable impact on his life and ability to function. He was devastated.
In 1897 he sent specimens of his chrysanthemums to the trials at Cornell University, in New York State, together with another English breeder, Robert Owen of Maidenhead (c. 1839–1897). Cannell was very interested in many types of flowers, and was known for fuchsias, pelargoniums, and verbenas, but his most profound interest was in the chrysanthemum. He recalled that he had first seen the flowers as a child and never forgot the impression they made on him.
Cannell built his nurseries near railway lines, allowing him to send his flowers to market quickly. He understood the advantages of mail order and may have been the first nurseryman in Britain to use it. His chrysanthemums won prizes and medals at many shows. Cannell served on the Floral Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society with William Bull.
W. Clibran and Sons, Altrincham and Manchester
William Clibran had a very substantial business. He owned Oldfield Nurseries at 10 and 12 Market Street, Altrincham, Cheshire, as well as another large nursery in Manchester. Later, the firm opened more branches in other Lancashire towns, and had large seed warehouses too. At one point, Clibran employed more than 250 men. It is not surprising that the employees joined a union, and when 25 of them were dismissed in 1914, the rest struck. No doubt the onset of World War I made much of this labor dispute irrelevant. Almost no men remained to work in civilian businesses.
Clibran’s lasted for more than seventy-five years, still being in business in 1960. Their earliest catalogue dates from 1881. In November 1900, the firm successfully “displayed single-flowered chrysanthemums” at the National Chrysanthemum Show. Clibran’s flowers were exhibited at shows for years. At their peak, the Clibrans received a royal warrant to supply flowers to King Edward VII.
Robert Forster’s name is associated with W. Clibran & Sons, although he lived and worked in Surrey. He made his living as the superintendent of the cemetery in Nunhead. It is hardly surprising that he was very active in growing flowers. He had ample space in which to experiment.
The information about his activities comes from reports in the gardening magazines of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: The Garden and Gardening World. The redoubtable William Robinson edited or wrote most of the material. In volume 60 of The Garden (1900), Robinson reported that “W. Clibran & Sons, Altrincham, staged a collection of cut singles . . . [and] Mr. Robert Forster, Nunhead Cemetery, SE, secured a Silver Gilt Medal” for his contributions.
Robinson reported again in volume 62 of The Garden (1902) that “Messrs. Clibran and Forster won a silver gilt medal in a show on Monday December 27, 1902, at the National Chrysanthemum Society.” The prizewinning cultivar was ‘Nemasket’, and the “Chrysanthemums were arranged in tall glass centre pieces.” At this event, W. Clibran & Sons of Altrincham again staged “a collection of cut singles,” and again, “Mr. Robert Forster, Nunhead Cemetery, SE, secured a Silver Gilt Medal.”
John Freestone, Norfolk
Freestone was a very early raiser of chrysanthemums in Norfolk. Frederick Burbidge referred to him in his 1884 book on chrysanthemums. “Mr. Short and Mr. Freestone, about the year 1835, showed ‘Nonpareil’ and ‘Norfolk Hero’ at the first public Chrysanthemum show for cut blooms at Stoke Newington.” In all, Freestone seems to have produced nine cultivars of chrysanthemum, and was said to be the first Englishman to raise chrysanthemums from seed, an extremely difficult thing to do.
W. J. Godfrey, Exmouth, Devonshire
Godfrey ran the Exmouth Nurseries in Exmouth, Devonshire, but also participated in some of the shows with the Devonshire branch of Veitch. Old John Veitch had started his English nursery in Exeter before branching out to the smart trade in London.
Godfrey was very industrious. Robinson reported in 1894 that he showed ‘Miss Dorothy Shea’, ‘Charles Blick’, ‘Duchess of Devonshire’, ‘Lizzie Cartledge’, and ‘Aureole Virginale’, among other chrysanthemum cultivars. The name ‘Charles Blick’ may have honored another very active nurseryman, Charles Blick, who owned Warren Nursery in Hayes. Blick won a silver Banksian Medal for his carnations but was also interested in chrysanthemums. He introduced the chrysanthemum ‘Hilda Tilch’ in 1910. It was a measure of his significance that he sat on the RHS Floral Committee.
In November 1895, Robinson mentioned Godfrey’s chrysanthemum ‘Monsieur Chas Molin’, introduced from France in 1894. Later, in the same magazine, he commented on the joint display of cut chrysanthemums by Veitch and Godfrey. Godfrey showed ‘Mrs. W J Godfrey’, a white incurved cultivar similar to ‘Mrs. Alpheus Hardy’, in 1901.
He introduced many more chrysanthemum cultivars as well, such as ‘Delightful’, ‘Yellow Boy’, ‘Bridesmaid’, and ‘Market Favourite’. Another of his cultivars, ‘Bessie Godfrey’, was a Japanese variety, as were ‘Exmouth Crimson’, ‘Exmouth Rival’, and ‘Sensation’; the show differentiated between the Japanese varieties and others. The Gardener’s Chronicle indicated that Godfrey grew his seedlings from his own seed. Many were rather short, not more than two and a half feet tall.
Robert Owen (1840–1897), Maidenhead
Owen owned the nursery Castle Hill at Maidenhead in Berkshire. He showed his incurved cultivar ‘Lord Rosebery’ at the National Chrysanthemum Society exhibition in 1893, together with about four other kinds. He also showed ‘Magicienne’, which won a first-class certificate, and he was the developer of ‘Robert Petfield’, a seedling of ‘Princess of Wales’. There were also a “bronze sport from the incurved ‘Robert Petfield’, and ‘Gold Coast’, a rich, bright yellow Japanese reflexed.” Robinson also liked ‘Pride of Maidenhead’, ‘Ernest Fierens’, and particularly ‘Owen’s Perfection’.
Owen died suddenly while working in one of his greenhouses. By the time his assistant