Loddinges
9.2Loddiges
George Loddiges (1784/1786 – 5 May 1846) was a British gardener, artist, and naturalist. He worked in the nursery business established by his father and illustrated nearly 2000 plates of plants in the nursery's own periodical, the Botanical Cabinet published between 1817 and 1833. He also planned a book on the hummingbirds but this was not published. The hummingbird genus Loddigesia is named after him.
George was born in Hackney, Middlesex. Some give the date as 12 March 1786, while other sources suggest 1784. He was the son of Joachim Conrad HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Conrad_Loddiges"Loddiges (c.1738–1826) and Sarah Aldous. Joachim Loddiges was a German-born nurseryman who founded Conrad Loddiges and Sons, one of the largest nurseries in the 1800s. Along with his brother William, George also trained in the trade of plants and the management of nurseries. The family managed special greenhouses and a 9 acre arboretum for tropical plants and were reputed for their collections of palms and orchids. George Loddiges was involved in establishing the Abney Park cemetery garden in 1839-40. The Loddiges worked with plant collectors from around the world as well as botanists. Hugh Cuming was one of their collectors and Nathaniel Ward was a friend. Several species of plant have been named after members of the Loddiges family.[1]^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Loddiges)
Loddiges was a member of the councils of the Linnean Society, the Horticultural Society, and the Microscopical Society. He had a collection of 200 species of hummingbirds which were acquired by the British Museum of Natural History in 1933. He had planned to publish a book on the hummingbirds.
He married Jane Creighton (1787–1859) in 1811 and they had a son, Conrad, and two daughters, one of whom was married to the artist Edward William Cooke. Loddiges died in Hackney, and was buried at St John-at-Hackney.[2]^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Loddiges) The nursery was taken over by his son Conrad.[1]^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Loddiges)
The Loddiges family (not uncommonly mis-spelt Loddige) managed one of the most notable of the eighteenth and nineteenth century plant nurseries that traded in and introduced exotic plants, trees, shrubs, ferns, palms and orchids into European gardens.
The founder of the nursery was Joachim Conrad Loddiges (1738–1826). He was born in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony; his father Casper Lochlies was a gardener to a nobleman in Wrisbergholzen, near Hannover.[1]^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loddiges_family) Conrad trained in The Netherlands[2]^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loddiges_family) and emigrated to Britain at the age of 19 during the Seven Years' War to take up employment as gardener for Dr J. B. Silvester[3] in the suburban village of Hackney, north of London. It was then that the family name was anglicised. When in his forties he married, he had not accumulated sufficient savings to expand a small seed business started by fellow German émigré John Busch, which he purchased, together with the good will of Busch's clientele in 1771 and had fully paid for by 1777,[4]^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loddiges_family) by which time he began to write to people all over the world, urging them to send him packets of seeds collected from trips to native hills, valleys and plains. From these small beginnings, its initial catalogue appearing in 1777[5]^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loddiges_family) the nursery business gained a specialist market in Britain, and was increasingly able to attract clients from estates and botanical gardens throughout Europe.
The nursery rose to great prominence during the early nineteenth century under George HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Loddiges"Loddiges (1786–1846). From 1818 to 1833 Conrad and Sons published 20 issues of *The Botanical Cabinet* [es], a magazine consisting of over 1000 coloured plates of rare plants that were introduced from around the world into the nursery's gardens and hothouses. The largest hothouses in the world were built to display the best collection of palms and orchids in Europe.[6]^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loddiges_family) George Loddiges also linked the nursery into the scientific circles of the day, becoming a Fellow of the Microscopical Society (FMS), Fellow of the Linnean Society (FLS), Fellow of the Horticultural Society (FHS), and Fellow of the Zoological Society (FZS) in London, for he had wide interests in scientific subjects beyond botany, becoming particularly knowledgeable about early microscopy and one aspect of ornithology (humming-birds). Abroad the nursery's influence spread to the imperial gardens of St Petersburg in Russia and the first Botanical Gardens at Adelaide in South Australia in 1839, by John Bailey who started with Conrad Loddiges in 1815.[7]^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loddiges_family) Herbarium specimens of Eucalyptus HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_pulverulenta"pulverulenta from Loddiges are in the Charterhouse School Herbarium dating from 1820.
Although the business closed in the 1850s, it leaves an important legacy in many of our gardens and parks, since a number of the attractive plants we take for granted, were first introduced into cultivation by Loddiges Nursery.
Origins under Joachim Conrad Loddiges[edit]
The Common Mauve Rhododendron introduced into Britain by Conrad Loddiges
On 2 January 1770, following his marriage, Joachim Conrad Loddiges wrote to his longstanding employer, Dr Silvester, asking for advice about his plan to move on from head gardener and grounds keeper, and set up a small seed and gardening business in the village of Hackney, north of London, with assistance from a fellow German emigree, Johann (syn. John) Busch. Busch was appointed as chief gardener to Catherine the Great and the two remained in contact - it is through this connection that the Loddiges had a role inimporting and establishing ******rhubarb**in Britain.Seed packets were received from all over the world, sometimes from well-known botanical explorers such as John Bartram and William Bartram in North America (who also favoured Quaker horticulturalists such as Peter HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Collinson_FRS"Collinson with discoveries), and sometimes from ordinary travelers.
One of the first plant species to be introduced into cultivation in Britain by Conrad Loddiges was the Common Mauve Rhododendron, *Rhododendron HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhododendron_ponticum"ponticum*. He introduced this into England in the early 1760s while working as a gardener for Dr Silvester of Hackney, prior to setting up his own seed and nursery business. The young plants were supplied to the Marquis of Rockingham whose interest led to great enthusiasm for growing the species in British gardens.
George Loddiges
Conrad's son George HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Loddiges"Loddiges is generally credited with raising the profile of the exotic Hackney nursery at least as greatly, if not more so, than his eminent horticulturalist father.***In 1833 the Loddiges began using the newly developedWardian Case to transport live plants from Australia, and also had a keen interest in microscopy and hummingbirds,**** one of which, the Marvelous HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loddigesia"Spatuletail, was named in his honour.
For example, the term 'arboretum' was first used in an English publication by J. C. Loudon in 1833 in The Gardener's Magazine when commenting on George Loddiges' famous Hackney Botanic Garden arboretum, begun in 1816, and open free to the public for educational benefit every Sunday. Loudon wrote: The arboretum looks better this season than it has ever done since it was planted... the more lofty trees suffered from the late high winds, but not materially. We walked round the two outer spirals of this coil of trees and shrubs; viz. from Acer to Quercus. There is no garden scene about London so interesting.
A plan of George Loddiges' arboretum was included in The Encyclopaedia of Gardening 1834 edition, and the interest this aroused helped inspire Loudon to write his encyclopaedic book Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, first published in 1838. Although this incorporated drawings from several early botanic gardens and parklands throughout the UK, it relied greatly upon, and would not have been possible without, George Loddiges' well labeled arboretum. It was on the collection maintained by this firm more than any other that J.C.Loudon relied for living material in the preparation of his great work W.J.Bean notes in Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles, today's standard reference work.
Another notable visitor was **Charles Darwin**who in September 1838 wrote Saw in Loddiges garden 1279 varieties of roses!!!Proof of capability of variation[8]
Although George Loddiges' arboretum was widely praised, his better known horticultural endeavour was to ^^ establish the world's largest hothouse in his Hackney Botanic Nursery, and invent a system of warm mist-like rain to maintain beautiful tropical palms, epiphytic orchids, ferns and camellias in almost perfect environmental conditions akin to a 'tropical rainforest'.
George Loddiges' tropical hothouse range made use of recently invented curvilinear iron glazing bars and central heating systems, which together with his own inventions, enabled many new species of tropical plant to be introduced into cultivation, or flower for the first time in Europe. Visiting the hothouses on 30 March 1822, the Quaker pharmacist William Allen, his Cousin Emily Birkbeck and Anna Hanbury noted: We all went to Loddiges Nursery to see the camellias which are now in full bloom and very beautiful ! There is quite a forest of them: his hot-houses are, perhaps, the most capricious in the world: one off them is forty feet high: in this there is a banana tree which nearly reaches the top. A few years later, in 1829, Jacob Rinz (a visitor from a Frankfurt nursery) commented: never shall I forget the sensation produced by this establishment. I cannot describe the raptures I experienced on seeing that immense palm house. All that I had seen before of the kind appeared nothing to me compared with this. I fancied myself in the Brazils; and especially at that moment when Mr Loddiges had the kindness to produce, in my presence, a shower of artificial rain. Such conditions were ideal for tropical orchids, several of which were named in honour of George Loddiges, including Loddiges' dendrobium.
So infectious was the interest that George Loddiges and fellow nurserymen created during the early nineteenth century in the splendour of new ferns, trees, palms - indeed plants of all kinds - that he was prompted to begin marketing a series of volumes containing coloured engravings of the many new species and varieties. Entitled The Botanical Cabinet[9] it ran to twenty volumes and 2,000 plates. Facing each plant portrait, George Loddiges added a few lines of text outlining the source of the seeds and invariably adding a religious perspective. Many of the drawings for the publications were made by George himself, his daughter Jane and the young Edward Cooke who became a leading Victorian artist, and whose father, George Cooke, engraved a number of the plates.
The Horticultural Society awarded George Loddiges numerous medals throughout this period: Silver Medal, 1818, 1819; Silver Medal (Sir Joseph Banks Memorial Portrait Prize), 1823, 1826, 1832, 1835; President's Silver Medal, 1836; Silver Flora Medal, 1837.
In the late 1830s, George Loddiges became involved in the design and landscaping of one of the Magnificent Seven London garden cemeteries associated with burial reform: Abney Park Cemetery. Sensitively preserving the existing early eighteenth century parkland laid out by Lady Mary Abney and Isaac Watts, he introduced an educational landscape around the perimeter which was open to the public free of charge: a vast arboretum of 2,500 species and varieties, labelled alphabetically from A to Z rather than arranged in a more conventional way. Close to the Abney Park Chapel he also laid out a rosarium to complement the chapel's 'botanical rose windows' (described as 'botanical' owing to their unusual ten-part arrangement, as in the five sepals and five petals of the rose family, or petals of a simple rose including indentations as shown in the White Rose of York). George Loddiges also appears to have influenced the architect William Hosking and client George HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Collison"Collison HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Collison" II in their final choice of Egyptian Revival ornamentation for the main entrance, since the Egyptian-style entrance pylons incorporate the botanical imagery of the Egyptian White Lily or Lotus, a plant introduced into western cultivation by Loddiges Nursery in 1802.
In May 1838, John James Audubon published the fifth, and final, volume of his "Ornithological Biography", the textual supplement to his epic "Birds of America" series of 435 plates (1826-1838). Writing about the "Anna Humming Bird" in the Ornithological Biography, Audubon wrote, "...Those [figures/paintings] of the male I made from specimens, for the use of which I am indebted to Mr. Loddiges, of London, whose collection of Humming Birds is unrivaled." (In June 2018 an original, 4-volume edition of the Birds of America sold at a Christie's auction for $9.65 million).
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George Loddiges (1786–1846) was a nurseryman who publicised his collections of plants and ferns in a publication called The Botanical Cabinet. The serial which ran from 1817-1833 was essentially a business sale catalogue, but one of great beauty, which eventually included around 2000 coloured plates of rare plants from around the world.
The Loddiges’ Hackney business was founded by George’s father, Conrad, a native of Hanover, and their nursery was on the site of the current Hackney Town Hall (Mare Street). The family firm was already thriving but George was to be an innovative businessman in his use of this publication and in the development of an unusual and very special collection of plants.
The arboretum at the Hackney site was begun in 1816 and a decade later Loddiges were offering 2600 hardy trees and shrubs in their catalogue but there were more innovations to come.
By the 1820s The Conrad Loddiges & Sons Nursery had also established an international reputation for the growing of tropical orchids and they were probably the first British firm to cultivate them commercially. Many of these orchids were to appear in ‘The Botanical Cabinet’ and by 1839 George Loddiges was able to produce the firm’s first catalogue devoted to their sale. In honour of his achievements, two orchids were named after him, Acropera Loddigesii which he introduced from Mexico and Cattleya Loddigesii from Brazil.
Botanical Cabinet No.78 ‘Orchis Spectabilis’. George Loddiges designed this illustration and George Cooke engraved it. (Reference Volume 1, GC 1.4).
The collection of palms established by the nursery was extraordinary, mostly owing to George’s innovative use and development of hot houses. By the early 1830s his Grand Palm House was bursting to the frame with palms, ferns and orchids. The structure was 80 feet long, 60 feet wide and 40 feet high, the air was warmed by steam and the building had a platform from which one could view the tropical plant collection. Loddiges were already at the centre of the fern craze, offering around eighty exotic specimens by the late 1820s.
Loddiges Nursery was a popular attraction and the collection received numerous visitors from across Europe. John Loudon called the Palm House the largest hot-house in the world and it was said to display the best collection of palms and orchids in Europe. Loddiges also offered a large collection of camellias. The scale of the Palm House was unrivalled at the time predating the stove conservatory at Chatsworth (1836-40) and Decimus Burton’s Palm House at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (1848) demonstrating the innovative nature of Loddiges’ business.
In 1836 George Loddiges produced a catalogue which included 1549 roses alone and there were always potted plants for visitors to buy. ‘The Botanical Cabinet’ ran alongside the firm’s catalogues producing a colour guide to what could be seen and purchased at their Hackney botanic nursery garden. Many of the drawings were made by George himself and some by his daughter Jane and the young Edward Cooke (Jane’s husband) who became a leading Victorian artist. The publication is valued for its engravings, most of which are by Edward’s father, George Cooke. The engravings could not be reprinted because all 2000 of the copper plates were stolen.
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George Loddiges was a nurseryman and horticulturalist active in the early-19th century. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he was born on 12 March 1786 in Hackney, Middlesex. Others place his birth in the year 1784.
He was the second son of Joachim Conrad Loddiges (born c.1738, died 1826), a native of Hanover and the founder of the Hackney firm of nurserymen, Conrad Loddiges & Son, and his wife, Sarah Aldous (born 1740, died 1815).
George Loddiges, along with his elder brother William (born 1776, died 1849), joined his father's nursery at a young age. At the time it had an international reputation and introduced a number of new plants to Britain. The 15 acre site included a 9 acre arboretum.
According to A. R. P. Hayden, in 1836 the nursery had "67 species and varieties of oak, 29 of birch, 91 of crataegus, 180 of willow, and 1549 roses" listed in its catalogue causing John Claudius Loudon reputedly to have remarked that, ‘in this department, Messrs. Loddiges have done more than all the royal and botanic gardens put together’. The nursery specialized in palms and orchids.
In the 1820s George Loddiges designed the steam heating and an overhead system of irrigation for a range of hothouses at the nursery which greatly impressed the visitors. By 1845 the nursery was growing 280 species and varieties of palms and 1916 of orchids.
In the years between 1817 and 1833 the plants grown in the nursery were illustrated in coloured plates, engraved by George Cooke and many were based on Loddiges drawings. These were published in the nursery's own monthly scientific periodical, the Botanical Cabinet. Loddiges laid out the arboretum at the Abney Park cemetery in 1839–40.
Interested in science, Loddiges was a member of the councils of the Linnean Society, the Horticultural Society and founder of the Microscopical Society. Nathaniel Ward acknowledged his help in developing the Wardiancase. This greatly increased the survival rate of plants being transported around the globe.
In addition to his botanical collections, Loddiges also had an internationally recognized collection of some 200 species of hummingbirds.**** This, along with his notes, were later donated by a descendant to the British Museum (Natural History) in 1933.
George Loddiges died in Hackney, Middlesex, on 5 June 1846. He was buried at St John-at-Hackney and was survived by his wife, Jane (born 1787, died 1859) daughter of the Revd James Creighton, whom he had married in 1811 and with whom he had had three children.
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Palms from the Loddiges nursery were transported south to Crystal Palace by horse and cart when the firm closed down. Picture: Hackney Archives - Credit: Hackney Archives
Emma Bartholomew finds out more about the Loddiges family whose botanical gardens in Hackney rivalled Kew’s in the 1800s, when their greenhouse was the world’s biggest – and whose last living vestiges may be the town hall’s palm trees
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Standing in Mare Street surrounded by traffic, pollution and concrete it's hard to imagine that 200 years ago the world's largest hothouse cultivating tropical plants stood nearby in the grounds of a globally renowned nursery garden.
Exotic plants, ferns, palms and orchids grew in Europe for the first time outside their native countries thanks to the Loddiges family who traded them from Hackney - which at the time was a rural village just north of London.
Amazed visitors described how they felt as though they were in tropical countries when they stood under the artificial tropical rainstorm in the hothouse. And an extensive tree collection of 2,500 different species helped make Stoke Newington's Abney Park Cemetery the largest arboretum in Europe - a term first used in connection with the Loddiges' family's work.
Conrad Loddiges was born in Lower Saxony, Germany, and trained in horticulture in the Netherlands. But when the Seven Years War broke out he moved to Hackney aged 19 to work in the garden of businessman Dr JB Silvester.
"He was obviously quite good at his job and somehow he worked his way up to become head gardener and decided to start his own business selling and distributing seeds, as he had become fascinated by botany and plants," said Zac Lloyd, who has researched the story as part of his job as community engagement officer at St John at Hackney Church.
"He was really inquisitive about his field, and he pushed the boundaries further than someone running a nursery in Hackney needed to," he added. "He was always writing letters to people all over the world asking them to send him things to add to his collection, and that's why it became so famous. He's this incredibly visionary guy, and professionally he pushed his field forwards and would have had a huge impact on things like Kew Gardens today in a way that few speak about. There are hundreds of plants out there that are only in England because of the Loddiges family."
One of the first species Conrad introduced into cultivation in Britain was the Common Mauve Rhododendron in the 1760s before he even set up his own nursery business. He received packets of seeds from all over the world from both botanical explorers and ordinary travellers, and he helped import and establish rhubarbin Britain.
Loddiges' first seed catalogue was published in 1777, and the nursery became known amongst buyers from estates and botanical gardens in the UK, Europe and as far afield as Russia and Australia. The nursery rose to great prominence after Conrad's son George built the largest hothouse in the world, where Paragon Road now lies, to display their palms, ferns and orchids.
"Imagine a massive Kew Gardens there," said Zac. "In the physical landscape now there would be no reason to suspect this building had ever been there, which is one of the charms of the story. The palm trees outside the town hall are meant to have some connection to the botanical garden, which is really interesting. It's a living link. Otherwise there is no trace of the thing."
The air inside the Palm House was warmed by steam and the scale of the 40 ft high structure was unrivalled at the time, pre-dating the Palm House at Kew which wasn't built until 1848.