Alicia Margaret Tyssen Amherst, Baroness Rockley (30 July 1865 – 14 September 1941) was an English

horticulturist Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

, botanist, and author of the first scholarly account of English gardening history.

Family and personal life

Alicia Amherst was born in 1865 in

Poole Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counc ...

, Dorset, one of seven daughters of

William Tyssen-Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst of Hackney William Amhurst Tyssen-Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst of Hackney, (25 April 1835 – 16 January 1909) was a British Conservative Member of Parliament and collector of books and works of art. Background and education Born William Amhurst Daniel-Tys ...

, who was later the Conservative Member of Parliament for West Norfolk. Her mother, Margaret Susan Mitford, was an avid gardener and gave Amherst her own plot to care for at the age of ten. Her interest in history was spurred by access to her father's large library. In 1898, she married Evelyn Cecil and gained the second of the names under which she would publish, Mrs Evelyn Cecil. They had three children. Evelyn Cecil, a Conservative Member of Parliament, was knighted and, in 1934, raised to the peerage as

Baron Rockley Baron Rockley, of Lytchett Heath in the County of Dorset, is a title in the peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 11 January 1934 for the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician Evelyn Cecil, 1st Baron Rockley, Sir Evelyn Ceci ...

, so she became Lady Rockley of Lytchett Heath and then the

dowager A dowager is a widow or widower who holds a title or property—a "dower"—derived from her or his deceased spouse. As an adjective, ''dowager'' usually appears in association with monarchy, monarchical and aristocracy, aristocratic Title#Aristocr ...

Baroness Rockley, two more names under which she would publish. She died in Poole in 1941.

Writing

Amherst became known for her first and still most famous book, ''The History of Gardening in England'' (1895), published under the name Alicia M. T. Amherst. Unexpectedly for its author, it was a huge and immediate success. For the second edition, which was contracted within a month of the first, Amherst received ten times the amount she had been offered for the first. At the time, most gardening books were practical handbooks, and Amherst was the first writer to take a careful look at the history of gardening in England, going back much further in time than other gardening writers did. Indeed, she spearheaded the first wave of writing about Euro-American garden history, with such well-known works as

Rose Standish Nichols Rose Standish Nichols (1872–1960) was an American landscape architect from Boston, Massachusetts. Nichols worked for some 70 clients in the United States and abroad. Collaborators included David Adler, Mac Griswold, Howard Van Doren Shaw, and ...

' ''English Pleasure Gardens'' following in 1902 and

Marie-Luise Gothein Marie-Luise Gothein (12 September 1863 – 24 December 1931) was a Prussian scholar, gardener and author. Gothein was born Marie Luise Schröder in Pasym, Passenheim, East Prussia. She wrote the monumental ''History of Garden Art'', regarded as ...

's ''A History of Garden Art'' in 1913. More scholarly but less eloquent than her contemporary

Gertrude Jekyll Gertrude Jekyll ( ; 29 November 1843 – 8 December 1932) was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote ...

, Amherst never became nearly as popular or influential a writer on gardening. But with its meticulous footnotes and exhaustive annotated bibliography, ''The History of Gardening in England'' became the authoritative work in its field and remains of value to historians today. Amherst wrote several more books, including two for children after she became a mother: ''Children's Gardens'' (1902) and ''Children and Gardens'' (1908). Her ''London Parks and Gardens'' (1907) is the first serious and deeply informed book on London's open spaces. Amherst wrote a number of scholarly papers on garden history, as well as growing unusual plants in her own garden and collecting specimens on trips abroad for

Kew Gardens Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...

Books

* ''The History of Gardening in England'' (1896, as Alicia M. T. Amherst) * ''Children's Gardens'' (1902, as the Hon'ble Mrs. Evelyn Cecil) * ''London Parks and Gardens'' (1907, as the Hon'ble Mrs. Evelyn Cecil; with illustrations by

Lady Victoria Manners Victoria Marjorie Harriet Paget, Marchioness of Anglesey (''née'' Manners; 20 December 1883 – 3 November 1946) was a British writer on art, an illustrator, and a member of the peerage. Biography Lady Victoria was the eldest daughter of Henry ...

) * ''Children and Gardens'' (1908) * ''Wild Flowers of the Great Dominions of the British Empire'' (Macmillan, 1935, as the Lady Rockley) * ''Some Canadian Wildflowers: Being the First Part of Wild Flowers of the Great Dominions of the British Empire'' (1937, as Lady Rockley) * ''Historic Gardens of England'' (1938, as Mrs. Evelyn Cecil)

Other botanical and horticultural activities

Amherst's collecting expeditions took her to Mozambique and South Africa (1899), Rhodesia (1900), and Ceylon, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada (1927). This was a period when horticultural schools were being founded in England, and Amherst advocated on behalf of women entering the field. Amherst was also known as a fine artist of botanical and other subjects. In 1900, her husband published ''On the Eve of the War: A Narrative of Impressions During a Journey in Cape Colony, the Free State, the Transvaal, Natal, and Rhodesia'' and several of its illustrations were from sketches or photographs by Amherst. She took part in a campaign to save the

Chelsea Physic Garden The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries' Garden in London, England, in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to grow plants to be used as medicines. This four acre physic garden, the term here referring to the sc ...

, a London garden dating back to 1673. She sat on its management committee, and the garden now holds her archive.

Honours and legacy

Amherst was made a Member of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

in 1918. She was the only woman to receive the Freedom of the

Worshipful Company of Gardeners The Worshipful Company of Gardeners is one of the livery companies of the City of London. An organisation of Gardeners existed in the middle of the fourteenth century; it received a royal charter in 1605. The company no longer exists as a regu ...

, a London livery company (a kind of trade association or guild) that was chartered in 1605. The plant '' Hebe'' 'Alicia Amherst'—a purple-flowered cultivar synonymous with ''H. veitchii'' as well as a plant species ''Kaempferia ceciliae'' N.E.Br. (family

Zingiberaceae Zingiberaceae () or the ginger family is a family of flowering plants made up of about 50 genera with a total of about 1600 known species of aromatic perennial herbs with creeping horizontal or tuberous rhizomes distributed throughout tropical Af ...

) —were named after her. A first biography, ''The Well-Connected Gardener: A Biography of Alicia Amherst, Founder of Garden History'', was published in 2010.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amherst, Alicia 1865 births 1941 deaths British garden writers 20th-century English writers 19th-century English writers People from Poole Daughters of barons Rockley 19th-century English women writers 20th-century English women writers