Fanny Wilkinson The First Woman Landscape Gardener

Our busy thriving Capital City is filled with history, popular Landmarks and glorious shopping attractions. Amongst the busy streets and sky scraping buildings there are some popular open parks with some beautiful green areas which over the years have become widely popular to walk around.

Many of these popular open gardens were designed by a lady of the name Fanny Wilkinson otherwise known as the first female British landscaper Frances Rollo Wilkinson. A passionate suffrage for her time who along with her relative Millicent Fawcett believed strongly in women’s rights and women being able to be educated and earn equally to men.

Born on the 6th June 1855 to a well educated family and the eldest of six children, her father Matthew Eason Wilkinson was a wealthy doctor and mother Louisa came from a well to do family. Fanny spent a lot of her childhood growing up at Middlethorpe Hall which her father inherited from his first marriage. Fanny was interviewed once by the Women’s Penny Paper on the 8th November 1890 and said “I was always fond of gardening as a child, and I took it up because I felt it suited me, and wanted to do something. When my father died we went to live at our own place, near York, and there I began to devote myself to gardening in a practical way.’

Fanny went on and spent 18 months on a training course at Crystal Palace School of Landscape Gardening and Practical Horticulture which were only ever recorded to be for men. The Victorian attitudes of society were not about to get in her way of her self determination to achieve something she had found a passion for.

She chose her jobs and insisted when taking on a job that she employed her own men. She became an honorary landscape gardener by 1884 and the Lady Landscaper certainly was making a name for herself as her profession developed.

One of the many people in her circle of friends growing up was Octavia Hill who was one of the three people who founded the National Trust. Octavia and her sister Miranda Hill employed Fanny as their landscape gardener for the Kyrle Society which was founded in 1877.

In 1888 it was recorded in the St James Gazette that she was entrusted with a large sum of money by the lord Mayor for the employment of 30 labourers. Between her and her assistant Miss Svieken are to lay out fifthteen acres of land as a pleasure garden for the people who live in the east end. In 1887 Fanny became responsible for the layout of Vauxhall Park which at the time the house was occupied by Henry and Millicent Fawcett. Fanny was thriving and on 7th July 1890 the HRH Prince of Wales himself (Edward VII ) opened the park to the public and congratulated Fanny on her work.

Over the span of twenty years, Fanny was responsible for 75 public gardens for the MPGA which were all in London areas which aimed to bring some beauty and pleasure to the poor. The next time you sit on a park bench in London it might just be one of the many green open spaces which Fanny was responsible for. Fanny lived a healthy long life till the age of 95 where she died on 22nd January 1951.

By Cheryl Elizabeth Davis FamilyPast.co.uk