Fanny Wilkinson 1855 – 1951
Feminist, landscape gardener.
6 June 1855 – 22 January 1951
Fanny Wilkinson: A Tribute by Sue McCarthy
Many of London’s open spaces, from tiny triangles between streets to some of our largest parks, were laid out and landscaped by Fanny Rollo Wilkinson, England’s first female professional Landscape gardener. Today, around 47% of the Greater London area is open space and London is technically a forest with almost as many trees as there are people.[1] Fanny Wilkinson was at the forefront of greening the city.
Born in Manchester on 6 June 1855 into a prosperous family, Fanny came to London in 1881 to study for a professional qualification. She moved to Bloomsbury in 1885 and retained her connections there. During her long life she became the first woman to gain a professional qualification as a landscape gardener, designed more than 75 of the capital’s parks and open spaces, took her own private clients, contributed to a sustained campaign to establish a women’s horticultural college, served as its principal for 15 years and was a founder member of the Women’s Agricultural and Horticultural International Association.
Landscape Gardener
Although domestic gardening was an acceptable interest for a woman, Fanny’s decision to undertake professional training in landscape gardening was exceptional. In April 1881, the Crystal Palace Company had proudly announced in the London press that they were to open a new division of their School of Art, Science, and Literature – the School of Gardening and Practical Floriculture designed particularly for the educational training or preparation by practical instruction of young men intending to be professional gardeners or nurserymen’.[2] By July of the same year, another notice appeared announcing that ‘In consequence of numerous applications, (special arrangements had been made) for the admission of lady student’[3]. We don’t know if all those applications were made by Fanny Wilkinson or on her behalf, but we do know that she became the first and at the time, the only woman on the course. Fanny left very little in the way of letters or papers and nothing to indicate why she chose landscape gardening other than an interview she gave to a reporter from the Women’s Penny Post in 1890: I was always fond of gardening as a child… When my father died we went to live at our own place, near York, and there I began to devote myself to gardening in a practical way.[4] Their ‘own place’ was Middlethorpe Hall near York Racecourse. Now a smart spa hotel, it was then a large country house and estate with extensive grounds over twenty acres, so not your average suburban garden!
The Crystal Palace course was run by Edward Milner and his son Henry; Milner senior had worked with Sir Joseph Paxton to landscape the exterior gardens and park of the Crystal Palace. The course was hard work and technically complex. It was described as ‘…divided thus: Six months work in Division 11 (This was practical gardening and floriculture.), six months’ surveying and office work, 12 months’ practical professional work.’[5] In the 1890 interview Fanny confirmed that it involved surveying, marking out and levelling land, drawing plans to scale, and making estimates. While she found the work and the circumstances difficult, Fanny enjoyed it and was one of the most successful students. In 1884, the Norwood News reported that some students had already obtained posts of public importance. ‘One was a short time since appointed landscape gardener to the Kyrle Society, and is besides employed now on works going forward for the London Boulevard and Open Spaces Society, of which Lord Brabazon is chairman’.[6] This was Fanny Wilkinson who was to continue her association with the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association (MPGA), as the Metropolitan Public Gardens, Boulevard and Playground Association became known, until 1904 during which time she designed an extraordinary number of the capital’s parks, playgrounds and open spaces while also running a successful private practice and training apprentices.
Both the Kyrle Society and the MPGA, worked to create open spaces and playgrounds often through transforming disused burial grounds and graveyards. The Kyrle Society, established by Octavia Hill and her sister Miranda, in 1877, had paved the way for this by successfully lobbying for an act of parliament to enable local authorities to use public funds to maintain disused burial grounds as open spaces. As this was only a part of the Kyrle Society’s wider-ranging aim to ‘bring beauty to the lives of the poor’, Lord Brabazon (later the Earl of Meath) established the MPGA to make the most of the opportunities afforded by the 1881 Metropolitan Open Spaces Act. Fanny’s appointment was proposed by Lord Brabazon and seconded by Miss Gladstone, the MPGA’s Honorary Secretary. While redoubtable Isabella Gladstone (later and better known as Mrs Basil Holmes) was scouring the capital, peering at maps and over walls to locate disused burial grounds, Fanny Wilkinson was surveying and drawing up plans for those that the MPGA considered transforming.
Green Lungs for London
Fanny Wilkinson is best known for the large commissions that she undertook, Vauxhall Park, Myatt’s Field in Camberwell and Meath Gardens in Bethnal Green. Rightly so. It was an extraordinary achievement for a woman at that time to design and manage the landscaping of parks on that scale (Meath Gardens is 14 acres) with responsibility for a large budget and a workforce of over 200 men (again Meath Gardens). But they were not typical of her work.
In the 20 years she was with the MPGA Fanny Wilkinson laid out gardens all over London from Haverstock Hill in the north to Camberwell in the South and from Wandsworth in the west to Plaistow in the east. Much of her work was on a smaller scale such as the disused burial ground of St George, Bloomsbury which, historian Elizabeth Crawford, who has done more than anyone to bring Fanny Wilkinson’s achievements to public notice, believes was among her earliest involvement with the Kyrle Society. She landscaped many London squares, including Red Lion Square in Holborn.
Trees were always important, often the robust London Planes or Trees of Heaven and where possible drinking fountains would be included, so piped water also needed to be factored into the plans. But not all her work resulted in grassy spaces. Through the MPGA she also designed small, asphalted playgrounds for children as in Seward Street, Islington. The MPGA was keen to reduce pollution through planting street trees and Fanny supervised planting along roads in Holborn and other parts of London. In 1899/1900 she wrote a leaflet promoting planting street trees and advising on their maintenance that was sent to all the London local authorities.
One of the small spaces Fanny proposed the MPGA might layout has recently been transformed again. Princes Circus is directly below her first Bloomsbury home, 15 Bloomsbury Street (now 241 Shaftesbury Avenue).
The Metropolitan Board of Work are now making a new street from Theobalds Road to Piccadilly Circus (Shaftesbury Avenue) and this open space in Bloomsbury Street is left. If some trees were planted and seats placed on it, it would be a great boon to this crowded neighbourhood.
The Blue Plaque commemorating Fanny Wilkinson (just visible between the first floor windows to the far left) overlooks this recent re-landscaping by Camden Council. The seating, hard surfaces and planting are modern equivalents of the type she used and recommended. I suspect that lights in the trees would not have occurred to her. But I hope that she would have approved!
photos courtesy Sue McCarthy
I know my profession and charge accordingly…
Initially appointed to the MPGA as an honorary landscape gardener Fanny quickly negotiated with them to ‘drop the ‘hon’ and make a charge that would fully cover all expenses’.
Somehow, Fanny also found the time to take private clients. In Bloomsbury, these included the London School of Medicine for Women and the New Hospital for Women (later the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital). Both these projects were closely associated with the Garretts.
In the Women’s Penny Paper interview she explained I certainly do not let myself be underpaid as many women do. There are people who write to me because I am a woman, and think I will ask less than a man. That I will never do. I know my profession and charge accordingly, as all women should do…
Networking
Fanny was closely linked to the Garretts, in particular to Agnes and Millicent. This may have inspired her choice of career and she certainly shared their feminist principles. When she moved to what was then 15 Bloomsbury Street (now 241 Shaftesbury Avenue) in 1885, two of her sisters already had links to Bloomsbury. The apartment was large enough for herself, her sisters Louisa, Jean, and Gladys, as well as a cook and a housemaid.[7] Louisa would move with Fanny in 1896 to 6 Gower Street, next door but one to Agnes Garrett and Millicent Fawcett. Louisa was an artist and professional bookbinder. She was close enough to the family to help nurse Henry Fawcett, Millicent’s husband, through diphtheria a couple of years before his death. Louisa Wilkinson later married George, younger brother of Elizabeth, Agnes and Millicent.
Fanny’s most prestigious project through the Kyrle Society was to lay out Vauxhall Park in the late 1880s. This eight and a half acre site included the former London home of Millicent and her Henry Fawcett. A public campaign after his death, led by Millicent and supported by Octavia Hill, saved the land from development and raised funds to create the park which was opened in 1900 by the Prince of Wales. Also present was Emma Cons, founder of Morley College, first woman Alderman of the London County Council and a staunch supporter of horticultural training for women, in particular of their admission to Swanley Horticultural College.
Training the next generation
Fanny Wilkinson’s own path to gaining her professional training had been fraught with challenges and she was committed to supporting other women to train in the profession. While working for the MPGA, she took pupils. For this she charged ‘not less than £100 a year’ to compensate for the time and trouble. One of her pupils was Emmeline Sieveking, whose father Edward Sieveking, was physician in ordinary to Queen Victoria and a supporter of higher education for women. Emmeline later became Fanny’s assistant and joined the formidable group of women who managed to turn Swanley Horticultural College in Kent from an all-male establishment to a women’s college within 10 years. Later still, she became Fanny’s sister-in-law when she married Fanny’s brother Matthew.
Fanny had been active in the campaign to secure women’s admission to Swanley from the outset, as had Emmeline, Emmeline’s father, Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Emma Cons. In 1882, Emma Cons at the age of 56, spent some weeks at the college with a friend, working alongside the male students to ‘prove’ that such study and physical work was not injurious to women’s health, thus paving the way for the first female student. Dr Garrett Anderson and Dr Sieveking, both members of Swanley’s Council, also extolled the health benefits of horticultural training for women. A women’s section was established with a single student and within five years women students outnumbered men. Within ten years Swanley had become a women’s college. When the male Principal resigned because, ‘the views of the ladies who hold a prominent position on the board are materially divergent from my own’,[8] and his successor was conscripted to serve in the army, it was Fanny’s brother Matthew who stepped in to fill the breach. In 1902, Fanny was appointed as Principal, a position she held until 1916, and again in 1921-22.
Back in Bloomsbury
From its inception in 1899, Fanny Wilkinson was an active member of the Women’s Agricultural and Horticultural International Union. The Union had been formed during an international women’s conference held in London. It established diplomas to standardise the courses offered by an increasing number of horticultural institutions and during the First World War, repositioned itself to help the war effort by recruiting women for agricultural work and changed its name the Women’s Farm and Garden Union. After the war it merged with its sister organisation, the Women’s Land Army and opened a members’ club. In the 1930s the club and the Union moved to Bloomsbury to the former home of the first hall of residence for women students in London in Byng Place.
After Swanley, Fanny Wilkinson retired to Suffolk near her sister, Louisa and bred goats. She continued to attend meetings in London, staying at the club in Byng Place.
When the national Register was compiled in September 1939 in preparation for the Second World War, Fanny R Wilkinson – Landscape Gardener (retired), and aged 74 was back in Bloomsbury, heading the entry for the club in Byng Place.
References
Elizabeth Crawford, Enterprising Women, The Garretts and their Circle (Francis Boutle Publishers, 2002)
Paul Wood, London is a Forest (Quadrille Publishing Company, 2022)
Women’s Penny Paper, Vol.III, No.107, 8 November, 1890)
Opitz, Donald L.. (2013) ‘A Triumph of Brains over Brute’: Women and Science at the Horticultural College, Swanley, 1890-1910. Isis. 30-62.
https://via.library.depaul.edu/snl-faculty-pubs/45
British Newspaper Archive – on line
Sue McCarthy has been a walking tour guide for 10 years. She has a particular interest in women’s history and is currently developing a walk that highlights the work of Fanny Wilkinson and Isabella Gladstone. https://capitalwalksinlondon.com/
[1] Paul Wood, London is a Forest, 2022
[2] South London Press 9 April 1881
[3] Morning Post 6 July 1881
[4] Women’s Penny Paper, Vol.III, No.107, 8 November 1890
[5] South London Press 9 April 1881
[6] Norwood News Saturday 24 May 1884
[7] 1891 Census
[8] Opitz, Donald L.. (2013) ‘A Triumph of Brains over Brute’: Women and Science at the Horticultural College, Swanley, 1890-1910. Isis. 30-62.
https://via.library.depaul.edu/snl-faculty-pubs/45
photos courtesy Sue McCarthy
Read and listen to:
A London Plane Tree by Amy Levy celebrating the plane tree: Amy Levy – Pascal Theatre Company (pascal-theatre.com)
The Trees are Down by Charlotte Mew Charlotte Mew – Pascal Theatre Company (pascal-theatre.com) bemoaning the cutting down of plane trees.
MINI BIOGRAPHY
Education
Educated privately and abroad.
1882-1883 Studied at the Crystal Palace School of Landscape Gardening and Practical Horticulture as their first female student, being accepted after meeting strong opposition to a woman joining the course.
Some Key Achievements and Interests
At the forefront of making the horticulture industry more inclusive.
1883 Qualified as the first professional female landscape gardener in England.
1884 Appointed as an honorary landscape gardener to the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association (MPGA) which gave people gardens and playgrounds.
1886 Succeeded in changing this ‘honorary’ position to a professional position with salary.
1880s Became landscape gardener for the Kryle Society set up by Miranda and Octavia Hill fighting to save public spaces from development and create spaces that gave ‘pleasure to the poor’. The Metropolitan Open Space Act 1881 meant that disused burial grounds could transfer to local authorities for upkeep and public funds used to maintain them as public gardens.
Designed more than 75 parks and gardens across London including Red Lion Square Gardens, Holborn (1885) and Vauxhall Park which opened in 1890.
Designed and was responsible for the upkeep of the garden at the London School of Medicine for Women – see Sophia Jex Blake: Sophia Jex Blake – Pascal Theatre Company (pascal-theatre.com).
Promoted the planting of plane trees as suitable for urban areas improving the quality of the air, their bark absorbing pollution and shedding without the whole tree being adversely affected.
1888 Fought for more working opportunities for women as well as equal pay and respect as a member of the Central Committee of Women’s Suffrage.
1899 Founder member of the Women’s Agricultural and Horticultural International Union (which later became the Women’s Land Army).
1904 First woman principal of Swanley Horticultural College, Kent.
Issues
Men working under her instruction were often reluctant to respect her.
“Special arrangements” had to be made for her to go to the School of Gardening at the Crystal Palace since she was a woman.
She had to fight to be paid, and on equal terms to men.
Connection to Bloomsbury
1885-1896 Lived and worked at 15 Bloomsbury Street (now 239-241 Shaftesbury Avenue) and later 6 Gower Street.
Female networks include
Strong friendship with Agnes and Rhoda Garrett and Millicent Garrett Fawcett who pioneered the professionalisation of work for women.
Assistant Emmeline Sievieken.
Legacy
2022 Blue plaque to her erected at 239 Shaftesbury Avenue.
Further reading:
Crawford, Elizabeth, Enterprising Women The Garretts and their Circle, London, Francis Boutle, 2002.
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/fanny-wilkinson/