HISTORY and FOLKLORE
HISTORY There is a wealth of history about Violets and much is covered in the books mentioned in the section covering Literature .
The Author of the Book on Armand Millet and his Violets (Ref 13) Mr John Perfect has very kindly donated the following article. For a personally signed copy of John's book please contact him.
You can contact John at , Park Farm Road , High Wycombe , Bucks,HP12 4AF, United Kingdom.
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ISAAC
OLDAKER -
Forty years a pensioner
Isaac Oldaker was born in
1772 at Marston Montgomery, Derbyshire and baptised on
May 3rd. So far nothing has been found about his
training as a gardener, but he must have gained
experience working in a large garden before being
recruited for work in Russia.
In 1804 he was put in charge of the gardens of the
Imperial Palace at Ropsha, about 10kms west of Tsarskoe
Selo, the Summer Palace of the tsars. Here in extensive
kitchen gardens and a large range of greenhouses,
exotic and other fruit and vegetables were grown,
including grapes, peaches, pineapples and melons
- as well as flowers - on a scale
sufficient to supply the demands of the imperial palace
of St. Petersburg and the surrounding area.
On January 21st 1812 Oldaker was relieved of
his duties on the grounds of ill health and was to
receive 1500 roubles a year until he recovered, even if
he were living abroad. Meanwhile another English
gardener, Thomas Grey, replaced him at
Ropsha. On July 4th Oldaker was given a passport so
that he could travel to England. Returning from
Russia, Oldaker brought with him many interesting
fruit trees and seeds, some of which he was later to
display to members of the
Horticultural Society of London (later to become
the Royal Horticultural Society)
Soon he was working at Spring Grove, the garden of Sir
Joseph Banks, a leading member of the Society from
its formation in 1804. At Spring Grove, Oldaker
built a mushroom house for Banks. So
impressed were a group of Fellows of the Society who
inspected it in 1814, that Isaac was made a fellow, his
illustrated account of the construction and management of
the building was printed in their transactions, and
twenty copies of the article were printed off for him. In
Russia there is a record of the installation in 1810 of a
pipe in a greenhouse at Ropsha in connection with
mushroom cultivation. When in 1816 Bank's head
gardener, Fairbairn , left to work for the Prince
of Coburg, husband of Princess Charlotte, the ill - fated
next in line to the British throne, Oldaker was
appointed in his place.
The Parma Violet (called Neapolitan Violet in England at
that time) had long been grown in Europe in places where
the climate was benign, such as the Mediterranean coast
of France and southern Italy. In
1805 " Le Bon Jardinier " of Paris first
included it in its list of violets, saying that it
flowered from October if grown in pots and given
protection during the winter.
In Russia, Oldaker would have been familiar with
the cultivation of these fashionable flowers, and Banks
was interested in possible horticultural developments.
For three years, from 1816 to 1819,
Oldaker grew either 300 or 400 pots of these Neapolitan
Violets and kept meticulous records of the numbers of
flowers picked each season. The summary,
showing increasing yields as he gained experience, was as
follows:
October 1816 - April 1817 from
300 pots 566 dozen flowers
October 1817 - April 1818
from 400 pots 1062 dozen flowers
October 1818 - April 1819
from 300 pots 1032 dozen flowers
On March 21st 1820, Oldaker gave an account of this
experiment . He explained how suitable plants were
prepared for pots 7" wide, 6" deep. One
strong plant or two to four weak plants were put in each
pot. He emphasised the beneficial use of
ground bones in the soil. For the following period
the pots were plunged in hotbeds and grown in frames.
Banks was already very ill at the time this article
appeared in the Transactions, and it is a measure of the
importance he attached to its possible influence that he
ordered, to the suprise of the Secretary, 100 copies to
be printed for his use. His death on June
19th must have put an end to any further work on this
project.
After the death of Lady Banks Oldaker became
head gardener to the Earl of Sefton at Stoke Farm, Stoke
Poges. He held this position until shortly
before his death on March 8th 1852, aged 79.
It has always been assumed that this strange habit of
calling himself Gardener to his Majesty, the Emperor of
all the Russias, instead of giving the name of his
employer at the time, was in some way due to his receipt
of a pension. Only now, thanks to
Andrei Reiman, a leading conservationalist at St.
Petersburg, do we know how Oldaker applied for and manged
to keep receiving this money.
Oldaker suffered from asthma. Thanks to his
diligent letters, supported by reports on his health ( or
rather ill - health) by Doctor Robarts of Stoke Poges,
which were testified to as genuine by the vicar - all of
this being confirmed and forwarded to St Petersburg from
London by a Russian official -the pension continued from
year to year. The accession of a new tsar in December
1825 must have caused anxiety for a time. In
1830 he arranged for an English merchant, John Jubb, to
act as his representative in St.
Petersburg. It is not suprising
that in 1832 someone pencilled on a document on
Russian "Can he really have been ill since
1812?"
The last pension, for 1851, was drawn on March 13th
1852, five days after his death.
No-one thought to inform the Russian authorities of his
demise. Only on September
13th 1854, was the award cancelled, as
it had not been claimed for more than two years.
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Information about Ropsha and archive material in Russia
has been supplied by
Andrei Reiman
Thanks to Neil Chambers of the Banks Archive for relevant
letters of Sir
Joseph Banks.
Copyright
E.J.Perfect
and Andrei Reiman
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