Lee and Kennedy
Encyclopedia
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
"For many years," wrote John Claudius Loudon
John Claudius Loudon
John Claudius Loudon was a Scottish botanist, garden and cemetery designer, author and garden magazine editor.-Background:...
in 1854 "this nursery was deservedly considered the first in the world." The partnership was originated with a nurseryman, Lewis Kennedy (c1721 — 1782), who was gardener to Lord Bolton at Chiswick
Chiswick
Chiswick is a large suburb of west London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located on a meander of the River Thames, west of Charing Cross and is one of 35 major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with...
and had the nursery called "The Vineyard" at Hammersmith. Kennedy went into partnership about 1745 with James Lee (Selkirk
Selkirk
The Royal Burgh of Selkirk is a town in the Borders of Scotland. It lies on the Ettrick Water, a tributary of the River Tweed. At the time of the 2001 census, Selkirk's population was 5,839. The people of the town are known as Souters, meaning cobblers.Selkirk was formerly the county town of...
, 1715 — 25 July 1795), the Scottish gardener, who having apprenticed with Philip Miller
Philip Miller
Philip Miller FRS was a Scottish botanist.Miller was chief gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden from 1722 until he was pressured to retire shortly before his death...
at the Chelsea Physic Garden
Chelsea Physic Garden
The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries’ Garden in London, England in 1673. It is the second oldest botanical garden in Britain, after the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, which was founded in 1621.Its rock garden is the oldest English garden devoted to alpine plants...
was gardener to the Duke of Somerset
Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset
General Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset was the son of Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset and his wife, Elizabeth...
at Syon House
Syon House
Syon House, with its 200-acre park, is situated in west London, England. It belongs to the Duke of Northumberland and is now his family's London residence...
, nearby, and to Lord Islay, later the third Duke of Argyll
Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll
Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, 1st Earl of Ilay was a Scottish nobleman, politician, lawyer, businessman and soldier...
at Whitton Park
Whitton, London
Whitton is a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, situated 10.7 miles west south-west of Charing Cross in Central London...
; the Duke of Argyll was an enthusiastic gardener, and he imported large numbers of exotic species of plants and trees for his estate.
Lee's botanical interest
Lee was a correspondent with Linnaeus, through the connection with the Chelsea Physic Garden; he compiled an introduction to the Linnaean system, An Introduction to Botany, published in 1760, which passed through five editions. In 1774 the partners issued a Catalogue of plants and seeds: sold by Kennedy and Lee, nurserymen. They were in correspondence with plant collectors in the Americas and with Francis MassonFrancis Masson
Francis Masson was a Scottish botanist and gardener, and Kew Gardens’ first plant hunter.Masson was born in Aberdeen. In the 1760s he went to work at Kew Gardens as an under-gardener. Masson was the first plant collector to be sent from Kew by the newly-appointed director Sir Joseph Banks...
and others at the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
, whence hardy and half-hardy plants and seeds were coming to be tested in English gardens and hothouse
Hothouse
Hothouse or Hot House or Hot house may refer to:* A heated greenhouse* "Hot House" , a jazz standard* Hot House , a 1995 album by musician Bruce Hornsby* Hot House...
s. Lee was succeeded in the venture by his son, also James Lee (1754 — 1824).
Suppliers to Empress Josephine at Malmaison
According to Étienne Pierre VentenatÉtienne Pierre Ventenat
Étienne Pierre Ventenat was a French botanist born in Limoges. He was the brother of naturalist Louis Ventenat ....
who named the Australian woody scrambler Kennedia
Kennedia
Kennedia is a genus of plants comprising 16 species, all native to Australia. They are evergreen climbing plants with woody stems. Thet usually have trifoliate leaves and pea-type flowers of various colours from pink to dark red and yellow to black...
to honour Kennedy, they supplied roses for the Empress Josephine at Malmaison
Château de Malmaison
The Château de Malmaison is a country house in the city of Rueil-Malmaison about 12 km from Paris.It was formerly the residence of Joséphine de Beauharnais, and with the Tuileries, was from 1800 to 1802 the headquarters of the French government.-History:Joséphine de Beauharnais bought the...
during the lull in the Napoleonic Wars provided by the Peace of Amiens, 1802-03. Josephine's head gardener at Malmaison, Howatson, was English, but Alice M. Coats suggests that it was probably the well-established Scottish gardener and landscape designer, Thomas Blaikie, who put her in touch with Messrs Lee and Kennedy; her relation with this firm is one of the curiosities of garden history, according to Coats. By 1803 the Empress had run up an outstanding bill with them of £2600, and she cooperated with them in supporting a young plant hunter James Niven, at the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
, in expectation of sharing boxes of seeds and plants of never-before-seen rarities of the scarcely botanized Cape Province
Cape Province
The Province of the Cape of Good Hope was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa...
, heath
Heath
-Habitats:* Heath or heathland, low-growing woody vegetation, mostly consisting of heathers and related species* Heaths in the British National Vegetation Classification system...
s, ixia
Ixia
The genus Ixia consists of a number of cormous plants native to South Africa from the Iridaceae family and Ixioideae subfamily. Some of them are known as the corn lily. Some distinctive traits include: sword-like leaves, and long wiry stems with star-shaped flowers. It usually prefers well-drained...
s, pelargonium
Pelargonium
Pelargonium is a genus of flowering plants which includes about 200 species of perennials, succulents, and shrubs, commonly known as scented geraniums or storksbills. Confusingly, Geranium is the correct botanical name of a separate genus of related plants often called Cranesbills. Both Geranium...
s and others. With the revival of war between France and Britain, John Kennedy had a special permit to come and go to the Continent, advising the Empress on the collection she was forming at Malmaison. There were setbacks: in 1804 she complained in a letter that shipments of seeds had been captured and detained; but in 1811 her expenditures with the firm again amounted to £700. At Malmaison she installed a plant nursery, to ready her imports for distribution among French growers.
Notable clients
Towards the end of the Napoleonic WarsNapoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, Tsar Alexander I and three of his family visited England. Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna, young widow of the Duke of Oldenburg, made a point of visiting Lee and Kennedy's nursery grounds at Hammersmith, a magnet for any garden-minded visitor. The partnership also kept their name prominently before English garden-owners by regularly providing material for botanical illustration
Botanical illustration
Botanical illustration is the art of depicting the form, colour, and details of plant species, frequently in watercolour paintings. These are often printed with a botanical description in book, magazines, and other media...
s in Curtis's Botanical Magazine
Curtis's Botanical Magazine
The Botanical Magazine; or Flower-Garden Displayed, is an illustrated publication which began in 1787. The longest running botanical magazine, it is widely referred to by the subsequent name Curtis's Botanical Magazine....
.
Retirement
In 1818 Kennedy retired to Eltham, Kent, and his son John Kennedy (Hammersmith, 8 October 1759 — Eltham, 18 February 1842) continued in business with the younger James Lee under the established name. John, raised in the family business, was a frequent contributor to the first five volumes (1799—1803) of The Botanist's Repository, for which he wrote most of the notes accompanying the illustrations and less frequently thereafter. The editor was his son-in-law, H.C. AndrewsHenry Charles Andrews
Henry Charles Andrews , was an English botanist, botanical artist and engraver.He lived in Knightsbridge and was married to the daughter of John Kennedy of Hammersmith, a nurseryman who assisted Andrews in the descriptions of the plants he illustrated.He was an accomplished and unusual botanical...
.
The firm was subsequently carried on by the sons of James Lee, John (c1805 — 20 January 1899) and Charles Lee (8 February 1808 —2 September 1881), who carried the firm to end of the 19th century. From the end of the Napoleonic Wars Lee and Kennedy faced increasing competition in the field of hardy new introductions of shrubs and trees, from Loddiges
Loddiges
The Loddiges family 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....
at Hackney. Though the nursery grounds at Hammersmith were built over, and then those at Ealing, as London spread westwards, the last nurseries continued at Feltham
Feltham
Feltham is a town in the London Borough of Hounslow, west London. It is located about west south west of central London at Charing Cross and from Heathrow Airport Central...
.
Lewis Kennedy (1799 —1877) who had worked at Malmaison and at Navarre, in Normandy, for the Empress Josephine, upon returning to England, designed numerous gardens in the new, formal style.
According to G.W. Johnson History of English Gardening (1829:301), Kennedy was the actual writer of William Bridgwater Page, Page's Prodromus, as a General Nomenclature of All the Plants , Indigenous and Exotic, Cultivated in the Southampton Botanic Garden 1817. Page had been trained in the firm's nursery at Hammersmith and had married a daughter of John Kennedy and had moved to Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, where he set up in business himself.
In 1818 he was engaged as factor to the Drummond-Burrel Estates in Perthsire. In 1828 he added responsibility as agent, for the Willoughby de Eresby Estate at Grimsthorpe, in Lincolnshre and the Gwydir Estate
Gwydir Castle
Gwydir Castle is situated in the Conwy valley, North Wales, a mile to the west of the ancient market town of Llanrwst and to the south of the large village of Trefriw...
, now in Gwynedd
Gwynedd
Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although the second biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated...
, the ownership of all of which was linked by marriage. He retired in 1868, by which time the estates had been brought into prosperous order.
Probably, his legacy most remarkable today is the formal flower garden at Drummond Castle. He worked on this scheme with the architect and landscape designer, Sir Charles Barry
Charles Barry
Sir Charles Barry FRS was an English architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens.- Background and training :Born on 23 May 1795 in Bridge Street, Westminster...
, who showed his watercolours of his scheme for remodelling Drummond castle itself, at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
in 1828.
Notable introductions to commerce
Many tropical and sub-tropical plants for British greenhouses and hothouses were first introduced to commerce by Lee and Kennedy. The first China rose was imported by Lee and Kennedy, in 1787, and the next year the first fuchsiaFuchsia
Fuchsia is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. The first, Fuchsia triphylla, was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1703 by the French Minim monk and botanist, Charles Plumier...
, as Fuchsia coccinea now known as F. magellanica
Fuchsia magellanica
Berry, Paul E. A Systematic Revision of Fuchsia Sect Quelusia . Ann. Missouri Bot Gard. 76:532-584. 1989Fuchsia magellanica, is a species of flowering plant in the family Onagraceae, native to Southern Argentina and Chile from 32.5° S. to the Straits of Magellan...
, which Loudon remembered they had sold at first for a guinea a plant. In 1807 they introduced the dahlia
Dahlia
Dahlia is a genus of bushy, tuberous, perennial plants native to Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. There are at least 36 species of dahlia, some like D. imperialis up to 10 metres tall. Dahlia hybrids are commonly grown as garden plants...
to public cultivation. In 1818 they introduced the French idea of roses grown as standards.