The Great and The Good: October 2012

22 October 2012

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.

16 October 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.

10 October 2012

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’.