8 March 2017
Lady gardeners of the 19th & 20th century
In celebration of International Women's Day, Michele Losse talks about the employment of women at Kew. The first women gardeners were appointed in 1896.
To coincide with International Women’s Day on the 8 March, I thought I would tell you about the history of women at Kew. The first women gardeners were appointed by the then Director, William Thiselton-Dyer, in 1896. They had qualified from the Horticultural College for Women at Swanley in Kent. Thiselton-Dyer was a strict disciplinarian and had introduced uniforms for gardeners as a symbol of status, as well as imposing order within the establishment. Thus, our first lady gardeners had to wear the same uniform as the men, so as not to distract their male colleagues when working alongside them.
The first of the lady gardeners were Annie M Gulvin and Alice Hutchins. The compilers of the Journal of the Kew Guild for 1896 had mixed feelings about their appointment: "Some of the work seems too laborious for them but this is their affair… Given fair play and no favour we do not object to anyone competing in the field of horticulture, be it prince or peer, retired army officer or young lady. The pity it is that in the case of women, marriage would terminate their gardening career". By 1898, Alice Hutchins had been promoted to sub-foreman (!) and Annie Gulvin had been replaced by Jessie Newsham and Florence M Potter.
The year 1902 was the last Kew had any lady gardeners, but the First World War saw their re-employment to replace the men who had gone to fight. Over 30 women gardeners worked at Kew until 1918; some stayed on until March 1922, when the employment of women gardeners was discontinued. Women were recruited once again during the Second World War to replace male gardeners. Many were employed until 1946, after which numbers were cut dramatically. From the early 1950s women students were recruited at the rate of one or two a year, until the 1970s when their number increased to become equal with male students.
Artists, specimen mounters and scientists
It is more difficult to trace the employment of women in the scientific sphere, such as the Herbarium and Jodrell Laboratory. There are no sources available prior to 1893, the date of the first publication of the Kew Guild Journal. Matilda Smith (1854-1926), a botanical artist, is the first and only female to appear in the 1893 Kew Guild Journal. She is mentioned as having been employed since 1878, when she was recruited by Sir Joseph Hooker, and worked for a further 43 years. The sole artist for many of these years, she drew botanical illustrations for Curtis's Botanical Magazine.
The majority of the women employed in the Herbarium in the late 19th and early 20th centuries appear to have already had links with Kew, mostly through their relatives. In 1894, Miss Ada E Fitch, ‘Specimen Mounter’, may have been the daughter of Walter Hood Fitch (1817-1892), who was a botanical artist at Kew from 1841 to 1880. In 1905, she was joined by a Miss C E Hemsley, 'Sub-Assistant' in the Herbarium, who may have been the daughter of William Botting Hemsley (1843-1924), Keeper of the Herbarium from 1899-1908.
The employment of women in scientific roles steadily increased in the early 20th century, especially after 1915. In the 1950s, female scientists obtained a more prominent role, especially as they became allowed by law to stay on after they married. Today women are actively involved at Kew in a variety of roles and of course continue to be, from gardening to archiving!
-Michele-
