Bloomsbury : The Clapham Sect.

The Clapham Sect or Clapham Saints were a group of Church of England social reformers based in Clapham, London at the beginning of the 19th century (active c. 1790–1830). They are described by the historian Stephen Tomkins as “a network of friends and families in England, with William Wilberforce as its centre of gravity, who were powerfully bound together by their shared moral and spiritual values, by their religious mission and social activism, by their love for each other, and by marriage”.^‪

Campaigns and successes

Its members were chiefly prominent and wealthy evangelical Anglicans who shared common political views concerning the liberation of slaves, the abolition of the slave trade and the reform of the penal system.

The group’s name originates from those attending Holy Trinity Church on Clapham Common, an area south-west of London then surrounded by fashionable villas. Henry Venn the founder was curate at Holy Trinity (1754) and his son John became rector (1792-1813). Wilberforce and Thornton, two of the group’s most influential leaders, resided nearby and many of the meetings were held in their houses. They were supported by Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, who sympathised with many of their aims. The term “Clapham Sect” was a later invention by James Stephen in an article of 1844 which celebrated and romanticised the work of these reformers. In their own time the group used no particular name, but they were lampooned by outsiders as “the saints”.

The group published a journal, the Christian Observer, edited by Zachary Macaulay and were also credited with the foundation of several missionary and tract societies, including the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Church Missionary Society.

They founded Freetown in Sierra Leone, the first major British colony in Africa, whose purpose in Thomas Clarkson’s words was “the abolition of the slave trade, the civilisation of Africa, and the introduction of the gospel there”.^‪

After many decades of work both in British society and in Parliament, the group saw their efforts rewarded with the final passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, banning the trade throughout the British Empire and, after many further years of campaigning, the total emancipation of British slaves with the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. They also campaigned vigorously for Britain to use its influence to eradicate slavery throughout the world.

Other societies that they founded or were involved with included the Anti-Slavery Society, the Abolition Society, the Proclamation Society, the Sunday School Society, the Bettering Society, and the Small Debt Society.

The Clapham Sect have been credited with playing a significant part in the development of Victorian morality, through their writings, their societies, their influence in Parliament and their example in philanthropy and moral campaigns, especially against slavery. In the words of Tomkins, “The ethos of Clapham became the spirit of the age.”^‪

Members

Members of the Clapham Sect included:

• Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786–1845), MP and brewer
• William Dealtry (1775–1847), Rector of Clapham, mathematician
• Edward James Eliot (1758–97), parliamentarian
• Thomas Gisbourne (1758–1846), cleric and author
• Charles Grant (1746–1823), administrator, chairman of the directors of the British East India Company, father of the first Lord Glenelg
• Katherine Hankey (1834–1911), evangelist
• Zachary Macaulay (1768–1838), estate manager, colonial governor, father of Thomas Babington Macaulay
• Hannah More (1745–1833), writer and philanthropist
• Granville Sharp (1735–1813), scholar and administrator
• Charles Simeon (1759–1836), Anglican cleric, promoter of missions
• James Stephen (1758–1832), Master of Chancery, great-grandfather of Virginia Woolf.
• Lord Teignmouth (1751–1834), Governor-General of India
• Henry Thornton (1760–1815), economist, banker, philanthropist, MP for Southwark, great-grandfather of writer M. Forster
• Henry Venn (1725–97), founder of the group, father of John Venn (1759–1813) and great-grandfather of John Venn (originator of the Venn diagram)
• John Venn (1759-1813), Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Clapham
• William Wilberforce (1759–1833), MP successively for Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire and Bramber, leading abolitionist
• William Smith (1756-1835), MP.

Hidden India : The Toy Train Form Kalka To Shimla …… Step Back In Time

The Kalka–Shimla Railway is a 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge railway in North-West India travelling along a mostly mountainous route from Kalka to Shimla. It is known for dramatic views of the hills and surrounding villages.

History

Shimla (then spelt Simla) was settled by the British shortly after the first Anglo-Gurkha war, and is located at 7,116 feet (2,169 m) in the foothills of the Himalayas. By the 1830s, Shimla had already developed as a major base for the British. It became the summer capital of British India in 1864, and was also the headquarters of the British army in India. Prior to construction of the railway, communication with the outside world was via village cart.

The 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge Delhi-Kalka line opened in 1891. The Kalka–Shimla Railway was build on 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge tracks by the Delhi-Ambala-Kalka Railway Company beginning in 1898. The estimated cost was Rs 86,78,500 but the cost doubled during construction.The 96.54 km (59.99 mi) line opened for traffic on November 9, 1903. It was inaugurated by Viceroy of India Lord Curzon. Because of the high capital and maintenance costs and peculiar working conditions, the Kalka–Shimla Railway was allowed to charge higher fares than on other lines. However, the company was still not profitable and was purchased by the government on January 1, 1906 for Rs 1,71,07,748. In 1905 the line was regauged to 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) to conform to standards set by the Indian War Department.This route passes through a city named Solan, which is also known as mini Shimla. A festival celebrating the goddess Shoolini Devi, after which the city is named, is held each summer in June.

In 2007, the government of Himachal Pradesh declared the railway a heritage property. For about a week starting on September 11, 2007, an expert team from UNESCO visited the railway to review and inspect it for possible selection as a World Heritage Site. On July 8, 2008, the Kalka–Shimla Railway became part of the World Heritage Site Mountain Railways of India. alongside Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, Nilgiri Mountain Railway, and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

Route

The Kalka–Shimla Railway was built to connect Shimla, the summer capital of India during the British Raj, with the Indian rail system. Now, Shimla is the capital city of Himachal Pradesh and Kalka is a town in the Panchkula district of Haryana. The route is famous for its scenery and improbable construction.

Stations

The route winds from the Himalayan Sivalik foothills at Kalka to several important points such as Dharampur, Solan, Kandaghat, Taradevi, Barog, Salogra, Totu (Jutogh), Summerhill and Shimla at an altitude of 2,076 meters (6,811 ft).

Tunnels

Originally 107 tunnels were built on Kalka Shimla Railway Track and 102 remain in use. The longest tunnel is at Barog. Engineer Colonel Barog dug the tunnel from both ends and could not align them and was symbolically fined one rupee. He couldn’t live with the shame and committed suicide inside the incomplete tunnel. Chief Engineer H.S. Herlington later completed the tunnel with help from Bhalku, a local sadhu.

Infrastructure

The line has 864 bridges. The railway has a ruling gradient of 1 in 33 or 3%. It has 919 curves, the sharpest being 48 degrees (a radius of 37.47 m or 122.93 feet). Climbing from 656 meters (2,152 ft), the line terminates at an elevation of 2,076 meters (6,811 ft) at Shimla. The line originally used 42 lb/yd (21 kg/m) rail but this was later relaid to 60 lb/yd (30 kg/m) rail.

Locomotives

The first locomotives to arrive were two class “B” 0-4-0ST from the famous Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. These were built as 2 ft (610 mm) gauge engines, but were converted to 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) gauge in 1901. They were not large enough for the job, and were sold in 1908. They were followed by 10 engines with a 0-4-2T wheel arrangement of a slightly larger design, introduced in 1902. These locomotives weighed 21.5 tons (21.85 tonnes) each, and had 30″ (762 mm) driving wheels, and 12″x16″ (304.8 mm x 406.4 mm) cylinders. They were later classified into the “B” class by the North Western State Railways. All these locomotives were constructed by the British firm of Sharp, Stewart and Company.

Larger locomotives were introduced in the form of a 2-6-2T, of which 30 were built with slight variations between 1904 and 1910. Built by the Hunslet and the North British Locomotive Company, these locomotives were about 35 tons (35.56 tonnes), with 30″ (762 mm) drivers and 14″x16″ (355.6 mm x 406.4 mm) cylinders. These locomotives, later classed K and K2 by the North Western State Railways, subsequently handled the bulk of the railways traffic during the steam era. A pair of Kitson-Meyer 2-6-2+2-6-2 articulated locomotives, classed TD, were supplied in 1928. They quickly fell into disfavour, as it often took all day for enough freight to be assembled to justify operating a goods train hauled by one of these locomotives. Shippers looking for a faster service started to turn to road transport. These 68 ton (69.09 tonnes) locomotives were soon transferred to the Kangra Valley Railway, and subsequently ended up converted to 1,000 mm (3 ft 3³⁄₈ in) metre gauge in Pakistan.

Steam operation of regular trains ended 1971.

The first diesel locomotives on the Kalka–Shimla Railway, class ZDM-1 by Arnold Jung Lokomotivfabrik (articulated with two prime movers), started operation in 1955. In the 1970s they were regauged and reclassified as NDM-1, then used on the Matheran Hill Railway.

In the 1960s, class ZDM-2 built by Maschinenbau Kiel (MaK) was introduced. These locomotives were later transferred to other lines.

Today this line is operated with class ZDM-3 diesel-hydraulic locomotives (522 kW, 50 km/h), built 1970 to 1982 by Chittaranjan Locomotive Works with a single cab road switcher body. Six locomotives of the same class were built in 2008/2009 by Central Railway Loco Workshop Parel with updated components and a dual cab body providing better visibility of the track.

Rolling stock

The railway opened using conventional four-wheel and bogie coaches. The tare weight of these coaches meant that only four of the bogie coaches could be hauled upgrade by the 2-6-2T locomotives. In an effort to increase loadings in 1908 the entire coaching stock was rebuilt as bogie coaches 33′ long by 7′ wide, using steel frames and bodies. To further save weight the roofs were constructed using aluminium. Savings in weight meant the locomotives could now haul six of the larger coaches, significantly expanding capacity. This was an early example of the use of steel in construction of coaches to reduce the coaches’ tare.

Goods rolling stock was constructed on a common pressed steel underframe, 30′ long and 7′ wide. Both open and covered wagons were provided, the open wagons having a capacity of 19 tons and the covered wagons 17.5 tons.

Trains.

• 52451/52452 Shivalik Deluxe Express (KLK 5:30 – 10:15 SML 17:40 – 22:25 KLK) with more comfortable chair cars and meal service
• 52453/52454 Kalka Shimla Express (KLK 6:00 – 11:05 SML 18:15 – 23:20 KLK) with first, second class and unreserved seating
• 52455/52456 Himalayan Queen (KLK 12:10 – 17:20 SML 10:30 – 16:10 KLK) with chair cars, connecting in Kalka to the Mail/Express train of the same name and the Kalka Shatabdi from/to Delhi
• 52457/52458 Kalka Shimla Passenger (KLK 4:00 – 9:20 SML 14:25 – 20:10 KLK) with first, second class and unreserved seating
• 72451/72452 Rail Motor (KLK 5:10 – 9:50 SML 16:25 – 21:35 KLK), a railbus originally used to transport upper class travellers, first class seating only, glass roof and possibility to look out to the front
• Shivalik Queen: This luxury coach can be booked by couples or groups up to eight people through IRCTC Chandigarh office and attached to regular trains. It has four elegantly furnished coupés with two toilets, wall to wall carpets and big windows. The journey costs 4200 INR for four couples including lunch.

Television film

The BBC made a series of three documentaries about Indian Hill Railways. The Kalka–Shimla Railway was the subject of the third program.

The Kalka-Shimla railway was also featured in the Punjab episode of CNN’s Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.

Hadlow Tower & Castle : May’s Folly, The Tallest Victorian Folly In England….

Hadlow Castle is a Grade I listed country house and tower in Hadlow, Kent, England.

History

Hadlow Castle replaced the manor house of Hadlow Court Lodge. It was built over a number of years from the late 1780s, commissioned by Walter May in an ornate Gothic style. The architect was J. Dugdale. his son, Walter Barton May inherited the estate in 1823, and another inheritance in 1832 from his wife’s family. He added a 170 feet (52 m) octagonal tower in 1838, the architect was George Ledwell Taylor. A 40 feet (12 m) octagonal lantern was added in 1840 and another smaller tower was added in 1852. This was dismantled in 1905. Walter Barton May died in 1858 and the estate was sold. Subsequent owners were Robert Rodger, JP, High Sheriff of Kent, in 1865. He died in 1882 and the castle was bought by Dr. MacGeagh, a Harley Street specialist in 1891. He would drive in his carriage to Tonbridge and catch the train to London thus being an early commuter. The castle passed to T E Foster MacGeagh and he sold it in 1919 to Henry Thomas Pearson, whose family occupied it until 1946. During the war it was used as a watchtower by the Royal Observer Corps. The unoccupied castle changed hands several times after the Pearsons’ left, and was demolished in 1951, except for the servants’ quarters, several stables and the Coach House, which was saved by the painter Bernard Hailstone. The Tower was already a Listed Building, having been listed on 17th April 1951. Now the entrance gateway and lodges of the Castle still stand – a heavy Gothic presence on the street – as does the Stable Court with two turreted pavilions, which are all in private ownerships, and new homes have been built in the grounds.

Tower

Hadlow Tower, 51°13′21″N 0°20′20″E known locally as May’s Folly, is a Victorian Gothic tower, and one of the largest in Britain. The top 40 feet (12 m) is an octagonal lantern.

The Grade I listed tower was badly damaged in the Great Storm of 1987, and the lantern was removed in 1996. The tower’s condition then worsened rapidly. The cost of repairs was estimated at £4 million. In July 2006, Tonbridge and Malling borough council announced that it would issue a compulsory purchase order (CPO) on the tower in an effort to save it. This CPO was confirmed in March 2008 by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with plans for the council to take possession of the Tower and transfer it to the Vivat Trust in late 2009, so that the necessary repair and restoration work can be undertaken; plans included short-term holiday accommodation, with a separate exhibition centre on part of the ground floor.

In January 2011, it was announced that the tower had been compulsorily purchased by Tonbridge and Malling District Council; the council sold it to the Vivat Trust for £1. Restoration of the tower, including the replacement of the lantern commenced in February 2011, with completion then scheduled for September 2012. The project was funded by grants from English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund. The latter granted £2,000,000 of the estimated £4,000,000 restoration cost. Now restored, the tower offers holiday accommodation, with public exhibition space on the ground floor. On 24 February 2011, Hadlow Castle was transferred to the Vivat Trust.

The restoration was completed in February 2013, making it the tallest folly in the United Kingdom. In October 2013, the restoration of the tower was recognised when the Vivat Trust and the Save Hadlow Tower Action Group (SHTAG) won a Lloyd-Webber Angel Award. Work was completed on the interior; the exhibition centre in the tower is open on Thursdays from May to October. Visits are organised by SHTAG

People : Monty Don, Gardener, Designer & Artist, From Costume Jewellery to Jewel Garden….

Montagu Denis Wyatt “Monty” Don (born 8 July 1955) is an English television presenter, writer and speaker on horticulture, best known for presenting the BBC television series Gardeners’ World.

Early life

Monty Don was born in Berlin, to British parents, Denis T. K. Don, a career soldier posted in Germany, and Janet Montagu (née Wyatt). Both parents died in the 1980s. Don has a twin sister, an elder brother David, and two other siblings. His twin suffered a broken neck in a car crash, aged 19.

Both his paternal grandmother and grandfather were Scottish, through whom he is descended from the Keiller family of Dundee, inventors of chip marmalade in 1797. Meanwhile, on his maternal side, he is descended from the Wyatts, who were a prominent dynasty of architects.

Don was educated at three independent schools: Quidhampton School in Basingstoke, Hampshire, Bigshotte School in Wokingham, Berkshire, and at Malvern College in Malvern, Worcestershire, a college he hated. He then attended a state comprehensive school, the Vyne School, in Hampshire. He failed his A levels and while studying for re-takes at night school, worked on a building site and a pig farm by day. During his childhood he had become an avid gardener and farmer. He determined to go to Cambridge out of “sheer bloody-mindedness”, attending Magdalene College, where he read English and met his future wife Sarah.

Career

In the 1980s, Don and his wife formed a successful company that made and sold costume jewellery under the name Monty Don Jewellery. The collapse of the company in the early 1990s prompted him to embark on a career in writing and broadcasting. He has written about the rise and collapse of their business in The Jewel Garden, an autobiographical book written with his wife. “We were lambs to the slaughter and we lost everything, […] we lost our house, our business. We sold every stick of furniture we had at Leominster market,” he wrote. He was unemployed from 1991 to 1993.

Don’s first TV work came as the presenter of a gardening segment on breakfast show This Morning. He featured as a guest presenter for the BBC’s Holiday programme. He went on to present several Channel 4 land and gardening series: Don Roaming, Fork to Fork, Real Gardens and Lost Gardens, and wrote a regular weekly gardening column for The Observer between February 1994 and May 2006. Don had never received formal training as a gardener. He commented, “I was – am – an amateur gardener and a professional writer. My only authority came from a lifetime of gardening and a passion amounting to an obsession for my own garden.” He is a keen proponent of organic gardening and the practice of organic techniques, to some extent, features in all of his published work. The organic approach is most prominent in his 2003 book The Complete Gardener.

Don was the main presenter on BBC Two’s Gardeners’ World from 2003 to 2008 succeeding Alan Titchmarsh. He was the first self-taught horticulturist presenter in the show’s 36-year history, stepping down only after suffering a minor stroke. After viewing figures for Gardener’s World fell below two million for the first time in 2009, in January 2010, changes were announced to the programme in an attempt to entice viewers back. In December 2010, it was announced that Don would be returning to the programme as lead presenter for the 2011 series, replacing Toby Buckland. Reaction to the announcement was divided on the programme’s blog. Since March 2011 he has been presenting the programme from his own garden (called Longmeadow) in Herefordshire.

Don featured in the BBC programme and book, Growing out of Trouble, in which several heroin addicts manage a 6-acre (24,000 m²) Herefordshire smallholding in an attempt at rehabilitation. He also presented Around the World in 80 Gardens (BBC Two 27 January – 30 March 2008) and in December 2008, narrated a programme about the cork oak forests of Portugal, for the BBC’s natural history series Natural World. He presented My Dream Farm, a series which helped people learn to become successful smallholders (Channel 4, January 2010) and Mastercrafts, a six-part series for BBC Two, which celebrated six traditional British crafts. He has twice been a panellist on the BBC’s Question Time (February 2009 and March 2010) and his family history was the subject of the fourth programme in the seventh series of the BBC genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are? (August 2010). In April 2011 Don presented Italian Gardens, a four-part BBC2 series which was accompanied by the publication of a book.

In late 2008 Don became President of the Soil Association and is a Patron of Bees for Development Trust.

In 2013, Don presented an episode of Great British Garden Revival.

Personal life

Don and Sarah married in 1983 and have three children. The couple lived in Islington, North London while Don pursued postgraduate study at the London School of Economics, worked as a waiter at Joe Allen restaurant in Covent Garden and later as a dustman, and completed two unpublished novels. Meanwhile Sarah trained as a jeweller.

Don has written of his struggle with depression since the age of 25 and Seasonal Affective Disorder. He describes in his memoir “great spans of muddy time” in which there is nothing but depression. He noted “‘Earth heals me better than any medicine”. He has had cognitive behavioural therapy and took Prozac before favouring a lightbox, now a recognised aid for Seasonal Affective Disorder sufferers. He had peritonitis in 2007 and a minor stroke in 2008.

He lives near Ivington, Herefordshire, England, and has lived in Herefordshire for over 20 years.

People : Dan Pearson, Garden & Landscape Designer, Created Paul Smith’s Garden & Japan’s Millenium Forest ……

Dan Pearson (born 9 April 1964) is an English garden designer, landscape designer, journalist and television presenter. He is an expert in naturalistic perennial planting.

Early life

Pearson was brought up in an Arts and Crafts house on the Hampshire-Sussex border. His father is a painter who taught fine art at Portsmouth Polytechnic and his mother taught fashion and textiles at Winchester School of Art.

He had a weekend gardening job for Mrs. Pumphrey at Greatham Mill Gardens, Hampshire that cultivated his interest in gardening. He decided against going to Art College, and dropped out of his A levels (backed by his parents) to be able to go to the RHS Garden, Wisley, at 17. During 1981–1983, he became an RHS Wisley Trainee, Certificate Course, aged 17. While at Wisley his mother introduced him to Frances Mossman, for whom he designed a garden. Dan then went to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for a year to work in the Rock Garden and the Woodland Garden. Pearson then completed the three-year Kew Gardens course. Then he went back to maintaining Frances Mossman’s garden – Home Farm in Northampton. He also had student scholarships to study wildflower communities in the Picos de Europa, Spain, and in the Himalayas.

Pearson then set up his Garden Design business in 1987.

Career

Since 2002, he has been designing a number of gardens as well as giving lectures around the world, including the U.K., Italy, the U.S.A. and Japan.

He has designed gardens for Jonathan Ive, Paul Smith art dealer Ivor Braka, Russian businessman Vladislav Doronin. Carlo Caracciolo (the late owner of the Italian newspaper l’Espresso) and his colleague on The Guardian newspaper, Nigel Slater (this garden was a joint effort with Monty Don). He has also restored the landscape at Althorp House (post Diana’s death) post 1997 and worked on the landscape for the Millennium Dome. Dan has now done five show gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. In 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996 (with an outstandling roof garden), and 2004 (for Merrill Lynch). He has also worked at the Botanic Garden of Jerusalem. He designed the Roof Garden of Roppongi Hills, Japan in 2002.

Pearson is a tree ambassador for The Tree Council and a member of the Society of Garden Designers. In 2011, he was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and was a member of the jury for the 2011 RIBA Stirling Prize.

He has a working relationships with some of the most known architects practising in the UK including Zaha Hadid, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, David Chipperfield Architects and 6a Architects, London, which led to Pearson being elected Royal Designer for Industry in 2012.

At the Garden Media Guild Awards of 2011, he was awarded the prize for ‘Inspirational Book of the Year’.

Another large project was the Tokachi Millenium Forest Garden, in Shimizu, Hokkaido, which was featured on BBC Radio 4 programme Designed in Britain, Built in Japan. Another project is Maggie’s Centre in Charing Cross, London.

The Garden Museum in Lambeth, London held an exhibition on his work, between 23 May 2013 to October 2013. Pearson has created a new planting design for the border in front of the Museum.

He is also working as horticultural advisor for Thomas Heatherwick’s Garden Bridge, over the Thames in London.

Television career

Pearson has presented and appeared in several TV series on BBC2, Channel 4 and Channel 5. In 1992, he presented the first garden makeover programme, Garden Doctors. A book of the same name later followed the series. He presented Dan Pearson: Routes around the World on Channel 4, a six-part travel and horticultural series, by Flashback Productions, in 1997.

In 2008, the BBC filmed a 12-part series, A Year At Home Farm, in Northampton, which Dan had been designing the gardens for since 1987. A book later followed the series.

He appears occasionally on BBC’s Gardeners’ World, and also regularly talks on radio.

Writing

Pearson has written for such newspapers as The Guardian, The Telegraph (during 2003-2006), and The Sunday Times on the subject of landscaping and home gardening. He has been the garden columnist for the The Observer Magazine since 2006. He sits on the editorial board of Gardens Illustrated magazine. His writing also includes Gardeners’ World magazine, and various magazine and newspaper articles.

Bibliography

• Pearson, Dan (1996). Garden Doctors (A Channel Four book). Boxtree Press Ltd. ISBN978-0752210292.

Co-authored with Steve Bradley

• Pearson, Dan (27 Feb 1998). ‘The Essential Garden Book’. Conran Octopus Ltd. ISBN978-1850299196.

Co-authored with Sir Terence Conran

• Pearson, Dan (4 Jan 2001). The Garden: A Year at Home Farm. Ebury Press. ISBN978-0091870324.

• Pearson, Dan (28 September 2009 (hardback) 3 October 2011 (softback)). Spirit: Garden Inspiration. FUEL. ISBN978-0956356291.

Introduction by Beth Chatto

• Pearson, Dan (7 March 2011). Home Ground: Sanctuary in the City. Conran Octopus. ISBN978-1840915372.

Personal life

Pearson has a brother called Luke, who is a product and furniture designer, and a partner in the company ‘Pearsonlloyd’

In 2010, he moved from Peckham in London to a property with 20 acres of land in Somerset.

Plant Hunters : Sir Ghillean Prance, A Remarkable Man, From Eden to Eden ……..

Sir Ghillean Tolmie Prance  FIBiol FRS FLS FRS (born 13 July 1937) is a prominent British botanist and ecologist who has published extensivelyon the taxonomy of families such as Chrysobalanaceae and Lecythidaceae, but drew particular attention in documenting the pollination ecology of Victoria amazonica. Prance is a former Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Early life

Prance was born on 13 July 1937 in Brandeston, Suffolk, England.[1] He was educated at Malvern College and Keble College, Oxford. In 1963 he received a D. Phil. in Forest Botany from the Commonwealth Forestry Institute.

Career

Prance worked from 1963 at The New York Botanical Garden, initially as a research assistant and, on his departure in 1988, as Director of the Institute of Economic Botany and Senior Vice-President for Science. Much of his career at the New York Botanical Garden was spent conducting extensive fieldwork in the Amazon region of Brazil. He was Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew from 1988 to 1999.

Current work

Since his retirement he has remained very active, notably involving himself with the Eden Project. Prance, a devout Christian, is currently the chair of A Rocha and was president of Christians in Science 2002–08.

He is actively involved on environmental issues, a trustee of the Amazon Charitable Trust, and a Vice-President of the Nature in Art Trust.

Honours

Prance was knighted in 1995. He has been a Fellow of the Linnean Society since 1961, a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1993 and was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour in 1999.

In 2000 he was made a Commander of the Order of the Southern Cross by the President of Brazil.

Legacy

Two photographic portraits of Prance are held at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

A biography of Prance was written by Clive Langmead.

The standard author abbreviation Prance is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name

Plant Hunters : John Tradescant The Younger, The Real Lord of the Aster….

John Tradescant the Younger (4 August 1608 – 22 April 1662), son of John Tradescant the elder, was a botanist and gardener, born in Meopham, Kent and educated at The King’s School, Canterbury. Unlike his father, who collected via other people bringing back specimens, he went in person to Virginia between 1628-1637 (and possibly two more trips by 1662, though Potter and other authors doubt this) to collect plants. Among the seeds he brought back, to introduce to English gardens were great American trees, like Magnolias, Bald Cypress and Tulip tree, and garden plants such phlox and asters. He also added to the cabinet of curiosities his American acquisitions such as the ceremonial cloak of Chief Powhatan, one of the most important Native American relics. Tradescant Road, off South Lambeth Road in Vauxhall, marks the former boundary of the Tradescant estate, where the collection was kept.

When his father died, he succeeded as head gardener to Charles I and Henrietta Maria of France, making gardens at the Queen’s House, Greenwich, designed by Inigo Jones, from 1638 to 1642, when the queen fled the Civil War. He published the contents of his father’s celebrated collection as Musaeum Tradescantianum — books, coins, weapons, costumes, taxidermy, and other curiosities — dedicating the first edition to the Royal College of Physicians (with whom he was negotiating for the transfer of his botanic garden), and the second edition to the recently restored Charles II. Tradescant bequeathed his library and museum to (or some say it was swindled from him by) Elias Ashmole (1617–1692), whose name it bears as the core of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford where the Tradescant collections remain largely intact.

He was buried beside his father in the churchyard of St-Mary-at-Lambeth which is now established as the Museum of Garden History.

He is the subject of the novel Virgin Earth by Philippa Gregory, sequel to Earthly Joys on his father.

The standard author abbreviation Trad. is applied to species he described.

People : Sir Roy Strong, The Only Living Landscape Architect & Garden Designer To Have 17 Portraits In The National Portrait Gallery…..

Sir Roy Colin Strong FRSL (born 23 August 1935) is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has been director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He was knighted in 1983.

Biography

Early years

Roy Colin Strong was born in Winchmore Hill, then in Middlesex, and attended nearby Edmonton County School in Edmonton.

He earned a first class honours degree in history at Queen Mary College, University of London. He then earned his Ph.D from the Warburg Institute, University of London and became a research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research. His passionate interest in the portraiture of Queen Elizabeth I was sidelined “while he wrote a thesis on Elizabethan Court Pageantry supervised by the Renaissance scholar, Dame Frances Yates who (he says) restructured and re-formed my thinking.” In 2007 Strong listed his qualifications as DLitt PhD FSS.

Career

National Portrait Gallery

He became assistant keeper of the National Portrait Gallery in 1959, and was its director 1967-73: Sir Roy came to prominence at age 32 when he became the youngest director of the National Portrait Gallery. He set about transforming its conservative image with a series of extrovert shows, including “600 Cecil Beaton portraits 1928-1968.” Dedicated to the culture of the 1960s and 1970s, Sir Roy went on to amuse audiences at the V&A in 1974 with his collection of fedora hats, kipper ties and maxi coats. By regularly introducing new exhibitions he doubled attendance.

Reflecting on his time as director of the National Portrait Gallery, Sir Roy Strong pinpoints the exhibition “Beaton Portraits 1928-1968” as a turning point in the gallery’s history. Strong chose fashion photographer Cecil Beaton as a catalyst for change says much about the glamour and appeal of the photographer’s work. But even so, it seems unlikely that anyone could have predicted the sheer scale of the exhibition’s success. “The public flocked to the exhibition and its run was extended twice. The queues to get in made national news. The Gallery had arrived”, Strong wrote in the catalogue to Beaton Portraits, the more recent exhibition of Beaton that ran at the gallery until 31 May 2004.

Victoria & Albert Museum

In 1973, aged 38, he became the youngest director of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London. In his tenure, until 1987, he presided over its The Destruction of the Country House (1974, with Marcus Binney and John Harris), Change and Decay: the future of our churches (1977), and The Garden: a Celebration of a Thousand Years of British Gardening (1979), all of which have been credited with boosting their conservationist agendas. In 1980, “he was awarded the prestigious Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation of Hamburg in recognition of his contribution to the arts in the UK.” He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society’s President’s Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2003.

Television

In 2008 Strong hosted a six-part TV reality series The Diets That Time Forgot. He acted as the Director of the fictitious Institute of Physical Culture, where nine volunteers spent 24 days testing three weight loss diets and fitness regimes that were popular in the late Victorian (William Banting) and Edwardian periods (Horace Fletcher) and the ‘roaring’ Twenties (Dr Lulu Hunt Peters). The weekly series was first aired on 18 March on Channel 4.

Writings

In 1999, he published The Spirit of Britain: A Narrative History of the Arts, a widely acclaimed 700-page study of British arts through two millennia. In 2005, he published Coronation: A History of Kingship and the British Monarchy.

Personal life

Marriage

Roy Strong married Julia Trevelyan Oman in 1971. The arts world was astonished when “Strong abandoned the bachelor life and ‘eloped’ with Julia Trevelyan Oman, marrying her at Wilmcote church, near Stratford-upon-Avon, on 10 September 1971 with a special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Julia Trevelyan Oman was 41 and her husband 35…they enjoyed a belated honeymoon in Tuscany.” She died in 2003 of pancreatic cancer.

Herefordshire

Sir Roy lives in the village of Much Birch, which lies 8 miles (13 km) south of Hereford on the A49 trunk road. Here, with his wife, he designed one of Britain’s largest post-war formal gardens, the Laskett. In 1995 he and his wife commissioned the artist Jonathan Myles-Lea to paint a ‘portrait’ of the house and gardens and the painting the Laskett was completed the same year. Sir Roy now works full-time as a writer and broadcaster. He has lived in Herefordshire since 1973-74 and he and his wife conceived the Laskett garden in autumn 1974.

From 22 April 2010 the Laskett Gardens have been open to the public by appointment, for groups of over twenty.

After leaving the V&A, Strong published a set of diaries that became infamous for its often critical assessments of figures in the art and political worlds. It has been rumoured that he has retained a set for posthumous publication. Jan Moir commented in 2002: “His bitchy, hilarious diaries caused a storm when they were published in 1997 and although he has no plans at present to publish another set, he is keeping a private diary again.”

Anglicanism

A practising Anglican, Strong is an altar server at Hereford Cathedral, as well as being high steward of Westminster Abbey. He was previously its high bailiff and Searcher.[11] In this capacity he attended the funeral service of the Queen Mother in 2002. On 30 May 2007, in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, he delivered the annual Gresham College Special Lecture, entitled The Beauty of Holiness and its Perils (or what is to happen to 10,000 parish churches?), which was deeply critical of the status quo. He said: “little case can be made in the twenty-first century for an expensive building to exist for a service once a week or month lasting an hour,” and he recommends someone taking “an axe and hatchet the utterly awful kipper coloured choir stalls and pews, drag them out of the church and burn them,” and “letting in the local community” in order to preserve many rural churches in Britain.

Portraits of Roy Strong

Seventeen portraits of Strong reside in the National Portrait Gallery Collection including both photograph and sketch by Cecil Beaton and an oil painting by Bryan Organ. An early bronze bust by Angela Conner is on view at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. In 2005, Strong sat for Jon Edgar for a work in terracotta which was exhibited at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2013 as part of the Sculpture Series Heads – Contributors to British Sculpture.

Honorary positions

Chairman of the Art Department, Arts Council.

• Deputy Chairman, Southbank Centre.
• High Bailiff and Searcher of the Sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, from 2000.
• President, the Garden History Society, 2000-06.

President, the Friends of Croome Park, from 2008.

Plant Hunters : John Tradescant the Elder, The Start of The National Garden Museum Lambeth

John Tradescant the elder (c. 1570s – 15–16 April 1638), father of John Tradescant the younger, was an English naturalist, gardener, collector and traveller, probably born in Suffolk, England. He began his career as head gardener to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury at Hatfield House, who initiated Tradescant in travelling by sending him to the Low Countries for fruit trees in 1610/11. He was kept on by Robert’s son William, to produce gardens at the family’s London house, Salisbury House. He then designed gardens on the site of St Augustine’s Abbey for Edward Lord Wotton in 1615-23.

Later, Tradescant was gardener to the royal favourite George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, remodelling his gardens at New Hall, Essex and at Burley-on-the-Hill. John Tradescant travelled to the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery in Arctic Russia in 1618 (his own account of the expedition survives in his collection), to the Levant and to Algiers during an expedition against the Barbary pirates in 1620, returned to the Low Countries on Buckingham’s behalf in 1624, and finally went to Paris and (as an engineer for the ill-fated siege of La Rochelle) the Ile de Rhé with Buckingham. After Buckingham’s assassination in 1628, he was then engaged in 1630 by the king to be Keeper of his Majesty’s Gardens, Vines, and Silkworms at his queen’s minor palace, Oatlands Palace in Surrey.

On all his trips he collected seeds and bulbs everywhere and assembled a collection of curiosities of natural history and ethnography which he housed in a large house, “The Ark,” in Lambeth, London. The Ark was the prototypical “Cabinet of Curiosity”, a collection of rare and strange objects, that became the first museum open to the public in England, the Musaeum Tradescantianum. He also gathered specimens through American colonists, including his personal friend John Smith, who bequeathed Tradescant a quarter of his library. From their botanical garden in Lambeth, on the south bank of the Thames, he and his son, John, introduced many plants into English gardens that have become part of the modern gardener’s repertory. A genus of flowering plants (Tradescantia) is named to honour him. Tradescant Road, off South Lambeth Road in Vauxhall, marks the former boundary of the Tradescant estate.

He was buried in the churchyard of St-Mary-at-Lambeth, as was his son; the churchyard is now established as the Museum of Garden History.

He is the subject of the novel Earthly Joys, by Philippa Gregory.

Plant Hunters : Tom Hart – Dyke, Young Inspirational Man on a Mission….. His Story Would Make For an Exceptional Film…..

Thomas Guy Hart Dyke (born 12 April 1976) is an English horticulturist and plant hunter. He is the son and heir of Guy and Sarah Hart Dyke at the family seat of Lullingstone Castle, Eynsford, Kent. He is the designer of the World Garden of Plants located on the property. The World Garden contains approximately 8,000 species of plants, many collected by Hart Dyke from their native environments. He presented an episode of Great British Garden Revival in 2013.

Early life and education

Hart Dyke attended a state primary school in Eynsford and then transferred to St. Michael’s School in Otford. He attended Stanbridge Earls in Hampshire until age seventeen and then entered Sparsholt College Hampshire, near Winchester, where he studied tree surgery and forestry.

In an interview in 2006, Hart Dyke credits his grandmother as having first interested him in plants at age three.

Tom Hart Dyke is first cousin of the English comedian Miranda Hart.

Kidnapping

Hart Dyke follows a tradition of Victorian and Edwardian British plant hunters, such as Francis Masson, who risked life and limb to acquire rare species of plant. In 2000, Hart Dyke was kidnapped by suspected FARC guerrillas in the Darién Gap between Panama and Colombia while hunting for rare orchids, a plant for which he has a particular passion.

He and his travel companion, Paul Winder, were held captive for nine months and threatened with death. He kept himself going by creating a design for a garden containing plants collected on his trips, laid out in the shape of a world map according to their continent of origin.

Tom wrote about his experiences in Colombia in his book, The Cloud Garden. The story of his kidnapping ordeal was dramatised in the Sky1 documentary series “My Holiday Hostage Hell”.

World Garden of Plants

On his return home, Hart Dyke put his design into practice within the walls of the family’s Victorian herb garden. The story of the creation of The World Garden of Plants was the subject of a BBC2 6-episode series, “Save Lullingstone Castle” (KEO Films) in 2006. This was followed by a second 6-episode series, “Return To Lullingstone Castle” on BBC2 in 2007.

In May 2006, Hart Dyke managed to get an Australian Eucalyptus caesia plant (common name Silver Princess) to flower for the first time in the UK. He was inspired by orchids at his first school, St. Michaels, Otford, Kent.

Hart Dyke featured in the PBS Nova programme in 2002, Orchid Hunter that documented his return to hunting rare orchids in dangerous terrain in another politically unstable area in Irian Jaya in the rainforests of Western New Guinea.

Toms books are a fascinating read and a real inspiration and i highly recommend them both. As for the ‘World Garden’ this is developing beautifully now and i enjoy going throughout the season to appreciate differing elements. Well worth a visit, the whole family really welcome you and are happy to talk and explain. Tom’s enthusiasm is infectious and i challenge anyone not to want to pick up a trowel the moment you get home.