William
Robinson was born in Ireland either in the Queen's
County or in County Dublin. He was a Protestant with a
very "humble" background and nothing known of his
earliest years. He is thought to have had an
elementary education at the parish school.
Robinson became a "garden-boy" to Sir Hunt
Johnson-Walsh, a graduate of Dublin University and an
outstanding vicar. Robinson became the foreman of the
garden at the ate of 21 years and thereby had control
over large conservatories and hothouses. At the age of
23 he went to London and shortly became foreman of the
herbaceous section of the Royal Botanic Society's
Garden in Regents Park. At 29 he became a
representative of the great nursery garden firm of
Veitch. He also became special horticulture
correspondent of the London Times to the Paris
Exhibition in 1867. His articles in the Times made him
the outstanding gardening authority in Great
Britain.
He published:
Gleanings from French Gardens, Parks, Promanades
and Gardens of Paris (1869)
Alpine Flowers for English Gardens (1870)
The Wild Garden or Our Own Groves and Shrubbery's
Made Beautiful (1870)
He founded a weekly paper called The Garden
which went through more than 50 half-yearly volumes.
In 1879 Robinson founded a second weekly paper called
Gardening. It was an immediate and overwhelming
success.
He published in 1911 a folio volume provided by the
Oxford University on hand made paper bound in white
vellum called Gravetye Manor or Twenty Year's Work
Round on Old Manor House. This book is comprised
of extracts from his diary. In 1883 he published the
first edition of The English Flower Garden. The
preparation of new editions kept him continuously busy
for the remaining years of his life. In 1899 he gave
up the editorship of The Garden and established a
periodical entitled Flora and Silva. This was
discontinued in 1905. The last edition of The
English Flower Garden was edited and revised by
Roy Hay, Editor of Gardener's Chronicle in
1956.
Robinson's work was a guide to real gardeners from
the time of its publication in 1883 for more than 30
years. Actually the 16th and last edition revised and
edited by Hay contains an excellent discussion of
gardens and various species and cultivars of plants
grown in English gardens.
Roy Hay in the 16th edition states that "William
Robinson initiated a revolution in gardening. In his
own inimitable way he poured scorn on the formal
bedding out of plants of the Victorians; and directed
the thoughts of gardeners towards the more informal
and natural trends of garden making. Robinson's
teachings are more appropriate today than they ever
have been. There is less money available for garden
maintenance than ever. Laborers are more difficult to
get. Thoroughly trained gardeners are becoming scarcer
as that the elaborate bedding schemes of the
Victorians are even further out of our reach than they
were when Robinson began to present his famous
doctrines."
I have found Robinson's 16th edition (1956) very
valuable in presenting the adaptability of many
species of plants and cultivars to soil and climate.
No student of British or American horticulture is
well-informed unless he knows something of the life
and times of William Robinson and his influences of
changing English horticulture. Robinson's translation
of a vegetable gardening book entitled The
Vegetable Garden is also a very interesting
textbook.
