The Daffodil Growers
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Jenny Asquith
Narcissus 'Mrs R.O. Backhouse'Many might be surprised to learn that it was only as recently as the mid-19th century that daffodils began to be bred for garden use in Britain. With a growing global empire, exploration and industrial expansion bringing more wealth and leisure to many in Britain, the number of amateur and commercial botanists was increasing, as was the variety of horticultural books and journals.
The daffodil ‘Mrs R.O. Backhouse' achieved instant fame in the gardening world for being the first with a pink cup and white perianth. Still on sale today, the daffodil was the culmination of more than 20 years' experimentation by a pioneering married couple, Robert and Sarah Backhouse.
Together at Sutton Court in Herefordshire, the Backhouses pursued a variety of interests, although ‘apart from hunting, archery, photography and breeding cats, plant breeding was their whole life' (Davis, 1990, p.63).
Robert named the daffodil in 1923 in honour of his late wife, Sarah Elizabeth, née Dodgson (1857-1921), who was renowned for her daffodil varieties. The Backhouses also had great success in hybridising lilies: Lilium marhan ‘Mrs R.O. Backhouse' is still available.
Robert Ormston Backhouse (1854-1940) himself came from an extensive family of naturalists in northern England - his father and grandfather (both William Backhouse, 1779-1844 and 1807-1869) were well known in botanical circles.
Robert's father had hybridised daffodils and two of his brothers, Charles and Henry, also raised daffodils. His son, William Ormston Backhouse (1885-1962), continued the family interest both in Argentina and in retirement at Sutton Court. His daffodil, ‘W.P. Milner' is also still on sale today.
Robert's father died in 1869. His daffodil collection, along with that of Edward Leeds, was acquired by Peter Barr, a London nurseryman, who developed, with others, a new classification system for narcissus, which Barr used in Ye Narcissus or Daffodyl Flowere, containing his history and culture, etc. This list of all known varieties was published to coincide with the RHS special conference on daffodils, held on April 1st 1884.
Sarah Backhouse won prizes for her daffodils. She gained an award from the Royal Horticultural Society in 1901 for ‘Moonbeam', an RHS Bronze Medal in 1905 and the Barr Cup in 1916. She was particularly known for producing new varieties of red-cupped daffodils.
In an ‘In Memoriam' in The Garden magazine of 19 February 1921, it was said of Mrs Backhouse: ‘Few of the famous raisers of new varieties were less known on committees or at meetings, and it was not very often that she staged many flowers in public, but when she did, it was something like a revelation to see what was there' (Jacob).
On the same page, another obituary writer, Engleheart wrote: ‘To all English flower-lovers of the best and most essentially English flower of Spring, the death of Mrs R.O. Backhouse will have brought a sense of irreplaceable loss'.
Sources
Dalton, J., ‘From banks to bulbs', The Garden, March 1997, p.156-9.
Davis, P., ‘The Backhouses of Weardale, Co. Durham', Garden History, 18.1 (1990) 57-67.
Davis, P., ‘Backhouse Family, naturalists and horticulturalists', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb.com [accessed 14 March 2008]
Engleheart, ‘Mrs R.O. Backhouse - in Memoriam', The Garden, vol LXXXV, 19 February 1921, p. 96.
Jacob, J., ‘Mrs R.O. Backhouse - in Memoriam', The Garden, vol LXXXV, 19 February 1921, p96.
Further reading
Coleman, C.F., Hardy Bulbs Vol. 2: Daffodils, Tulips and Hyacinths (Penguin Books in collaboration with the Royal Horticultural Society, 1964).
Desmond, R., with the assistance of Ellwood, C., Dictionary of British and Irish botanists and horticulturalists (London:Taylor & Francis/The Natural History Museum, 1994).
Hadfield, M., Harling, R., Highton, L., British Gardeners - a biographical dictionary (London: A. Zwemmer Ltd./Condé Nast Publications Ltd., 1980).
Jefferson-Brown, The Daffodil - its History, Varieties and Cultivation (Faber and Faber, 1951).
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Anglesey Abbey England, Lode.
Formal and landscaped gardens of 47 hectares (116 acres) dating from 1926 onwards, surround the former 13th-century Augustinian priory. The garden features a notable collection of statuary, herbaceous borders, a dahlia garden, island shrub beds, and arboretums of conifers and deciduous trees.
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Birkenhead Park England, Wirral.
Birkenhead Park is a mid-19th-century public park occupying 90 hectares. It features parkland, woodland and meadows as well as two lakes and sports facilities.
It is reputed to be the oldest public park in England, and elements of its design occur in Central Park, New York.
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Claremont England, Esher.
Claremont has 18th-century landscaped pleasure grounds and a park. Features include a lake, amphitheatre, grotto and water pavilion.
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Craig y parc Wales, Cardiff.
The house and garden are integrated into a strongly axial design, taking full advantage of the southward slope. The garden survives in its entirety, is well preserved, and is a very good example of this type of architectural Edwardian garden.
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Hall Place, Bexley England, Dartford.
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Hestercombe England, Taunton.
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Howick England, Alnwick.
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Iscoyd Park Wales, Grindley Brook.
Iscoyd Park is a complete, small 18th-century park, although its origins could be much earlier. It has fine specimen trees such as oak, beech and sycamore, and a pond with a mount next to it. The park was enlarged in the 19th century and boundary oak paling erected at that time. There are pleasure grounds around the house.
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Little Sodbury Manor England, South Gloucestershire.
Little Sodbury Manor is a garden on a 15th-century site. There are a number of gardens, including a formal garden and a sunken garden. There are also ponds, a kitchen garden, bowling green and many mature trees.
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Prior Park England, Bath.
Prior Park is a landscaped pleasure grounds and park, laid out from 1734 on by Ralph Allen with advice from Pope to 1743. There are terraced balustraded steps by Goodridge, dating from 1834. These replaced terraces by Allen and Pope. Other features include a Palladian bridge, two gate lodges and a grotto.
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Sydney Gardens England, Bath.
Sydney Gardens occupy a 4 hectare elongated hexagon-shaped site in a residential area to the north-east of Bath. The gardens were opened as a public pleasure ground on the 11th May 1795. They have since been subject to a series of alterations.
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Mayfield Park England, Southampton.
Mayfield Park is a municipal park in the south-east of Southampton with wooded gardens, a walled garden and playing fields.
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Dumbleton Old Hall England, Dumbleton.
The site has humps and hollows in a grass field, the remains of a formal garden which surrounded the 1690s house. An engraving of Dumbleton Hall by Johannes Kip in 1712 shows a formal landscape. A new information panel shows very clearly where the original canals and walkways shown in the Kip engraving were.
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Glandyfi Castle Wales, Machynlleth.
Glandyfi Castle is a Regency gothic castle built on a commanding site overlooking the Dyfi estuary. It has a walled kitchen garden, a setting of mature deciduous woodland, exotic shrubs, lawns and borders.
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Easton Lodge Gardens England, Bishop's Stortford.
The gardens of Easton Lodge, designed by Harold Peto in 1902, include an Italianate garden, Japanese garden, formal lawns and flower beds, and a rose walk. The gardens have been under restoration since the 1970s.
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Glyn Aur Wales, Abergwili, Carmarthen.
Glyn Aur was a cottage garden with extensive topiary, much of it representing biblical figures and events. It was sometimes known as the Garden of Eden. The garden was open in its heyday but is now sadly lost. There are, however, a number of old postcards based on photographs taken by the then owner, which show the full glory of the topiary.
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Brooksby Hall England, Melton Mowbray.
Brooksby Hall is set in 31 acres of grounds, sloping northwards down to the River Wreake. The estate is the country campus of Brooksby Melton College of Further Education and offers training in a wide range of country skills. It was formerly the county agricultural college. The Hall, originally a late 16th Century country house, was extended in the late 19th century. It houses administrative offices for the College as well as offering conference, banqueting and wedding facilities. In the grounds to the south of the Hall, is the Church of St Michael, which dominates the landscape. Modern college buildings, dating from the 1950s to 1970s are located to the north and east of the Hall. The gardens, which are informal in style, include a lake and a stream. The wide range of planting reflects the College's status as a horticultural college.
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Glenfall House England, Charlton Kings.
Glenfall House has a stream garden through a glen with waterfalls. It is partly accessible under Defra's Farm Conservation Scheme until September 2014. The garden has been supplemented by terraces designed by Norman Jewson.
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James Backhouse (3) was a nurseryman and alpine specialist active in the 19th century. He was a member of the noted Backhouse family of horticulturalists and naturalists and a member of the Society of Friends.
Backhouse was born in Darlington, England on 8 July 1794, the son of James Backhouse (2) (1757-1804).
In 1815, together with his brother, Thomas Backhouse (1792-1845), James Backhouse established James Backhouse & Son of York (and later of Leeds), a plant nursery first based at Telford Nursery, York, on what was once the old York Friars Gardens owned by the Telford family.
James married Deborah Lowe (1793-1827) of Worcester in November 1822. Deborah had been very ill when she was young, and suffered ill-health after her marriage to James. She died at the age of 34 on 10 December 1827, and was memorialised by her husband in A Memoir of Deborah Backhouse of York, 1828.
In 1831, Backhouse embarked on a combined missionary tour and plant collecting expedition of Australia, Mauritius and southern Africa, leaving his two young children in the care of family. During his decade abroad, he corresponded with his friends and family in England, including his brother Thomas who was managing and developing the nursery in his absence.
In 1851, together with his son, James (4) (1825-1890), he travelled to Norway. The two also toured the Arctic Circle and several parts of Great Britain in search of plants. Backhouse died in 1869.
Sources:
Backhouse, James, A Memoir of Deborah Backhouse of York; Who Died the Tenth of the Twelfth Month, 1827; Aged Thirty-four Years (W. Alexander & Son, York, 1828).
Davis, Peter, ?Backhouse family (per. c.1770–1945)?, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/56500> [accessed
21 Nov 2008]- 'The Backhouses of Weardale, Co. Durham, and Sutton Court, Hereford: Their Botanical and Horticultural Interests', Garden History, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Spring, 1990), pp. 57-68.
Hadfield, Miles, Robert Harling and Leonine Highton, British Gardeners: A Biographical Dictionary (London: A. Zwemmer Ltd., 1980), p. 19.
Further reading:
Mary Bartram Trott, 'Backhouse, James (1794 - 1869)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1 (Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp 45-46.
Also online at: Mary Bartram Trott, 'Backhouse, James (1794 - 1869)', Australian Dictionary of Biography at http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010042b.htm [accessed 12/01/2009] .
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Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, 4th Earl of Cork
Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, was an architect and garden designer, a major landowner in Ireland and in England, and a great patron of the arts, active in the 18th century.
In England he had houses at Londesborough, in London's Piccadilly and at Chiswick. Boyle was born at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, England on 25 April 1694. He died on 3 December 1753 at Chiswick and was buried in the family vault at Londesborough on 15 December 1753. Boyle is particularly noted for his patronage of William Kent and for his promotion of the revival of the Palladian style.
Sources:
Colvin, Howard, A Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 3rd edition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 147-152.
Kingsbury, Pamela Denman, ?Boyle, Richard, third earl of Burlington and fourth earl of Cork (1694–1753)?, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3136> [accessed 21 Nov 2008]
Further Reading:
Carre, Jacques, 'Lord Burlington's Garden at Chiswick', Garden History, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Summer, 1973), pp. 23-30.
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