A life in book dedications: Jane Webb Loudon (1807-1858)

The life of Jane Webb Loudon (1807-1858), writer on gardening and botany and magazine editor, in some of her book dedications.

Instructions in Gardening for Ladies. 
London: John Murray, 1840

J. C. Loudon, John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843), botanist, garden designer and prolific author. They married on 14th September 1830.

The Young Naturalist's Journey: or the Travels of Agnes Merton and Her Mama. 
London: William Smith, 1840

Agnes Loudon Spofforth (1832-1863) only child of John and Jane Loudon. Agnes was a precocious and talented writer. She published "The Lost Gloves, or We Shall See. A Story for Little Girls" in 1845 and wrote six of the eleven stories in: 
Tales for young people.
edited by Mrs Loudon 
London: Bowdery & Kerby, 1846

The Ladies' Flower-Garden of Ornamental Annuals. 

London, William Smith, 1840 

Countess Radnor was Lady Mary Augusta Grimston (1821-1879) one of the maids of honour at the Coronation of Queen Victoria on 28th June 1838 and one of the Queen's bridesmaids on 10th February 1840. She married Jacob, Viscount Folkestone, afterwards Earl of Radnor on 30th October 1840. Their seat was Longford Castle, near Salisbury in Wiltshire.  

She is mentioned in the Dictionary Of British And Irish Botanists And Horticulturalists. 

The Ladies' Companion to the Flower Garden, being an Alphabetical Arrangement of all the ornamental plants usually grown in gardens and shrubberies, with full directions for their culture.

London: William Smith, 1841

Mrs. Lawrence was Louisa Lawrence (1803–1855), famous gardener and horticulturalist. A friend of JWL who knew her garden at Ealing Park, Middlesex, very well. Mrs Lawrence's husband, the famous surgeon William Lawrence, treated John Loudon.

The four flowers of the plate are named after JWL's husband: 1. Passiflora Loudoni, 2. Adesmia Loudonia, 3. Isopogon Loudoni 4. Loudonia aurea.

After Mrs Lawrence's death in 1855, the dedication changed. 

London: Bradbury & Evans, 1858. 1858. Edition. 7th ed.

The Amateur Gardener's Calendar; Being a guide as to what should by done in a garden in each month of the year.

London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1847

Lady Peel was Julia Floyd (1795-1859) married to the British statesman Sir Robert Peel,  twice Prime Minister.
After her husband's death, JWL received a pension of £ 100 per annum from the Civil List.
The book was revised by William Robinson in 1870. He writes,

Facts from the World of Nature: Animate and Inanimate. 

London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1847

 

JWL dedicated this book to Charles Waterton (1782-1865), naturalist, taxidermist and author of "Wanderings in South America" and "Essays on Natural History". One of her husband's friends, Waterton had often welcomed John and Jane to his house, Walton Hall, in Yorkshire.

In 1844, Waterton had dedicated the second volume of "Essays on Natural History" to JWL. In the Preface, he writes:

JWL's last book has no dedication, but one of her beautiful covers: emerald green cloth with golden floral decorations.

My own garden; or, The young gardener's year book 
London: Kerby & Sons, 1855

Aucuba japonica

A recent trip to Bristol reminded me of a rounded evergreen shrub from Asia not so fashionable in modern gardens: Aucuba japonica.

Walking from Clifton to the University Library, I passed elegant Victorian houses and shaded entrance gardens where its glossy green leaves created solid barriers with Mahonias, Viburnum tinus, box and ferns against boundaries walls. 

In Japan, its variegated leaves became popular in gardens from the late eighteenth century and, like Nandina domestica, it is associated with good fortune.

1.

2.

     

In England, it was cosseted in greenhouses in the early nineteenth century, but soon it proved to be a perfectly hardy shrub, particularly suitable for town gardens, where it thrives under the shade of trees, in ordinary soil. In 1838, John Loudon strongly recommended to associate it with other evergreens as, in winter, deciduous shrubs without leaves "would ... increase the apparent coldness and dreariness of the situation." (The Suburban Gardener..., p.184)

Easy to propagate, more and more common, its qualities condemned it to become the symbol of ugly suburban gardens.

In her book Flower Decorations in the House, dated 1907, Gertrude Jekyll tries to reverse its fate, suggesting, "A branch or two of this in any large jar, preferably one of the blue and white Oriental porcelain, is a fine winter ornament." (Flower Decorations..., p.3)

3.

She prompts the use of Aucuba in masses: 

in some quiet place of twilight half-shade, in company with bold tufts of hardy ferns and a restricted number of flowering plants, such as Solomon's Seal and Columbine; a kind of place the furthest possible in sentiment from the fussy unrest of the roadside shrubbery, enduring as well as it may the endless showerings of chimney-blacks and smothering road-dust. (Flower Decorations..., p.2)

A place like the garden I visited near Lake Maggiore a couple of years ago, where a collection of Aucuba japonica paraded near the entrance associated with hamamelis, ilex and cyclamens for enjoyable winter walks.

Photos:
TravelinaGarden, Borgomanero, Italy, February 2016 and Bristol, November 2018
except
1. 'Toyo sango' Awoki, Ono Ranzan and Shimada Mitfuss. Kai (1763), from 'Botanical Transculturation...'

2. Aucuba japonica, Thunberg, C.P., Flora japonica, t. 13 (1784)
     http://plantillustrations.org/

3. Aucuba Branches in a Maiolica Jar, from Flower Decoration in the House


Further reading:

'Botanical Transculturation: Japanese and British Knowledge and Understanding of Aucuba japonica and Larix letolepis 1700-1920', Setsu Tachibana and Charles Watkins,  Environment and History, Vol. 16, No. 1 (February 2010), pp. 43-71

https://www.jstor.org/

Flower Decoration in the House, Gertrude Jekyll, Country Life Ltd., 1907

The Suburban Gardener and Villa Companion, John Loudon, London, Longman, 1838
https://archive.org/