By Thomas Rutter
The full article ‘William Pamplin: Nurseryman of Lavender Hill’ appeared in The London Gardener journal (v26).
William Pamplin (1765- 1844) is today not a name known to most. Yet he was once a celebrated nurseryman acquainted with some of the leading lights in the horticultural world. Pamplin’s diaries, donated to the Garden Museum Archive, cover the period 1827–1841 and paint a vivid picture of the life and times of a Regency nurseryman.
On the expiry of his lease on the Pine Apple Nursery in c.1826 on the Kings Road, Pamplin moved his enterprise south of the Thames to what Robert Sweet described as ‘the more airy and healthy situation of Lavender-hill, in the Wandsworth-road, at a pleasant distance from London, and where the choice herbaceous, and other plants, may be expected to thrive much better than nearer the smoke of the metropolis’.[1]
Pamplin’s diaries describe not only his growing and purveying of plants but document a range of activities that suggest that metropolitan nurserymen were imaginative and resourceful at a time of great horticultural extravagance. Pamplin was, moreover, like other successful contemporary nurserymen, a shrewd entrepreneur, as all successful nurserymen of the time had to be, seeking patronage and business through any number of different means to overcome the financial challenges that came with running a London plant nursery. He wore several hats: plant and seed seller, soft landscaper, offered garden maintenance to clients, door to door salesman and writer.
Clients of Pamplin included Francis Chantrey, the eminent sculptor, who failed to pay his debts causing Pamplin much distress. Viscount Palmerston, who would go on to become Prime Minister in 1855, was another customer, as was the future Archbishop of Canterbury, John Bird Sumner. Quite the roster of names.
Like many of his fellow metropolitan nurserymen, Pamplin specialised in purveying unknown and unusual plants. Pamplin promoted his nursery as stocking the ‘choicest sorts’. Indeed, references in his diaries suggest that he acquired and sold novel species and varieties, including several that would have been recent arrivals to Great Britain in the early nineteenth century. One such plant was Clarkia pulchella, known as ‘Fair Flowering Clarkia’ at the time. This pink wildflower has distinctive three-lobed petals and was introduced to Great Britain in 1826 by David Douglas, following an expedition to northwest United States.[2] This approach was an inducement to the consumer looking for something rare and exciting. Among the more unfamiliar plants at the time that Pamplin cultivated and sold were: Pieris japonica, Calycanthus praecox, and Kalmia latifolia.[3]
Where Pamplin differed from his contemporaries was in the cultivation and supply of rare and obscure British plants. His focus on native flora was at the time unusual. Pamplin’s son, the botanist William Pamplin Junior, was fundamental to this endeavour. He later became a celebrated botanical publisher, bookseller and agent for exchange and distribution of seeds, plants and herbarium specimens, and had a lifelong interest in plants indigenous to the British Isles. One of his father’s diary entries from June 1831 records how he foraged for plants: ‘William left home at ¼ past five for an excursion into Kent in search of plants. May the Great God of Heaven and Earth be his guide and protector and bring him home in health and safety’.[4]
Network building was crucial for the success of Pamplin’s nursery business, and his diaries show that he did indeed value close relationships with others in the trade. There are many instances recorded in his diaries that demonstrate that his efforts proved worthwhile, enumerating meetings with individuals who provided either information or plant products. One such contact was William Anderson. Pamplin wrote of one of their meetings in 1827: ‘This afternoon Mr William Anderson, Curator to the Apothecaries Company at Chelsea Garden came to see me and staid [sic] to tea. This was a great treat both to me and my son William. He being very friendly to me and has assisted me much with various little plants and has taught William a great deal in the science of botany’.[5] Unfortunately, there is no record of what these ‘little plants’ were.
The Pamplin Archive provides much information not only with regard to garden history, but paints a vivid picture of regency life in London during the 1830s and 1840s. His story, I think, is one that deserves to be told.
To read the full article, as seen in The London Gardener journal (v26), please click here.
With thanks to Garden Museum Volunteer Philip Norman for his help and support.
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