Visitors’ book, Oakwood Garden, Wisley (closed to public access until conservation has been carried out)
Record type
Archive
Original Reference
RHS/WY/Owd/3/1
Date
Mar 1884-Aug 1902
Scope & content
This volume is closed to public access until conservation has been carried out, due to being fragile and unfit for production
Record of visitors to Oakwood Garden, comprising around 6,000 names and signatures. At top of first page, a manuscript note signed George F. Wilson: ‘Heatherbank, Weybridge Heath, 1 March 1884. I shall be obliged by all visitors to Oakwood signing their names and addresses in this book’. Information includes date, name, address or town, and occasional comments. Includes visitors from abroad including Europe, United States of America, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, India, Upper Burma and New Zealand
Names include (with dates of one or more visits in brackets; this is not an exhaustive list of dates on which the person visited):
Horticulturists, including Gertrude Jekyll (7 Apr 1884, 9 Sep 1884, 12 May 1900), William Robinson (9 Sep 1884, 9 Jul 1889), F.W. Burbidge (14 May 1885), E.A. Bowles (13 Jul 1898), Ellen Willmott (30 Jul 1894, 8 Jul 1895, 2 Mar 1896, 8 Apr 1899, 17 Jun 1899, 4 May 1901), Thomas Hanbury (14 Sep 1889, 28 Aug 1895, 17 Jun 1902), Shirley Hibberd (12 Jun 1884), Henry Ellacombe (10 Oct 1885, 15 Feb 1898), Robert Lindsay (2 Oct 1884), W.T. Thiselton-Dyer (6-15 Jun 1885), Charles Wolley-Dod (1 Jul 1885, 17 Aug 1885 and many visits up to 4 May 1901), Maxwell T. Masters (30 Jul 1887), Harold Peto (1 Oct 1901), Avray Tipping (1 Oct 1901), William Ingram (15 Apr 1890), E.T. Cook (12 May 1900), W.E. Gumbleton (5 Sep 1991), Herbert Maxwell (Mar 1992), John Hoog (20 Jun 1900), R. Irwin Lynch (3 Jul 1892, 29 Aug 1900), H. Correvon (18 Apr 1893, 17 Jun 1901), H.J. Elwes (4 May 1893), S. Reynolds Hole (18 Jul 1893), Edmund Loder (16 Jul 1893), Dorothy Nevill (24 Mar 1894), Arthur J. Bliss (11 Jun 1896, 6 Apr 1897), Arthur K. Bulley (Apr 1897), P.D. Williams (23 Jun 1897), P.R. Barr (30 Jul 1898) and Trevor Lawrence (4 Aug 1900)
Artists, including Marianne North (19 Oct 1885, 26 Mar 1889), Frank Miles (19 Jul 1885), Herbert Schmalz (24 Sep 1888), Henry George Moon (26 Mar 1891), Florence Woolward (17 Mar 1892) and Alfred Parsons (22 May 1893)
Dignitaries, including the Hawaiian princess, Victoria Ka’iulani (24 Aug 1891), Edwin Lutyens (21 Jun 1902), Constance Lytton (2 Jul 1895, 18 Apr 1902), Alfred Wallace (23 Jun 1892), F.B. Money Coutts (16 Jun 1884), Lady Georgiana Peel (9 Sep 1886), Henry Trueman Wood (21 Jul 1890), Admiral Sir Edward Inglefield (9 Sep 1890), Earl and Countess of Southesk (9 Mar 1897), the Countess of Ellesmere (3 Jul 1899) and Count E. Arrigoni (9 Jul 1900)
Local inhabitants, including the Earl and Countess of Onslow, Lady Emma Talbot, Sir T.H. Farrer, Lady Granville, Lady Helen Vincent and Lady Violet Greville
Wilson’s family members, including his wife Ellen Wilson (22 Jun 1884), sons Herman G. Wilson (11 Jun 1897) and Scott B. Wilson (1 Sep 1898), and daughter Alice Wilson (4 Jul 1884)
Enclosed is a chit from Alex H Turner and Co, auctioneers and valuers of Weybridge, made out to the head gardener at Oakwood requesting him to admit the bearer to view the garden, Jun 1902
This volume was purchased in 1999 from an antiquarian bookseller in Sacramento, California, United States of America, having come from a private estate sale in Palm Springs, California
Condition: Fragile. Unfit for production. Outside covering of front board is missing; back board very worn; binding disintegrating and some pages coming loose; pages reasonably robust; text is in pencil which is therefore at risk of loss
Extent
1 volume
Is part of
RHS archive: Oakwood Garden, Wisley, and G.F. Wilson archive