The Brotherhood of Free Gardeners
Celebrating National Gardening Week
I’ve scheduled this post to send while I’m away because I didn’t want to miss National Gardening Week, which runs in the UK from 28 April. I like having a garden, but I don’t always have the patience to look after it properly. I particularly enjoy growing fruit and vegetables - there’s something very satisfying about consuming produce from your own garden. Last year I sowed my seeds too early and they failed to germinate, so this year I’ve waited until now, and I hope when I come back to see a few little green shoots appearing.
My father was good at gardens. We moved into newly built houses several times and for each new home, he created a garden from scratch. You can see a couple of ‘before and after’ photos in my post about living in Harlow. He probably inherited his gift from his grandfather, George Smythe, who was put to work as a gardener’s boy in 1866, aged twelve, at Haddo House in Aberdeenshire.
George went on to become head gardener to the Marquis of Huntly in Aboyne and won numerous prizes for his fruit and vegetables.
George Smythe was a gardener, but he was not a Free Gardener. On the other hand, my Cornish great-great grandfather, Sharrock Dupen, was a ship’s steward, and he was a Free Gardener. In June 1844 he rode at the head of a colourful anniversary procession in Hayle.
So what was the Society of Free Gardeners? Founded in Scotland in the seventeenth century by professional gardeners, it evolved to become, like the Oddfellows and Foresters, one of the many Victorian Friendly Societies. These offered working men a combination of social activities, rather like the Freemasons, but also mutual insurance against burial expenses, sickness, unemployment, or old age. With the arrival of the welfare state, the need for self-help declined and the Free Gardeners disappeared almost completely. I wrote about them for the Journal of Victorian Culture and if you click on the link, you can read the full article and see some of the wonderful regalia.