INTRODUCTION

Special places for the cultivation and display of a wide variety of both decidu-
ous and coniferous trees, arboretums developed during the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries. They were a combination of plantation, which usu-
ally consisted of a few varieties of trees, and botanical garden. Humphry Repton
adopted the idea for his landscape gardening commissions followed by John
Claudius Loudon. Repton included an arboretum in his red book for Woburn
in 1804 and in his design for Ashridge Park, Hertfordshire between 1813 and
1815 alongside a pomarium, rosarium and other eclectic features. Loudon men-
tioned arboretums in his Treatise on Country Residences (1806) but did not take

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a special interest in them until later. In his Hints on the Formation of Gardens
(1812), for instance, Loudon carefully defined the differences between groves,
woods and plantations, without mentioning arboretums whilst in the third book
on arboriculture in the Encyclopaedia of Gardening (1824) they were not sepa-
rately categorized and the term was hardly used.1 The arboretum idea was always
intimately related to written textual manifestations from which it had arisen.
Loudon’s Arboretum Britannicum (1838), with its wealth of drawings and infor-
mation, was only the most famous of a series of works that were, in effect, virtual
page-bound arboretums, but which were based on detailed observations of trees
and collections in specific places.2
Largely through Loudon’s encouragement, systematic tree collections and
arboretums became popular from the 1830s within larger private and public
gardens, estate parks and botanical gardens. Separately and inspired by Lou-
don, other gardeners and landscape gardeners also promoted versions of the
idea during the first decades of the century. George Sinclair, head gardener
at the Duke of Bedford’s Woburn Abbey seat, under the auspices of the Soci-
ety for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, enthusiastically recommended the
widespread introduction of arboretums. For Sinclair, the ‘interest arising from
the adoption of foreign trees into domestic scenery’ was ‘not confined to their
picturesque effects’, but reminded all ‘of the climes whence they come’ and
the ‘scenes with which they were associated’. In exploring ‘a well-selected arbo-
retum’, the ‘eternal snows of the Himalaya’, the ‘savannahs of the Missouri …

–1–
2 The British Arboretum

untrodden forests of Patagonia … vallies of Lebanon, pass in review before us:

we seem to wander in other climes, to converse with other nations’.3 The pop-
ularity and fashionableness of tree collecting, encouraged by the important
cultural status of trees in British myth, culture and society, estate economy and
changing fashions in landscape gardening, especially the decline of formalism
and advent of picturesque naturalism, made the acquisition of novel tree and
shrub specimens, like works of art or antiquities, highly desirable for their own
beauties or as a backdrop for parks, and illustrates the complex interrelation-
ship of artistic and scientific approaches.4 Uvedale Price, however, argued that
‘it is not enough that trees should be naturalised to the climate, they must also
be naturalised to the landscape, and mixed and incorporated with the natives’.
He was an advocate of mixed plantations and thought that they should be
planned carefully so that they added to the ‘infinite richness and variety’ of
the landscape yet seemed ‘part of the original design.’ Indeed he was critical of
those who ignored ‘the spontaneous trees of the country’ and ‘excluded’ them
‘as too common’.5
Recent work in landscape history and cultural and historical geography
has developed new approaches and emphases in studies of tree collections and

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arboretums, although the subject has been surprisingly neglected in analyses
of nineteenth-century natural history, which have paid more attention to flo-
ral culture, field clubs and field observation, despite the cultural and economic
importance of trees in British society. This is partly because traditional histori-
cal narratives have emphasized the disappearance and devastation of woodland
in the face of enclosure and industrialization when more recent work has dem-
onstrated that woodland began to increase again during the Georgian period
fostered by agricultural improvement and encouragement from organizations
such as the Society of Arts and Manufactures. Traditional institutional and gar-
den history approaches have tended to focus upon the designers, owners and
promoters of gardens, usually from the elite, aristocracy or government. Whilst
this remains, of course, important, many individuals and agencies were usu-
ally involved in promoting, designing, using and shaping arboretums and, like
urban parks, they cannot simply be regarded as outcomes of the will of landscape
gardeners or promoters. The often contested nature of garden and arboretum
designs, management and usage has tended to be obscured, just as controversies
associated with many early Victorian parks were effaced by subsequent public
pronouncements which presented them as the natural and inevitable outcomes
of rational recreational sanitary and leisure needs and civic communal will.
Prosopographical approaches help to illustrate the diversity of individuals and
agencies associated with institutional arboretums where subscription lists, visi-
tor records or other such data survive, demonstrating, for example, differences in
gender, and religious and political characteristics.
 Introduction 3

The neglect of nineteenth-century arboretums and tree collections in the

history of science is surprising given their relationship to museology, particu-
larly those with systematic labelled displays, numbered plans and guides which
served, with botanical gardens, as important inspirations for Victorian muse-
ums, rhetorically and spatially asserting their rational objective status through
architecture, modes of classification, labelling and display. As we shall see, as
laboratories, places for the production of scientific knowledge, arboretums are
significant in terms of the sociology of scientific knowledges and the history of
science. In growing specimens from around the globe, arboretums sometimes
aimed to replicate foreign habitats in microcosm. Trees and shrubs within were
usually clearly labelled and demarcated to prevent identity confusion and reduce
interbreeding, whilst specimens within were usually placed apart from each
other or separated by spaces or boundaries. Arboretums also tended to have their
own kinds of characteristic spaces and might be divided by taxonomy, climate,
zone or geography. In addition, like institutional laboratories, their nineteenth-
century development was associated with particular tools, practices, supply and
support networks and trained staff such as arboriculturists and gardeners.6
Whilst such features signify a kind of idealized and objectivized collec-

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tion akin to printed arboretums in arboricultural treatises, like laboratories,
the reality varied considerably according to different socio-cultures. Wrenched
from original climatic and geological contexts, trees and shrubs may grow, of
course, in very different ways from those originally observed in situ, thriving in
unexpected ways, or succumbing to unanticipated diseases or predators. Unlike
laboratories, museums or glass house collections, arboretums were vulnerable to
climatic and seasonal conditions and, in the context of rapidly industrializing
Victorian society, the grime of air pollution. Even within the relatively small
confines of the British Isles, geological, climatic, meteorological and other fac-
tors militated against the establishment of systematic, representative collections
in all areas. Palmetums, for instance, were usually confined to the warmer cli-
mates of the Channel Islands, the west and south west coasts and the south of
England. George Nicholson, Curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, dur-
ing the 1880s, produced a guide to the different kinds of trees and shrubs that
could be planted in various conditions including chalky, clay, sandy and peaty
soils, marshy and boggy conditions and waterside. Across the vast expanses of
the USA and Canada the variations were even more marked. Charles Sargent
divided the North American continent from Arctic periphery to Mexican border
into nine fundamentally different ‘tree regions’ defined according to the ‘prevail-
ing character of aborescent vegetation’. Tree collections in urban areas presented
their own special problems and in his selection of trees and shrubs that were
‘best calculated to withstand the smoke and chemical impurities of atmosphere’
within manufacturing towns, Nicholson tried to distinguish between those best
4 The British Arboretum

adapted to withstand the industrial conditions of northern, midland and south-

ern towns.7
One response to criticisms of botanical collections was to devise others
that placed greater emphasis upon formal features and claimed to marry com-
peting taxonomies with aesthetics; another was to reject formal representation
completely. In 1812, Loudon published a design for a spiral botanical garden
‘arranged so as to combine elegance and picturesque effect with botanical order
and accuracy’ that was later, as we shall see, like his design for iron-framed cur-
vilinear glazing, adopted by the Loddiges nursery company in Hackney. The
garden was ‘intended to comprise a complete collection of the vegetables grow-
ing in this country’ and was arranged according to Carl Linnaeus’s system with
the twenty-four orders planted in picturesque groups surrounding a central
hothouse to house the exotics (Figure I.1).8 Various other forms of plan were
suggested to overcome the difficulties of interpolating systematic collections
into gardens including those founded, like some ancient and medieval gardens,
upon zonal or geographical representation.

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Figure I.1: Design for a spiral botanical garden from J. C. Loudon, Encyclopaedia of
Gardening (1830), p. 801. Reproduced from the authors’ personal copy
 Introduction 5

John Spencer’s pinetum at Bowood grouped specimens according to country of

origin and Charles Smith produced a remarkable design for a star-shaped arbo-
retum based upon the display of families.9
Arboretums appeared in various different contexts such as the parks of landed
estates, commercial nurseries, scientific and botanical societies, and cemeteries
and we will examine how each encouraged differences in planting, design, man-
agement and consumption. These forms were, of course, not necessarily discrete
and promoted by landscape gardeners including Joseph Paxton and Loudon there
was considerable interaction and emulation between different versions. We will
contend that the importance of trees in society, economy, culture and landscape
gardening during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries fostered the devel-
opment of arboretums as special places for the display of trees and shrubs, providing
important foci for the dissemination of botanical and scientific knowledge. Tree
acquisition gathered pace with aristocratic collectors prizing exotic specimens like
works of art or antiquities for consumption, display, competition and learning.
Landscape gardeners, such as Brown and Repton, placed new value upon trees and
shrubs for their aesthetic qualities as much as horticultural economy. Floral, horti-
cultural and agricultural societies and the Society of Arts also played an important

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role in promoting tree collecting for botanical study, agricultural improvement,
cultures of natural history and the national economy. Post-Enlightenment botany
was stimulated by the importation of novel specimens which encouraged further
exploration and arboretum provision. As Chapter 2 demonstrates, taxonomic
systems and display were required to accommodate novel British specimens and
reinterpret familiar plants in the light of foreign discoveries and the precepts of
natural theology and natural philosophy. We will examine the role of commercial
nursery gardens in the development of the nineteenth-century British arboretum.
Stimulated by networks in exotic plant importation, we contend that nurseries
should be regarded as major botanical and scientific phenomena that helped to
promote botanical education, for example, by encouraging the importation of
novel specimens and the creation of new hybrids through crossing. Utilitarian and
commercial imperatives underlay the design of nursery gardens and arboretums
whilst seed and plant sales were promoted in numerous printed catalogues and
gardening publications.
Natural history and gardening became popular middle-class pursuits fos-
tered by ideas of self-improvement, rational recreation and the development of
distinctive suburban villas with gardens modelled on larger aristocratic seats.
These aspirations were encouraged by commercial nurseries and publications
such as Loudon’s Gardener’s Magazine and Paxton’s Magazine of Botany, which
satisfied and stimulated the demand for botanical and gardening knowledge,
supplying botanical information and details of the latest horticultural technol-
ogy and practices. Local and national botanical, scientific and horticultural
6 The British Arboretum

societies such as those at Glasgow, Dublin, Edinburgh, Cork, Hull, Liverpool,

Manchester and Birmingham promoted botanical study by forming arboretums
that were available to members and the public on various conditions. In fact,
after the term arboretum had been employed by Linnaeus and his followers to
denote published lists of national trees, it was through the adoption of the idea
in British and Irish botanical gardens that the concept came to be applied to
country estates.10 An arboretum was projected for the Edinburgh Botanical
Gardens during the 1780s under the arch-arboriculturist Professor John Hope
and another formed in the Dublin Botanical Gardens at Glasnevin from around
1800. In both cases the term arboretum was employed contemporaneously
rather than being retrospectively applied to tree collections years afterwards.
Given that botanical society arboretums were intended for scientific institu-
tions, arguments arose concerning the relative merits of aesthetics and botany
driven by the need to retain subscription income which underscores the difficul-
ties of distinguishing between the arts and sciences. Chapter 3 focuses on two
influential examples of these, the garden of the Botanical Society at Glasnevin
near Dublin established in 1798 and the gardens of the Royal Horticultural
Society at Turnham Green, examining the design, management, consumption

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and significance of their arboretums.
Loudon’s Benthamite enlightenment progressivism and passion for social
and political reform encouraged him to sympathize with a younger group of
natural philosophers and naturalists during the 1820s and 1830s who were, in
general terms, challenging what has been defined as a broadly Anglican, Tory,
aristocratic, amateur, scientific establishment. The challenge of scientific reform-
ers in some respects paralleled attempts to promote education, factory reform,
religious freedom and toleration, extend and standardize the franchise, and
other measures attempted during the late 1820s and 1830s, including the Par-
liamentary Reform Act of 1832, Municipal Corporations Act (1834) and Poor
Law Amendment Act (1835) of the Whig administration. One manifestation
of this challenge was support from Whigs, reformers and many nonconformists
for new scientific and educational establishments including University College,
London, literary and philosophical societies, botanical gardens and mechanics’
institutes. These were intended to provide new opportunities for the middle
and labouring classes to obtain scientific education and participate in scientific
culture as audience and practitioners, for pleasure and social improvement.
Another aspect of the challenge posed by reformers, natural philosophers and
naturalists with Whig and radical sympathies was the advocacy of novel and sub-
versive scientific theories. Much inspiration came from government-led French
science for instance through geology, Lamarckian evolutionism, more ‘natural’
taxonomies and comparative anatomy, which challenged the traditional British
emphasis upon natural theology. Equally inspired by Continental science was
 Introduction 7

the emphasis upon greater specialization and professionalism which sought to

emulate the success of French and German institutions such as the universities
with salaried professors. Some of the reformer’s objectives were summarized by
Charles Babbage’s Reflections on the Decline of Science in England (1830), the
famous manifesto projected and widely interpreted as an attack upon domina-
tion of aristocratic patronage and conservative values in the Royal Society.11
Loudon’s arboriculture is the subject of Chapters 4–6, which examine the
development and promotion of his arboretum concept primarily through the
Gardener’s Magazine, Arboretum Britannicum and design for the Derby Arbo-
retum. Inspired by detailed knowledge of living trees and their situations and
gardening practices as well as botanical ideas, the Arboretum Britannicum is
unquestionably the most important and influential arboricultural work of the
nineteenth century. Although a lavish and expensive book with volumes of
plates, it was reissued in various editions and widely disseminated as the abridged
Encyclopaedia of Trees and Shrubs, whilst the Derby Arboretum was regarded by
Loudon as his most important commission because it provided an opportunity
to demonstrate how systematic tree collections could be presented for public
audiences to promote scientific education and rational recreation. We argue that

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Loudon’s arboretum conception and the Arboretum Britannicum are significant
because of the role they played in the development and dissemination of botany
in gardening and horticulture, including taxonomy, physiology and anatomy.
Although Loudon’s ideas were avidly adopted by many country landowners and
gardeners, they also impacted upon suburban and public gardens and parks, and
dominated British arboriculture for decades. Botanical knowledge of trees and
exotics were pivotal to Loudon’s theories of landscape gardening as embodied
in the gardenesque although, as we make clear, there were many tensions and
inconsistencies inherent in his ideas and practices. Although Loudon was closely
allied to reformers during the 1820s and 1830s and presented arboriculture in
the Arboretum Britannicum as a secular form of wonder and science potentially
for all social classes, it tended to be wealthy aristocrats and landowners who had
the manpower and resources to realize his vision. Similarly, although Loudon
argued that trees could not be understood without attention to global contexts
in both civilized and ‘wild’ states of nature, the notion of global equalization that
he promoted was clearly nurtured by empire.
The importance of Georgian aristocratic tree collecting, and the impact of
this upon the sciences of horticulture and gardening, has already been empha-
sized. Chapter 7 examines the design, management and consumption of
nineteenth-century estate arboretums and tree collections, especially the highly
influential arboretums and pinetums at Chatsworth and Elvaston in Derbyshire
and Westonbirt, Gloucestershire. We contend that, with agricultural schools,
estate arboretums and tree collections played a major role in rural botanical
8 The British Arboretum

education and facilitated the professionalization of agriculture, forestry and hor-

ticulture. The wealthiest nineteenth-century estates had the resources, staff and
organization to nurture the careers of gardeners and arboriculturists, whilst in
the second half of the century with government support from bodies such as the
Department of Woods and Forests and the formation of the English Arboricul-
tural Society in the 1880s, training in these fields began to be institutionalized
on the landed estate model. Barron’s experience enabled him to engage in pri-
vate practice and design public and private parks and arboretums, whilst Paxton’s
work planning the major 2,000 species arboretum at Chatsworth helped to
secure his position as the pre-eminent mid-Victorian landscape gardener. As
Chatsworth, Elvaston and Westonbirt demonstrate, estate improvement and
large arboretums provided a powerful symbol of continuing aristocratic cultural
ambition and influence in the face of declining real political power during the
nineteenth century. As well as satisfying the aristocratic desire for collecting and
display, estates functioned as the main component of the rural economy, encour-
aging the development of arboriculture and the application of new techniques
such as tree transplantation which were employed in the creation of arboretums
elsewhere. Some of them also became celebrated examples of landscape gardening

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that were described in horticultural publications and visited by hundreds of ama-
teur and professional gardeners, especially from the 1840s. Whilst some public
urban arboretums declined during the nineteenth century, the expansion, insti-
tutionalization and professionalization of forestry encouraged the foundation of
new types of arboretum associated with agricultural education, horticulture and
commercial forestry.
Chapters 8 and 9 examine the development of public and semi-public
arboretums beyond botanical and horticultural society gardens contending
that they were the Victorian equivalent of museums, mechanics’ institutes and
other rational recreational associations which provided models for global pub-
lic scientific institutions. They also explore the attention devoted to botanical
education at public parks in London, Bath, Macclesfield and other towns from
the 1840s and 1850s, through the provision of botanic gardens, arboretums
and taxonomic planting schemes, a development that has hitherto received lit-
tle attention. With their hundreds of labelled and carefully ordered specimens,
public arboretums, arboretum cemeteries and some public parks were ‘living
museums’ designed to promote an ordered and rationalized image of nature
and vision of scientific progress which impacted upon local urban scientific cul-
tures. This vision of order, of course, ignored the complex interplay of human
and non-human agencies prevalent in public arboretums with flora and fauna
and different individuals and social groups collectively appropriating arboretum
spaces in different interlinked ways. It also masked considerable disagreements
within the sciences and culture concerning taxonomies, evolution and access to
 Introduction 9

scientific information which had an impact upon planting and management and
erupted in particular contexts. Some of these factors help to explain the transfor-
mation of many public arboretums away from the kind of enlightenment vision
promoted by Loudon towards urban leisure parks.
Despite the extensive work that has been done on garden history and nine-
teenth-century natural history and the fact that Loudon provides one of the
most important links between the British enlightenment and Victorian natu-
ral history, arboretums and Loudon’s arboricultural work have been neglected
subjects. This book shows how, inspired by experiences of practical gardening,
the formation of multiple public and private systematic tree collections and the
Arboretum Britannicum, arboretums cemented the place of trees in British eco-
nomic life, culture, society and the sciences, widening the public audience for
natural history and reinvigorating links between the sciences, gardening and
horticulture.

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