The Tradescants
David Marsh
- Region:
- Anywhere
- Notice Period:
- Emergency (maybe less than one week's notice)
- Type:
- Professional/academic/Hobby/Rotary/sometimes charity
- Fee:
- Paid: 100 online , more for travelling depending on distance etc
- Category:
- History
- Updated:
- 30th January 2023
John Tradescant and his son, also John. They were an extraordinary pair: Gardeners to the aristocracy and royalty in the 17thc, as well as plant hunters, nurserymen and founders of the first museum to be open to the public. Famous in their own lifetimes, and continuously in the centuries since, their lives have even been romanticised by a modern novelist.
John senior worked for the Cecil family at Hatfield, and later the Duke of Buckingham, the royal favourite, and travelled to Europe buying plants for their gardens. He accompanied diplomats to northern Russia in 1618, with a naval fleet to North Africa in 1620, and on the military expedition to La Rochelle in 1627, using these opportunities to collecting plants and interesting objects. In the early 1630s he not only became a royal gardener but set up a nursery in Lambeth, publishing a catalogue of available plants, and opening his collection of curiosities to the public.
John junior worked alongside his father and in 1637 went to Virginia to collect plants. He succeeded his father a royal gardener a post he lost because of the Civil War. He published a catalogue of their museum which also included plants in the nursery.
The pair are buried in the same grave in the grounds of St Mary’s lambeth, which is now the Garden Museum.
Views: 507 | Enquiries: 1About David Marsh
I've been lecturing "live" and on-line about every aspect of the history of gardens, landscapes, as well as plant hunting /plants/botany for more than 25 years to gardens clubs, U3A groups, and to museums like the V&A & across higher education. I discovered the subject because after a career as a head teacher I took very early retirement and went back into education full time on my own account. I did a four year diploma course in Garden History which led on to an MA in Historical Research and then a PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London on The Gardens and Gardeners of Later Stuart London.
I was a trustee of The Gardens Trust, the national campaigning body for the protection and support of our historic parks, gardens and designed landscapes and chaired their education committee from 2016 until 2023. I also write a weekly blog for them which you can find at thegardenstrust.blog
I've run courses on the history of gardens [and many other things] at Birkbeck and City Lit. I'm currently an honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and run a Masters Course in Garden History as well as offering supervision to PhD students.
If all that sounds posh - rest assured I'm not!
Other Talks on SpeakerNet by David Marsh
- The Little Men in Red Hats
- Castles for Cows & Palaces for Poultry
- What Made Your Garden Grow?
- The Joys [and Problems!] of Making a Garden in France
- The History of the London Square
- Plants on Paper: A Potted History of Botanical Art
- The Opposite of Chelsea: The Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire
- The National Botanic Gardens of Burma
- Humphry Repton: Britain’s First Landscape Gardener
- Tools of the Trade
- Puzzle Pictures
- The Elephant in the Garden
- The History of the Cottage Garden
- The palaces of Tudor London and their gardens...and their beasts!
- The Great Geranium Robbery
- An Introduction to Tudor and Stuart Gardens
- The Loudons
- The Picturesque
- Moorfields: The Story of London's First Public Park
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