This Gardens Trust series of four online talks introduces more unsung women gardeners, on Tuesdays from March 22 – April 12, at 10 am Greenwich Mean Time, which means 6 am Eastern. However, a link to the recorded session will be sent and available for one week should you choose not to get up that early. This ticket costs £16 for the entire course of 4 sessions or you may purchase a ticket for individual sessions for £5 each through Eventbrite. The first series was completely engaging – we highly recommend.
Week one covers Charlotte Wheeler Cuffe, with David Marsh. Within a few months of marrying Otway Wheeler-Cuffe, a military engineer, Charlotte Williams found herself in a tiny colonial outpost in the far north of newly conquered Burma. A keen gardener and painter, she was soon bored of the usual pastimes of imperial wives and took up plant-hunting in the largely unexplored mountains and forests around the base. This was to lead to her becoming the key player in the founding of the National Botanic Garden of Burma – the last botanic garden to be founded in the empire and one done by a group of private individuals.
After a career as a head teacher in Inner London, David Marsh took very early retirement (the best thing he ever did) and returned to education on his own account and did an MA and then a PhD in garden history. Now he lectures on garden history anywhere that will listen to him and helps organize the Garden History Seminar at London University’s Institute of Historical Research. He is co-chair of the Education and Events Committee of The Gardens Trust, for whom he organizes courses and writes a weekly garden history blog which you can find at The Gardens Trust Blog.
Week two’s talk is The Well-Connected Gardener, Alicia Amherst, Founder of Garden History, with Sun Minter. Alicia Amherst was a woman of remarkable gifts and energy. Not only was she passionate about plants and gardens, being both an observant botanist and a very practical gardener, she was active in politics, becoming prominent in the British Women’s Emigration Association and, after World War I, in the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women. Her seminal book, A History of Gardening in England, was enormously influential in its time whilst London Parks and Gardens (1907) and Historic Gardens of England (1938) are important historical records, the first of which has never really been superseded in the comprehensive treatment of its subject. She was the recipient of many honours during her lifetime, but the one which gave her the greatest pleasure was being given the freedom of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners in 1896.
Week three is The Amazing Life of Taki Handa, with Jill Raggett.
This talk will tell the story of several unconventional women who stepped outside their social norms to go on adventures overseas but in particular focuses on the Japanese teacher and horticulturist Handa Taki (1871-1956). It will uncover the research process used to understand how it came to be that in the early 1900s there was a Japanese woman with the relevant skills in Britain to act as garden designer for Ella Christie and ‘wave a magic wand’ over the garden at Cowden, Scotland, but that was only the start of Handa’s fascinating life.
Jill Raggett is a long-time member of the Japanese Garden Society and has studied historic Japanese-style gardens in Britain and Ireland for the last 30 years. She is an Emeritus Reader in Gardens and Designed Landscapes and is a tutor and assessor for the Royal Horticultural Society’s Master of Horticulture qualification. Jill is normally to be found in her garden trying to find a place for one more plant.
The final talk, on April 12, is From Hairy Leaves to a White Cat: Lady Anne Monson (1726 – 1776) and Lady Mary Coke (1727 – 1811) with Dr. Catherine Horwood.
This talk examines the lives of Lady Anne Monson (1726-1776) and Lady Mary Coke (1727-1811), one a plantswoman, the other a gardener, and explores the way in which society scandals and horticultural friendships shaped these women’s experiences in the long 18th century.
Dr Catherine Horwood is an experienced speaker and the author of many books on social history including Gardening Women. Their Stories from 1600 to the Present (Virago, 2010) and Potted History – How Houseplants Took Over Our Homes (Pimpernel Press, 2020). Her biography Beth Chatto: A Life with Plants (Pimpernel Press, 2019) was selected as the European Garden Book of the Year in 2020.
Register HERE.
