As of late there’s just one well-known Mrs Richmond – my buddy the media star Advolly – however I hate to inform her she has, or a minimum of had, a rival!
Who was this different Mrs Richmond ?
Advolly could be very up-to-date. She has a splendid web site, seems on Gardeners’ World and Gardeners’ Query Time, and does podcasts. She’s even began writing for the on-line platform Scribehound. However as a plant and backyard historian she additionally does that extra conventional factor and writes articles and has simply printed a e-book: A Brief Historical past of Flowers. The opposite Mrs R was equally fashionable in her personal day as a gardening columnist for The Queen journal, a contributor to different gardening magazines and creator of a preferred e-book, however regardless of all that she stays a really sketchy determine…
I found the second Mrs Richmond after I noticed a replica of In My Girl’s Backyard first printed in 1908. This described her as “creator of Flowers and Fruit for the House, Three Programs for Threepence and so on” a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society and late Backyard Editor of The Queen. The e-book had a few color plates by Beatrice Parsons, an artist I’ve written about earlier than, and 48 black and white picture plates primarily of flowers, which collectively seemed worthy of a weblog and I assumed it could be straightforward uncover extra.
It hasn’t been, and certainly after I began scripting this put up I’d nearly admitted defeat. Having tried all my typical tips of web looking I’d give you only a few snippets and didn’t even know her title -was she Iris, Ivy or Irene, Ilsa, Isobel or Ina, or was she merely Victorian/ Edwardian spouse and as an alternative utilizing her husband Ian, Ivor or Isaac’s initials?
Ultimately I made a decision to go forward and clarify how I finally tracked down the elusive Mrs R, though even now I nonetheless don’t know a lot. However since my readers are cleverer than me I assumed I’d ask you to rack your brains too and see if we will collectively uncover any extra.
I attempted to trace Mrs R down by way of census returns, with out fairly realising what number of Richmonds there have been! Within the 1891 census there are 5,938 of them however none with the initials I.L. and even plain I. By 1901 there are 8,285 with that household title however once more none with the appropriate initials, and there are none in 1911 both. I drew one other obvious clean within the registers of births, marriages and deaths. One attainable motive for that is that when materials is being digitised it’s achieved by optical machine readers and it’s very straightforward for them to misinterpret textual content, particularly when it’s handwritten. Fortunately the British Newspaper Archive, provided a couple of potential clues.
Let’s begin with what we do know.
The primary references to anybody named I.L. Richmond in print that I might discover is from 1886 when a Mrs I.L.Richmond is talked about because the Honorary Superintendent of a house run by the Woman’s Help Society in Torquay. Sadly I might discover no additional details about the society or the premises talked about so there was no method of checking additional. In 1895 Mrs I.L Richmond wrote an article in The Mom’s Companion about find out how to enthuse youngsters about church and Bible research on Sundays – however once more it contained no helpful leads on find out how to monitor her down.
Extra usefully her title seems as I.L.Richmond with out the Mrs within the third March 1894 difficulty of The Queen ladies’s journal, on the foot of a column labelled “The Backyard”. This was a brief article about orchids and there adopted a number of others that 12 months about unique introductions. One article a minimum of implies that she might need lived in Devonshire. The Queen had carried a gardening column from a minimum of Feb 1890, however earlier than that, so far as I can see it had solely had snippets about gardening and the same old garden-related adverts. Most of those earlier items had been signed Flos. If anybody is aware of any extra about Flos please get in contact.
We all know too that Mrs Richmond was elected a Fellow of the RHS on June twenty fifth 1895
In 1891 a Mrs Richmond of Clare Home, Tiverton in Devon was ridiculed in The Gardening World Illustrated for her proposal to ascertain a “a college for the coaching of girls as gardeners.” Clearly I received very excited as a result of I assumed I’d lastly made a breakthrough. Checking census information for Tiverton there was certainly a Mrs Richmond dwelling “on her personal means” at Clare Home, a considerable villa close to the city centre however sadly she was Julia L not I.L. However I’ve included the editorial as a result of its so humorous. After all if anybody is aware of anymore about her makes an attempt to arrange a coaching college let me know.
By the 1911 census this Mrs R was famous as being the spouse of an Indian Military Colonel and had moved to Lustleigh additionally in Devon That matched up with an earlier small piece within the RHS Journal of 1908 saying that Mrs R of Lustleigh had despatched in a specimen of Moraea iridiodes, [now Dietes iridioides] a South African plant however which she had grown from seed collected in Ceylon.
A search of Biodiversity Heritage Library revealed a number of references to different gardening books by Mrs Richmond, besides sadly they turned out to be by an American modern of Mrs I.L, Mrs Grace S.Richmond.
In 1904 Mrs R recycled a few of her articles from The Queen into a brief e-book, Flowers and Fruit for the House which so far as I can see, isn’t obtainable digitally. The creator was once more merely I.L. Richmond. Gardeners Chronicle reviewed it in a single brief paragraph saying it “will enchantment to those that have an interest within the somewhat gossipy kind of backyard e-book.” Nevertheless, “the creator manages to convey a good quantity of knowledge within the type of the newspaper article and the illustrations are nicely executed.”
The Journal of Horticulture was not fairly so sort. Though it “supplies attention-grabbing studying on a couple of topics appropriate for cultivation by amateurs… The editor would have been nicely suggested to have rewritten among the chapters” already printed and added others similar to “The combined flower border, and annuals. Think about a backyard with out Asters, Shares, Candy Peas, Antirrhinums, Pinks, or Wallflowers, none of that are talked about. …Fruits are handled in 4 chapters, however crucial fruit, particularly the Apple, is omitted.”
Different issues are lined twice: “Liliums have a piece to themselves, in order that it was pointless to take care of them underneath ”Hardy Bulbs.” In the identical method perpetual Strawberries happen in two chapters: one dedicated to them alone, and likewise as small fruits.”
And there have been errors.
For instance “Xanthoceras sorbifolia, we’re advised, is a brand new introduction from China.”
But “the Botanical Journal determine, printed in 1887, was drawn from a plant which flowered within the Cambridge Botanic Backyard the earlier 12 months..”
The opinions concluded “The creator states … motive for writing such a e-book, [is] to offer the beginner with some sensible steerage in selecting one of the best types of vegetation for the house backyard ” [and] additionally to offer particulars of the cultivation essential to success in rising them. This has scarcely been completed.”
Nonetheless the e-book was re-issued in 1907.
Mrs Richmond carried on writing the column till 1908, when she printed In My Girl’s Backyard. The truth that it was printed “by sort permission of the editor of the Queen‘ suggests it too was a compilation of issues she’d already written for them. Now, nevertheless, authorship is acknowledged by Mrs somewhat than plain I.L.
It’s every week by week information for issues to consider within the backyard. Nothing so primary as ‘now could be the time to plant your cabbages’ however because the RHS Journal mentioned: ” The authoress tells us from her personal expertise what to do, and what to anticipate in flower each week for the entire 12 months, the entire being written so clearly that nobody could make any mistake as to the which means or instruction given.”
On the identical she appears to have branched out and written for different. magazines together with Novice Gardening. She additionally took pictures together with this one among a Tiger Lily for William Goldring’s Ebook of the Lily printed in 1905, which leads me to suspect she could nicely have taken the pictures utilized in her personal e-book.
It additionally seems that a number of vegetation have been named after her [or obviously some other Mrs R]. I’ve discovered references to a a tuberous begonia ; a gaillardia that was “carmine edged with white”, and a single pink peony . These have all lengthy vanished from business cultivation and I can’t discover any pictures of them.
Nevertheless, nonetheless in business manufacturing and nonetheless regarded very extremely is a water lily named for her which was awarded an AGM [Award of Garden Merit] by the RHS in 1910.
Gardeners Chronicle featured it September the next 12 months : “This hybrid is without doubt one of the final introductions of the late M. Latour-Marliac, and in its color one of many most interesting Nymphaeas but raised. It could be described as a glorified N. Laydekeri rosea in kind and color. The flower exhibited measured 8 inches in diameter, and it possessed huge and big sepals and a better variety of petals. The color is a vibrant, rosy pink, which deepens with age ; the stamens are of a wealthy golden yellow.” It was exhibited by the James Hudson, the top gardener for Leopold Rothschild, of Gunnersbury Home. Hudon himself then went on to jot down an article for William Robinson’s The Backyard in April 1913 utilizing a lot the identical language earlier than including that ” Its vigour, too, is all that one can want. It has flowered now for 2 seasons with us, and is gaining in vigour.”
The point out 0f Latour-Marliac despatched me looking my cabinets for a e-book by my buddy Caroline Holmes whose Water Lilies and Bory Latour-Marliac, was printed in 2015. She had a few brief paragraphs which point out the plant and Mrs Richmond, and so I received in contact to see what else she would possibly know. It wasn’t fairly EUREKA! however fairly shut.
Mrs Richmond had corresponded with. and have become a buddy of Bory Latour-Marliac, who was the pioneer of water lily hybridising. She had purchased vegetation from him which had been despatched to her residence in, of all locations, Lustleigh in Devon.
In different phrases Mrs Julia L. Richmond have to be one and the identical as Mrs I.L. Richmond.
Caroline was additionally in a position to inform me that from her analysis within the Latour-Marliac archives that Mrs R stayed in touch with Edgard Latour-Marliac who inherited the enterprise after his father died, corresponding a couple of blue water lily. Along with her husband she additionally organized for lodging in Britain for Edgard’s nephew, Camille, when he cameo Britain, and for holding the household up date with information about him. Outgoing letters from the nursery nonetheless largely survive so there could but be extra to be found there.
So why write as I. L. whenever you’re title is Julia L? As I instructed earlier I assumed maybe she used her husband’s initials, so now I attempted to look the Indian Military lists for a hint of him, initially with out success. Neither is he at her tackle on census returns for 1891,1901 or 1911 though he should have nonetheless been alive as Mrs R will not be a widow, and certainly says she has been married for 41 years. That after all gave me a 12 months of marriage so I went again to the Marriage Registers however once more there isn’t a hint, which after all means that if he was in service on the time maybe they married overseas. So again to the census, this time for 1881, the place I tracked down Julia L to the parish of Tormoham in Devon. It seems that Torquay was often known as Tormoham till 1876, so it absolutely should have been her who was the honorary superintendent of the women residence.
Nevertheless at this level Mrs R was dwelling together with her widowed mom, her two sons and – hurrah! – her husband. He had been born in “the Madras presidency” and was a “Main on the Madras workers on energetic service” so was presumably residence on go away. However she hadn’t been utilizing his initials as he was John A Richmond. Additional checking only for the sake of understanding revealed that he retired from the Indian military as a colonel in 1890, and in 1891 he was a lodger in Duke St Mayfair and within the 1901 census as a lodger in Edith Grove Chelsea. I couldn’t discover him within the 1911 census. What was he doing? Perhaps finest to not ask.
So that also leaves the query why write as Mrs I.L when she was truly Mrs J.L? It could possibly hardly have been for anonymity and whereas it might have been a printer’s error if it was simply as soon as, clearly it was her most popular selection. I’m afraid I’ve completely no thought until her title had been written in conventional Latin the place there was initially no J in any respect – and so she would have been iulia Richmond simply as Julius Caesar was iulius . The letter J is a printer’s invention courting from 1528. [For more on that see“There’s No J In Latin, Your Holiness”] In case you have a greater clarification – or certainly any clarification get in contact.
After the publication of In My Girl’s Backyard I can’t discover any additional horticultural mentions of Mrs Richmond, other than the water lily however she does crop up in different, later newspaper reviews in a very totally different context. She was apparently concerned within the Conservative & Unionist Womens Franchise Affiliation which argued for ladies’s suffrage when the majority of the Conservative celebration was opposed on precept to ladies gaining the appropriate to vote. However her ” scrumptious political innocence” was mocked by a feminine anti-suffragist who argued that “the alliance between conservative suffragists and socialists is without doubt one of the most shameful options of the suffrage motion, however typical of what we could count on when ladies vote. They’d gladly promote the Empire tomorrow…”
On the finish of the day maybe her identification doesn’t matter that a lot as a result of like her fashionable counterpart, Mrs. Richmond is as Caroline says ” a pleasure to learn, with wonderful plant descriptions and so on and her gardening recommendation nonetheless holds!”
Julia Richmond died a widow in all probability at Woodlands in Lustleigh, aged 89 in 1929, leaving an property of £1946 with the Public Trustee as her executor, which is stunning as her son John was a solicitor. Anybody who has any extra data please get in contact!
As of late there’s just one well-known Mrs Richmond – my buddy the media star Advolly – however I hate to inform her she has, or a minimum of had, a rival!
Who was this different Mrs Richmond ?
Advolly could be very up-to-date. She has a splendid web site, seems on Gardeners’ World and Gardeners’ Query Time, and does podcasts. She’s even began writing for the on-line platform Scribehound. However as a plant and backyard historian she additionally does that extra conventional factor and writes articles and has simply printed a e-book: A Brief Historical past of Flowers. The opposite Mrs R was equally fashionable in her personal day as a gardening columnist for The Queen journal, a contributor to different gardening magazines and creator of a preferred e-book, however regardless of all that she stays a really sketchy determine…
I found the second Mrs Richmond after I noticed a replica of In My Girl’s Backyard first printed in 1908. This described her as “creator of Flowers and Fruit for the House, Three Programs for Threepence and so on” a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society and late Backyard Editor of The Queen. The e-book had a few color plates by Beatrice Parsons, an artist I’ve written about earlier than, and 48 black and white picture plates primarily of flowers, which collectively seemed worthy of a weblog and I assumed it could be straightforward uncover extra.
It hasn’t been, and certainly after I began scripting this put up I’d nearly admitted defeat. Having tried all my typical tips of web looking I’d give you only a few snippets and didn’t even know her title -was she Iris, Ivy or Irene, Ilsa, Isobel or Ina, or was she merely Victorian/ Edwardian spouse and as an alternative utilizing her husband Ian, Ivor or Isaac’s initials?
Ultimately I made a decision to go forward and clarify how I finally tracked down the elusive Mrs R, though even now I nonetheless don’t know a lot. However since my readers are cleverer than me I assumed I’d ask you to rack your brains too and see if we will collectively uncover any extra.
I attempted to trace Mrs R down by way of census returns, with out fairly realising what number of Richmonds there have been! Within the 1891 census there are 5,938 of them however none with the initials I.L. and even plain I. By 1901 there are 8,285 with that household title however once more none with the appropriate initials, and there are none in 1911 both. I drew one other obvious clean within the registers of births, marriages and deaths. One attainable motive for that is that when materials is being digitised it’s achieved by optical machine readers and it’s very straightforward for them to misinterpret textual content, particularly when it’s handwritten. Fortunately the British Newspaper Archive, provided a couple of potential clues.
Let’s begin with what we do know.
The primary references to anybody named I.L. Richmond in print that I might discover is from 1886 when a Mrs I.L.Richmond is talked about because the Honorary Superintendent of a house run by the Woman’s Help Society in Torquay. Sadly I might discover no additional details about the society or the premises talked about so there was no method of checking additional. In 1895 Mrs I.L Richmond wrote an article in The Mom’s Companion about find out how to enthuse youngsters about church and Bible research on Sundays – however once more it contained no helpful leads on find out how to monitor her down.
Extra usefully her title seems as I.L.Richmond with out the Mrs within the third March 1894 difficulty of The Queen ladies’s journal, on the foot of a column labelled “The Backyard”. This was a brief article about orchids and there adopted a number of others that 12 months about unique introductions. One article a minimum of implies that she might need lived in Devonshire. The Queen had carried a gardening column from a minimum of Feb 1890, however earlier than that, so far as I can see it had solely had snippets about gardening and the same old garden-related adverts. Most of those earlier items had been signed Flos. If anybody is aware of any extra about Flos please get in contact.
We all know too that Mrs Richmond was elected a Fellow of the RHS on June twenty fifth 1895
In 1891 a Mrs Richmond of Clare Home, Tiverton in Devon was ridiculed in The Gardening World Illustrated for her proposal to ascertain a “a college for the coaching of girls as gardeners.” Clearly I received very excited as a result of I assumed I’d lastly made a breakthrough. Checking census information for Tiverton there was certainly a Mrs Richmond dwelling “on her personal means” at Clare Home, a considerable villa close to the city centre however sadly she was Julia L not I.L. However I’ve included the editorial as a result of its so humorous. After all if anybody is aware of anymore about her makes an attempt to arrange a coaching college let me know.
By the 1911 census this Mrs R was famous as being the spouse of an Indian Military Colonel and had moved to Lustleigh additionally in Devon That matched up with an earlier small piece within the RHS Journal of 1908 saying that Mrs R of Lustleigh had despatched in a specimen of Moraea iridiodes, [now Dietes iridioides] a South African plant however which she had grown from seed collected in Ceylon.
A search of Biodiversity Heritage Library revealed a number of references to different gardening books by Mrs Richmond, besides sadly they turned out to be by an American modern of Mrs I.L, Mrs Grace S.Richmond.
In 1904 Mrs R recycled a few of her articles from The Queen into a brief e-book, Flowers and Fruit for the House which so far as I can see, isn’t obtainable digitally. The creator was once more merely I.L. Richmond. Gardeners Chronicle reviewed it in a single brief paragraph saying it “will enchantment to those that have an interest within the somewhat gossipy kind of backyard e-book.” Nevertheless, “the creator manages to convey a good quantity of knowledge within the type of the newspaper article and the illustrations are nicely executed.”
The Journal of Horticulture was not fairly so sort. Though it “supplies attention-grabbing studying on a couple of topics appropriate for cultivation by amateurs… The editor would have been nicely suggested to have rewritten among the chapters” already printed and added others similar to “The combined flower border, and annuals. Think about a backyard with out Asters, Shares, Candy Peas, Antirrhinums, Pinks, or Wallflowers, none of that are talked about. …Fruits are handled in 4 chapters, however crucial fruit, particularly the Apple, is omitted.”
Different issues are lined twice: “Liliums have a piece to themselves, in order that it was pointless to take care of them underneath ”Hardy Bulbs.” In the identical method perpetual Strawberries happen in two chapters: one dedicated to them alone, and likewise as small fruits.”
And there have been errors.
For instance “Xanthoceras sorbifolia, we’re advised, is a brand new introduction from China.”
But “the Botanical Journal determine, printed in 1887, was drawn from a plant which flowered within the Cambridge Botanic Backyard the earlier 12 months..”
The opinions concluded “The creator states … motive for writing such a e-book, [is] to offer the beginner with some sensible steerage in selecting one of the best types of vegetation for the house backyard ” [and] additionally to offer particulars of the cultivation essential to success in rising them. This has scarcely been completed.”
Nonetheless the e-book was re-issued in 1907.
Mrs Richmond carried on writing the column till 1908, when she printed In My Girl’s Backyard. The truth that it was printed “by sort permission of the editor of the Queen‘ suggests it too was a compilation of issues she’d already written for them. Now, nevertheless, authorship is acknowledged by Mrs somewhat than plain I.L.
It’s every week by week information for issues to consider within the backyard. Nothing so primary as ‘now could be the time to plant your cabbages’ however because the RHS Journal mentioned: ” The authoress tells us from her personal expertise what to do, and what to anticipate in flower each week for the entire 12 months, the entire being written so clearly that nobody could make any mistake as to the which means or instruction given.”
On the identical she appears to have branched out and written for different. magazines together with Novice Gardening. She additionally took pictures together with this one among a Tiger Lily for William Goldring’s Ebook of the Lily printed in 1905, which leads me to suspect she could nicely have taken the pictures utilized in her personal e-book.
It additionally seems that a number of vegetation have been named after her [or obviously some other Mrs R]. I’ve discovered references to a a tuberous begonia ; a gaillardia that was “carmine edged with white”, and a single pink peony . These have all lengthy vanished from business cultivation and I can’t discover any pictures of them.
Nevertheless, nonetheless in business manufacturing and nonetheless regarded very extremely is a water lily named for her which was awarded an AGM [Award of Garden Merit] by the RHS in 1910.
Gardeners Chronicle featured it September the next 12 months : “This hybrid is without doubt one of the final introductions of the late M. Latour-Marliac, and in its color one of many most interesting Nymphaeas but raised. It could be described as a glorified N. Laydekeri rosea in kind and color. The flower exhibited measured 8 inches in diameter, and it possessed huge and big sepals and a better variety of petals. The color is a vibrant, rosy pink, which deepens with age ; the stamens are of a wealthy golden yellow.” It was exhibited by the James Hudson, the top gardener for Leopold Rothschild, of Gunnersbury Home. Hudon himself then went on to jot down an article for William Robinson’s The Backyard in April 1913 utilizing a lot the identical language earlier than including that ” Its vigour, too, is all that one can want. It has flowered now for 2 seasons with us, and is gaining in vigour.”
The point out 0f Latour-Marliac despatched me looking my cabinets for a e-book by my buddy Caroline Holmes whose Water Lilies and Bory Latour-Marliac, was printed in 2015. She had a few brief paragraphs which point out the plant and Mrs Richmond, and so I received in contact to see what else she would possibly know. It wasn’t fairly EUREKA! however fairly shut.
Mrs Richmond had corresponded with. and have become a buddy of Bory Latour-Marliac, who was the pioneer of water lily hybridising. She had purchased vegetation from him which had been despatched to her residence in, of all locations, Lustleigh in Devon.
In different phrases Mrs Julia L. Richmond have to be one and the identical as Mrs I.L. Richmond.
Caroline was additionally in a position to inform me that from her analysis within the Latour-Marliac archives that Mrs R stayed in touch with Edgard Latour-Marliac who inherited the enterprise after his father died, corresponding a couple of blue water lily. Along with her husband she additionally organized for lodging in Britain for Edgard’s nephew, Camille, when he cameo Britain, and for holding the household up date with information about him. Outgoing letters from the nursery nonetheless largely survive so there could but be extra to be found there.
So why write as I. L. whenever you’re title is Julia L? As I instructed earlier I assumed maybe she used her husband’s initials, so now I attempted to look the Indian Military lists for a hint of him, initially with out success. Neither is he at her tackle on census returns for 1891,1901 or 1911 though he should have nonetheless been alive as Mrs R will not be a widow, and certainly says she has been married for 41 years. That after all gave me a 12 months of marriage so I went again to the Marriage Registers however once more there isn’t a hint, which after all means that if he was in service on the time maybe they married overseas. So again to the census, this time for 1881, the place I tracked down Julia L to the parish of Tormoham in Devon. It seems that Torquay was often known as Tormoham till 1876, so it absolutely should have been her who was the honorary superintendent of the women residence.
Nevertheless at this level Mrs R was dwelling together with her widowed mom, her two sons and – hurrah! – her husband. He had been born in “the Madras presidency” and was a “Main on the Madras workers on energetic service” so was presumably residence on go away. However she hadn’t been utilizing his initials as he was John A Richmond. Additional checking only for the sake of understanding revealed that he retired from the Indian military as a colonel in 1890, and in 1891 he was a lodger in Duke St Mayfair and within the 1901 census as a lodger in Edith Grove Chelsea. I couldn’t discover him within the 1911 census. What was he doing? Perhaps finest to not ask.
So that also leaves the query why write as Mrs I.L when she was truly Mrs J.L? It could possibly hardly have been for anonymity and whereas it might have been a printer’s error if it was simply as soon as, clearly it was her most popular selection. I’m afraid I’ve completely no thought until her title had been written in conventional Latin the place there was initially no J in any respect – and so she would have been iulia Richmond simply as Julius Caesar was iulius . The letter J is a printer’s invention courting from 1528. [For more on that see“There’s No J In Latin, Your Holiness”] In case you have a greater clarification – or certainly any clarification get in contact.
After the publication of In My Girl’s Backyard I can’t discover any additional horticultural mentions of Mrs Richmond, other than the water lily however she does crop up in different, later newspaper reviews in a very totally different context. She was apparently concerned within the Conservative & Unionist Womens Franchise Affiliation which argued for ladies’s suffrage when the majority of the Conservative celebration was opposed on precept to ladies gaining the appropriate to vote. However her ” scrumptious political innocence” was mocked by a feminine anti-suffragist who argued that “the alliance between conservative suffragists and socialists is without doubt one of the most shameful options of the suffrage motion, however typical of what we could count on when ladies vote. They’d gladly promote the Empire tomorrow…”
On the finish of the day maybe her identification doesn’t matter that a lot as a result of like her fashionable counterpart, Mrs. Richmond is as Caroline says ” a pleasure to learn, with wonderful plant descriptions and so on and her gardening recommendation nonetheless holds!”
Julia Richmond died a widow in all probability at Woodlands in Lustleigh, aged 89 in 1929, leaving an property of £1946 with the Public Trustee as her executor, which is stunning as her son John was a solicitor. Anybody who has any extra data please get in contact!