Series 2 Ep 4 Corokia Offshoot
Document from 1891. The back sheet of an election list of candidates ie those applying for a pension
If you have already listened to the episode called ‘Mona’s Corokia’ you will know that Mona has decided to leave her garden to the charity Perennial, it’s a wonderful gift.
Perennial is a UK charity dedicated to looking after people working in horticulture and their families, at any stage of life.
Perennial’s own roots go back almost 200 years. There’s a timeline here. I was intrigued and keen to find out more and luckily for me, Francesca Murray, has been studying the forerunner of todays Perennial - the Gardeners Royal Benevolent Institution, for her Phd. She has found a wealth of fascinating material in the archives.
Founding document for the what is currently today’s charity: Perennial .
'“At a General Meeting of Gentlemen Nurserymen and Gardeners this day holden it was Resolved that a Benevolent Association be formed for the purpose of raising a fund for the permanent relief of Aged and Indigent Gardeners and their Widows and that the following Gentlemen be requested to act as the Committee viz; Messrs Brown, Piccadilly, Buchanan, Camberwell, Castleugh, Cormack, Chandler, Fairbairn Clapham, Groom, Walworth, Gained Battersea, Gray, Kensington, Gregory, Cirencester, Henderson Pineapple, Knight, Lane …. Waterer Knapp-Hill.”
So this episode tells the story of the founding of the fund in the 1839 and of that first meeting, a gathering of horticulturists, in the Crown and Anchor tavern, a venue with its own fascinating history, just off the Strand in London. (You can read more here.) There was a feeling that employers were not looking after their gardeners so the gardeners needed to look after themselves.
We’re in the Victorian age because Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837. Employees didn’t have many rights, if a headgardener lost their job, they lost their home. The fund meant that gardeners contributed their guinea subscription and it would be looked after by the committee and distributed fairly. Those in need had to ‘be elected’ to receive funds so might have to lobby some of the committee members. To receive a pension they had to have references from a former employee, medical certificates and an address.
Joseph Paxton’s signature in the subscribers book.
Every year there was an anniversary dinner to help raise funds. There was support from ‘celebrity gardeners’ such as Joseph Paxton and figures like Robert Marnock, who designed Sheffield Botanic Gardens and ran Regents Park for 20 years. Charles Dickens was a speaker.
To be eligible for a pension, a gardener needed to have worked for 30 years but it wasn’t just head gardeners who were the beneficiaries, it was also seedsmen and market gardeners. Gardener’s widows could also get a pension if their husbands had paid into the fund and towards the end of the century women gardeners begin to contribute to the fund in their own right. Francesca has fascinating stories of the people who applied for a pension, some sadly many times before they were finally successful. As she says in the podcast:
“I’m interested in the people who actually dug the soil and gave their lives to horticulture and put in so much of their skills, their expertise, their lives.”