Nathanial Ward (1791-1868)

The Wardian Case is a simple construction of wood and glass, best known for the display of ferns in Victorian drawing rooms, but without it there would have been no tea in India or bananas in Fiji, no quinine to stop the spread of malaria throughout the British Empire, no lucrative colonial rubber industry and no begonias in our window boxes.

Nathanial Bagshaw Ward was the son of Stephen Smith Ward, a doctor practicing at Wellclose Square, a deprived area of Whitechapel in London.  He was apprenticed as an apothecary and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1814, and later took over his father’s medical practice.  He was professionally active, being a Master of the Society of Apothecaries, a founding member of the Microscopical Society, a member of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, a fellow of the Linnean Society, a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the gardens subcommittee of the Chelsea Physic Garden.  He was also a keen naturalist and amateur botanist, escaping the fog and grime of the East End for the countryside as often as work allowed.

It was Ward’s interest in natural history that led to his eponymous invention.  On one of his excursions to the countryside, he collected the chrysalis of a Sphinx moth, hoping to hatch the moth and add a perfect specimen to his collection.  He put the chrysalis into a glass jar with a little soil and closed the lid.  After a few days, Ward noticed that seedlings were beginning to germinate in the jar and he observed them growing happily, in contrast to the plants in his garden which refused to thrive in the smoky and polluted atmosphere of the London docks.  Ward continued his experiment, keeping his seedlings in the jar in a north-facing part of the garden, loosely covered with a tin lid.  For three years the plants survived without ever being watered.  It was only when the lid rusted and allowed rain to come in that the plants eventually died.

 
Ward had inadvertently stumbled upon the idea of a self-sustaining microclimate where the moisture taken up from the soil through the roots of a plant evaporates through the leaves and condenses on the inside of a glass case then drips back down into the soil for the cycle to be repeated.  He realised that, so long as a little fresh air is allowed to circulate, the case is positioned in daylight and the correct amount of moisture is present in the soil, the plants within will thrive.  This discovery prompted the construction of the first Wardian case in 1833.
 

The impact of this simple invention was immense.  Working with Loddiges nursery, Ward trialled his cases for use in transporting living plants from overseas.  Plant hunters had been exploring far-flung parts of the globe for centuries but bringing viable specimens home had always been a problem.   Many attempts ended in failure due to the conditions on board ship where fragile plants were subjected to extremes of temperature, salty air, wind and sun.  Precious specimens were at the mercy of indifferent crews who were reluctant to share their fresh water and often stowed the crates below deck for the duration of the voyage.  In 1833, Ward loaded a ship bound for Australia with two crates of native British ferns.  Surviving the treacherous Cape Horn and passing through the Tropics, the ferns arrived in Sydney alive and healthy.  The cases were unpacked and reloaded for the return journey with native Australian ferns which arrived in Britain in a similarly healthy state.

 

This revolutionised the transportation of plants and transformed the design of gardens, bringing hundreds of new species into cultivation in Britain, giving rise to the bedding system and prompting crazes for ferns, orchids and rhododendrons.  Ward’s cases were endorsed by the horticultural elite, with recommendations by such eminent botanists as Sir William Hooker, Director of Kew Gardens, who wrote to Ward in 1842: ‘I can have no hesitation in saying that your invention has been the means of introducing a great number of new and valuable plants to our gardens, from very distant countries, which would otherwise still have remained unknown to us.’

The Wardian case proved an ideal way to grow ferns and was instrumental in the Victorian Fern Craze.  Fashionable drawing rooms were adorned with an ornamental Fern Case, designed using the principles of Ward’s case and embellished with finials and architectural details on the outside and rockwork, fountains and fishponds within.  Protected from the industrial atmosphere of the towns, as well as the coal and gas fumes of the drawing room, prize specimens of ferns and foliage plants could thrive in a suitable case.  Even the poor could participate by growing native species in a simple glass bottle, and Ward noted the comfort which could be derived from green plants amid the urban drab.

The impact of the Wardian case spread much further than gardens.  The economy of the emerging Empire was boosted by the growth of the rubber industry as plants were exported from Brazil to the colonies, and the tea plant was taken from China to India where it was introduced with great commercial success.  Medical science was given a boost when the cinchona tree (from which quinine is produced) was successfully transported from South America to the developing counties where it was used in the treatment of malaria.

The Wardian case was used for the transportation of live plants until the 1950s when it was superseded by air freight.  Experiments with double glazing and other modern methods were tried but Ward’s original design – single-glazed, shaded from extremes of sun, and with limited ventilation – was never bettered.

Further reading:

Caroline Ikin, The Victorian Garden, 2012
Nathanial Ward, On the Growth of Plants in Closely Glazed Cases, 1842
Sarah Whittingham, Fern Fever: The Story of Pteridomania, 2012

Elizabeth Murray (1626-1698)

A woman of ruthless social and political ambition, Elizabeth Murray gained notoriety as a seventeenth century double agent, using her charms to entertain Oliver Cromwell, and all the while remaining loyal to the exiled King Charles II.

Elizabeth Murray was born in 1626, the eldest daughter of William Murray and Catherine Bruce.  Her father grew up with Charles I and fulfilled the role of ‘whipping boy’, being punished on behalf of the future king.  William was appointed Gentleman of the Bedchamber in 1625 and was a loyal supporter of Charles I during the Civil War, and was created Earl of Dysart in 1651.

Elizabeth was a determined child with an enquiring mind, and her parents gave her an intellectual education, embracing mathematics, philosophy, divinity and history.  She grew into an attractive and ambitious woman, her red hair indicative of her fiery temperament and dominant manner.  She married an unassuming but rich Suffolk landowner, Sir Lionel Tollemache, in 1648 and gave birth to eleven children, five of whom survived to adulthood.

After her mother’s death in 1649, she held court at her parent’s home, Ham House, conveniently situated on the River Thames between Whitehall and Hampton Court.  It was here that Elizabeth charmed Oliver Cromwell, while working for the secret society, The Sealed Knot.  Despite her husband’s entreaties to give up her dangerous espionage, she travelled on the continent, passing coded messages to the exiled king and his supporters, operating under the pseudonym ‘Mrs Legge’.

Elizabeth was justly rewarded for her loyalty, and was given a pension of £800 a year when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660.  She had inherited suo jure her father’s title on his death in 1655 and her position as a woman of power and influence attracted the attention of John Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale, who was Secretary of State for Scotland and a loyal supporter of the king.  He was a man of great intellect, and equal ruthlessness.

When Lionel Tollemache died in 1669, Elizabeth’s friendship with Lauderdale became closer.  Lauderdale’s wife died in 1671 and within four months of her funeral he and Elizabeth were married.  A few months later, in May 1672, Lauderdale was made a duke and the couple were at the height of their power and prestige, matching each other in reputation and ambition.  They lived in ostentatious splendour, remodelling Ham House and their lodgings at Whitehall, as well as their three Scottish properties and apartments at Holyrood Palace.  They introduced the latest interior fashions from France and laid out splendid gardens designed to impress.  At Ham House, a suite of rooms was fitted out with lavish decorations to accommodate Queen Catherine of Braganza, the wife of Charles II.  Elizabeth ensured that her presence was dominant in these ostentatious rooms by emblazoning her initials and cypher onto silverwork, marquetry and scagliola, impressing her power on the queen and other favoured guests.

With such power came opposition, and there were accusations of greed and corruption, arrogance and haughtiness.  A contemporary commentator presented a provocative image of Lauderdale: ‘[he] made but an ill appearance, his hair red, his tongue too big for his mouth, and his whole manner rough’.  Elizabeth’s character was expressed by the derisory statement: ‘She was violent in everything she set about, a violent friend, but a still more violent enemy’.

Inevitably, Elizabeth and Lauderdale were to fall from grace.  Lauderdale suffered a stroke, was forced to resign from office and was deprived of his positions and pensions.  He died in 1682 and Elizabeth was left alone at Ham House, locked in a bitter legal dispute with Lauderdale’s family over the duke’s funeral expenses.  Their extravagance and excess had come at a cost, and Elizabeth was faced with huge debts, forcing her to mortgage Ham House and sell her silver and jewels.  Her sisters had all died, her two younger sons were killed in battle in 1694 and her other children lived too far away for companionship.  Crippled by gout, she lived her final years alone and reclusive at Ham House and died there in 1698.

Further reading:

Rosemary Baird, Mistress of the House: Great Ladies and Grand Houses 1670-1830, 2004

Susan Bracken et al, Women Patrons and Collectors, 2012

Christopher Rowell, Ham House, 1995

Charles Blondin (1824-1897)

The history of funambulation reaches back to the Ancient Greeks, but it is tightrope walker Charles Blondin who is remembered for his remarkable crossing of Niagara Falls.

Jean-François Émile Gravelet was born near St Omar in France in 1824, changing his name to Charles Blondin in 1851.  He took an early interest in tightrope walking, and at five years old was enrolled at the École de Gymnase in Lyons, a prestigious school for acrobatic training.  Within six months he had made his first public appearance, billed as ‘The Little Wonder’.

When he was ten years old, Blondin’s father died, prompting him to leave school and join the circus.  He performed all over Europe as part of various troupes until in 1851 he joined the famous Ravel family of acrobats and toured America.  While in New York, he met Charlotte, whom he married in 1853, and their first three children were born on tour.  In 1858 he visited Niagara Falls and determined to cross the famous waterfall on a tightrope.  The stunt took over a year to plan: permission was at first denied and financing proved difficult as no-one believed the crossing possible.

On 30 June 1859 a rope was strung 340 metres across Niagara Falls, nearly 50 metres above the water.  Watched by a crowd of over 10,000 people, Blondin walked from the American to the Canadian side of the Falls in 17 minutes, stopping halfway to lie down for a rest.  Over the next few weeks, eight further crossings were promoted, each incorporating various thrilling stunts: walking blindfolded, on stilts, pushing a wheelbarrow, taking photographs, carrying his manager on his back, pulling up a drink from a boat moored below, sitting down midway to cook and eat an omelette.

The Prince of Wales, on a tour of America and Canada in 1860, had watched Blondin cross Niagara Falls and invited him to perform in London.  In 1861, Blondin came to Britain, recreating his famous Niagara Falls stunts at the Crystal Palace with a rope stretched across the central transept 20 metres above the ground.  He toured the provinces, performing with a sack over his head at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, pushing a lion in a wheelbarrow in Liverpool and surviving a broken rope in Dublin.

Blondin had gained considerable fame and enough money to buy a large house in Finchley Road in London, which he named ‘Niagara Villa’.  His showmanship continued with tours of Europe, South America, India, Australia and New Zealand.  In 1879 an unknown financial disaster prompted the sale of his house and a move to a more modest home in Ealing, followed by further performances in Europe, Ceylon and New York.

His wife died in 1888 and in 1895 he married Catherine, who had nursed him following a back injury sustained at a performance in Blackpool.  The Great Blondin’s final performance was at Belfast in 1896, aged 72.  The following year he died and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.

Further reading:

George Linnaeus Banks, Blondin: His Life and Performances, 2012 (reprint of 1862 text)

Ken Wilson, Everybody’s Heard of Blondin, 1990

Edwin Budding (1795-1846)

His name may not be well-known, but Edwin Budding had a profound and lasting impact on gardens and gardeners across Britain through one invention: the lawnmower.

Edwin Beard Budding was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire in 1795, the illegitimate son of a yeoman farmer.  He was well educated and showed a propensity for solving technical problems, which led him to work as a pattern maker in the iron foundries and a machinist in the cotton mills.

Prior to his invention of the lawnmower in 1830, Budding designed a pistol more technically advanced than Colt’s patent of 1836, an adjustable spanner and a lathe, while also engineering improvements to the machinery used in the cotton industry.

Budding’s idea for a lawnmower came from his work in the cotton mills, where a napping machine used blades to shear excess fibres from the surface of cloth.  Budding adapted this principle to a machine which could be operated by a single person to cut grass evenly and efficiently.

Budding’s original design is easily recognisable in lawnmowers used today.  His machine was nineteen inches wide, made of wrought iron and was powered by pushing a roller which drove the gears to move a rotating cutting cylinder, with another roller in between which could be adjusted to alter the height of the blades.  The mower was pushed from behind and the clippings were collected in a tray at the front.

The design was patented in 1830 and Budding went into partnership with John Ferrabee to produce his mowing machine, reputedly carrying out trials on his own lawn under cover of darkness.  Ferrabee was the owner of Pheonix Iron Works and was able to contribute expertise in licencing and sales, while Budding concentrated on design and engineering.  In 1832 Ransomes of Ipswich, the leading manufacturer of agricultural plough shares, was granted a licence to wholesale Budding’s mower, and the increased marketing capacity attracted buyers across the country.

The range of mowers was extended, with larger and smaller sizes added and an additional handle fixed to the front of the mower to allow it to be pulled as well as pushed.  By 1840 over 1,000 mowers had been sold.  Budding was aware of the success of his invention but was not to see the full ramifications on British society, as he died in 1846 following a stroke.

Prior to the introduction of Budding’s lawnmower, grass had been cut using a scythe by teams of labourers rising early in the morning to work while the grass was wet.  The piles of cuttings would be collected later in the day, often by women and children.  This work was laborious, poorly paid and considered among the lowliest of garden tasks.  The lawnmower was to revolutionise this aspect of garden work.

Various improvements were made to Budding’s original design, including adapting the machine to be drawn by a horse to cover large areas, reducing the overall weight, and lessening the noise of operation.  With the introduction of cast iron, intricate and uniform parts could be mass-produced, reducing costs and standardising quality.  By the 1860s, lawnmowers had become affordable, reliable and easy to use and offered a labour-saving innovation to the gardening profession.  The technology was also employed in the care of sports fields and public parks, and was integral to the popularity of lawn tennis, introduced in the 1870s.

The impact of the lawnmower spread much wider than the professional gardener or groundsman.  As Budding himself suggested in an article published in 1832 in the Gardener’s Magazine, ‘Country gentlemen may find, in using my machine themselves, an amusing, useful and healthy exercise.’  The aspirant Victorian middle classes embraced the fashionable hobby of gardening and created a distinctive garden style.  The lawnmower had brought the aristocratic status of a lawn within easy reach of the ordinary person, and the perfectly manicured lawn became a ubiquitous feature of suburbia.  Lawnmowers were marketed to ladies and amateurs, and have been used by them ever since.

Further reading:

David Halford, Old Lawnmowers, 2008

Caroline Ikin, The Victorian Garden, 2012

Marianne North (1830-1890)

The botanical paintings of Marianne North are bold, decisive, passionate and unconventional – rather like the woman who painted them.

Marianne North was born into a respectable family in 1830, the eldest daughter of Frederick North, Liberal MP for Hastings.  She was taught to sing and paint and travelled in Europe like most young ladies of her generation but, unlike her contemporaries, she was not preparing herself for marriage.

On her mother’s death in 1855, North became the devoted companion of her father, having promised her mother she would never leave him.  Father and daughter shared a love of natural history and botany and travelled together around the Mediterranean.  On regular visits to Kew Gardens, North was intrigued by the collections of exotic flora, and longed to travel further afield to see tropical plants growing in the wild.

In 1869, North’s father died and, aged 40, her adventures began.  As an independently wealthy woman, armed with letters of introduction and a pioneering spirit, North set off on a series of trips around the world, which would take her to America, Canada, Jamaica, Brazil, Tenerife, Japan, Singapore, Borneo, Java, Sri Lanka and India.  Charles Darwin, a friend of her father, urged her to visit Australia and New Zealand, which she did, adding journeys to South Africa, the Seychelles and Chile, where she fulfilled a longing to paint the remarkable forests of Monkey Puzzle trees.

North had discovered oil painting in 1869 and found it a revelation, so much more suited to her purposes than the delicate watercolours used by other botanical artists.  Her mission on travelling abroad was to record plants growing in their natural habitat: her paintings feature animals and insects, include background landscapes and the character of the terrain, and present an accurate record of the whole ecosystem.  Botanists, among them Joseph Hooker, then Director of Kew Gardens, praised her work for its role in recording the flora and habitats already being lost through the destruction of native forests.

In the course of her travels, North discovered a new genus and four new species of plant, all of which are named after her in recognition of her achievement. 

Having amassed several hundred paintings, North decided to give the collection to Kew Gardens.  She offered to build a gallery where the public could marvel at the exotic delights of the natural world while taking a rest and enjoying a cup of tea.  Joseph Hooker accepted her offer, but the refreshments were ruled out, scholars and botanists having no need for such respite.

Opened in 1882, the gallery was designed by the architectural historian James Fergusson and paid for by North.  The inauspicious exterior belies the riches within, where 832 of North’s paintings are arranged geographically around the walls like an over-sized stamp album, dazzling the visitor with their jewel-like colour and detail.  She surpasses her intention to educate by sharing her delight in the beauty and complexity of plants and creating a sense of wonder at the richness of the natural world.

North eschewed luxury on her trips and endured rough terrain, swarms of insects and long journeys on horseback to reach the plants she sought to paint.  She avoided the social niceties of the English traveller abroad, preferring to travel alone off the beaten track, revelling in adventure and befriending natives.  An unconventional woman, she described herself as a heathen and viewed marriage as an unnecessary restriction, considering the role of a wife to be no more than an upper servant.

Marianne North returned from her final voyage in 1885.  Failing health imposed her retirement and she settled in a cottage in Gloucestershire where she continued to paint and created a garden full of unusual plants raised from cuttings from Kew. She relived her adventurous years through writing an autobiography, Recollections of a Happy Life, published after her death in 1890.

Further reading:

Marianne North, Recollections of a Happy Life Vols I and II, 2012

Michelle Payne, Marianne North: A Very Intrepid Painter, 2011

Laura Ponsonby, Marianne North at Kew Gardens, 1994

Oliver Messel (1904-1978)

Oliver Messel is best known as a theatre designer, but is remarkable for the diversity of his work, his creative talents being applied to ballet and opera, cookbooks and shoe shops.

He was born in January 1904 into a prosperous and artistic family, the third child of Leonard and Maud Messel.  His father was a partner in the family banking firm and his mother was the daughter of Edward Linley Sambourne, the Punch cartoonist.  His early artistic talents were encouraged: he enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1922, was apprenticed to the portrait and landscape painter John Wells, and exhibited as a painter throughout his career.

Building on his penchant for dressing-up and fancy dress parties, he began to make papier maché masks, and it was at an exhibition of these masks that his work came to the attention of two impresarios, and was to mark the beginning of his long career in theatre: Sergei Diaghilev commissioned him to design for the Ballets Russes and Charles Cochran for his popular revues.

His sets and costumes were graceful and romantic, drawing on the elegance of the eighteenth century and imbued with a whimsical charm.  His work in theatre, ballet and opera delighted his audiences and applause resonated as soon as the curtain lifted.  This popularity was translated into financial success and Messel became the highest paid theatre designer in Britain and the first to receive a percentage of box office takings.

The glamour of film appealed and in 1934 Messel was commissioned to design costumes and sets for The Private Life of Don Juan, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Merle Oberon, paving the way to the bright lights of Hollywood.

On the outbreak World War II, Messel joined the Royal Engineers as a Camouflage Officer, stationed in Norwich.  His skills as a set designer were redeployed to disguise pill-boxes, which Messel accomplished with inimitable flair, recreating haystacks, ruined buildings, gothic temples and gypsy caravans.

When peace was declared, the first post-war production at the Royal Opera House was Sleeping Beauty, staged in February 1946.  Messel fashioned a sumptuous set, designing over two hundred costumes and all the scenery, creating an enchanting evocation of tradition and elegance which suited the mood of the nation.  The production was revived over a number of years, travelled to America, was filmed and shown on television, and was recreated in 2006 to mark the 60^th anniversary of the re-opening of the Opera House.

In 1950, Messel designed his first opera at Glyndebourne, and continued working with the opera house for the next ten years.  As with all his commissions, he researched his subject thoroughly, creating costumes and sets which enhanced the music and immersed the audience.  His costumes were also practical, comfortable to wear and durable.  Acknowledging the artistry and artifice of theatre, he used unconventional materials to create the effects he envisaged, including pipe-cleaners, sweet wrappers, chandelier drops and dishcloths.

Success brought awards, and Messel received the CBE in 1958 for services to theatre, a Tony award in 1955 and an Oscar nomination in 1960.  However, by the mid-1950s, tastes in theatre were changing and Messel’s dreamy elegance did not lend itself to the staging of kitchen sink dramas.  He turned his attention to interior design, working for friends and private clients, including at Parham House and Flaxley Abbey, and designing textiles for the silk-manufacturer Sekers.  In 1953, he was commissioned to decorate two new suites at the Dorchester Hotel in London.  Employing his own brand of subtle Regency sophistication, comfortable yet opulent, these rooms were to become the most sought-after in London, and are now known as the Messel Suite.

Following a holiday to Barbados in the winter of 1959, Messel decided to move to the island, finding an affinity with the climate and the people.  In 1966 he sold his London home and moved with his companion Vagn Riis-Hansen to Barbados, where he transformed a derelict plantation house into a stylish residence, filling it with his favourite pet monkeys.  This house, known as ‘Maddox’, was greatly admired and led to commissions all over the island.  Messel designed seventeen houses, mainly in Barbados but also on other islands in the West Indies, including ‘Les Jolies Eaux’ on Mustique for Princess Margaret, who had married Messel’s nephew Anthony Armstrong-Jones.  The particular shade of green which characterised his designs has become immortalised as ‘Messel green’.

Oliver Messel died in Barbados in July 1978 and his body was returned to Nymans, the family home in West Sussex.  His ashes are interred in the Wall Garden at Nymans where his life is commemorated by a stone urn.  At the memorial service held at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the bishop commended Messel and gave thanks for ‘the divine gift which he possessed of taking the common things of earth and fashioning them into objects of rare and enduring beauty’.

Further reading:

Charles Castle, Oliver Messel, 1986

Thomas Messel (ed), Oliver Messel: In the Theatre of Design, 2011