Ellen Willmott
Ellen Willmott (1858-1934) was one of Britain’s most eminent horticulturalists at the beginning of the twentieth century. She was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s Victoria Medal in 1897 and became the first female fellow of the Linnean Society in 1904.
Willmott was instrumental in the RHS’s acquisition of George Fergusson Wilson’s Oakwood Garden at Wisley in Surrey in 1903. The RHS subsequently appointed Willmott a trustee of the new RHS Wisley garden.
Willmott’s own garden at Warley Place in Essex was highly regarded. Thanks to a significant family inheritance Willmott was able to fund plant collecting expeditions to all over the world. Many of the plants and seeds that were collected were brought back and planted at Warley. In 1909 she published a photographic record of the garden, Warley Garden in Spring and Summer. The writer William Robinson described the book as “a sumptuous work… illustrating an intensely interesting and charming garden”.
Willmott’s best-known published work is her Genus Rosa, a two-volume work containing descriptions of 132 rose varieties, accompanied by illustrations commissioned from the botanical artist Alfred Parsons. However, the venture was a commercial disaster, and Willmott was left almost penniless when she died in 1934.
After Willmott’s death Warley Place was sold off, with the house and much of the gardens demolished. Willmott’s legacy lives on however, in her published works, and in the sixty or so plant varieties named after her or after Warley.
Willmott was instrumental in the RHS’s acquisition of George Fergusson Wilson’s Oakwood Garden at Wisley in Surrey in 1903. The RHS subsequently appointed Willmott a trustee of the new RHS Wisley garden.
Willmott’s own garden at Warley Place in Essex was highly regarded. Thanks to a significant family inheritance Willmott was able to fund plant collecting expeditions to all over the world. Many of the plants and seeds that were collected were brought back and planted at Warley. In 1909 she published a photographic record of the garden, Warley Garden in Spring and Summer. The writer William Robinson described the book as “a sumptuous work… illustrating an intensely interesting and charming garden”.
Willmott’s best-known published work is her Genus Rosa, a two-volume work containing descriptions of 132 rose varieties, accompanied by illustrations commissioned from the botanical artist Alfred Parsons. However, the venture was a commercial disaster, and Willmott was left almost penniless when she died in 1934.
After Willmott’s death Warley Place was sold off, with the house and much of the gardens demolished. Willmott’s legacy lives on however, in her published works, and in the sixty or so plant varieties named after her or after Warley.