The Tradescants

By 1615 Tradescant was working for Edward, Lord Woton, in the old monastery garden of St Augustine’s, Canterbury. Tradescant designed three elaborate gardens and became know for growing melons here.The Abbey remains as a ruin, shown here in 1942.

Tradescant was hired by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who owned Burley­on-the-Hill in Rutland, New Hall in Essex and two London homes. As well as advising on the gardens and travelling to Europe to buy fruit trees for him, Tradescant also helped the Duke build up a closet of rarities.

Buckingham appointed Tradescant to collect these items in 1635. Following this Tradescant wrote to the Secretary of the Navy, Edward Nicholas, asking that Nicholas purchase all manner of beasts, alive or their parts such as heads and feathers, as well as seeds and plants.Tradescant listed a 'River horse's head of the Bigest that can be Gotten' and 'Any thing that is strange' as desirable items. Nicholas supplied many 'strange' objects and Tradescant would have kept duplicates the Duke didn’t want. In 1628 the Duke was assassinated.

Soon after Buckingham’s death, Tradescant leased a house on South Lambeth Road to establish his own botanic garden and museum, know as the 'Tradescant's Ark'. These both became popular attractions with the curious and scholarly.

Tradescant’s botanic garden introduced lots of new plants to England. Popular house plant Tradescantia, named after the Tradescants, was sent from a friend in Virginia and grown in England for first time at the garden before 1629.

The plant, commonly called ‘inch plant’, ‘Moses in the cradle’ and ‘Wondering Jew’, has many varieties with trailing foliage ranging from green and white to a deep purple. Another common plan sent to Tradescant is the Scarlet Runner Bean (Phaseolus coccineus L.) which arrived from the West Indies.

In addition to running the garden and Museum in Lambeth, Tradescant was appointed by King Charles I as Keeper of the Gardens, Vines and Silkworms at Oatlands Palace in 1930. Oatlands was the palace of Henrietta Maria 'the rose and lily queen'. Whilst working here he supervised the addition of an arbour in 1632 as well a orange garden and new bowling green, which would have been similar to one pictured here.

Tradescant became associated with the Oxford Physic Garden in 1636. His involvement with the garden, whose main purpose was to cultivate medicinal plants, lasted for just over a year and it is likely he brought plants to the Physic Garden from South Lambeth.

In 1638, John Tradescant the Elder died and his funeral took place on 17th April in St Mary’s at Lambeth.

John Tradscant the Younger had been studying at King’s School, Canterbury, between 1619 and 1623. He married Jane Hurte in 1928 and, before her death in 1635, they had two children Frances and John. From 1634 he was a sworn freeman of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners, which had cost him 12 shillings and 6 pence.

In 1638 when his father passed, John Tradescant the Younger was in Virginia gathering flowers and plants. He returned with about two hundred new plants as well as dried speciums and seeds. These included the American Plane (Platanus-occidentalis L.), the Swamp Cypress (Taxodium Distichun L. Rich.) and the Virginian Jasmine (Celsemium semprevirens L .Aiton). He succeeded his father as Royal Gardner at Oatlands and married Hester Pooks in the autumn after his return.

John Tradescant the Younger made two more trips to Virginia, first with passage under Bertram Hobert and after under William Lea in 1653. He returned from these trips with many more plants including the red and yellow Trumpet Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens L.), the Sensitive Plant (Mimosa sensitiva L.) and the Virginian Yucca (Yucca filamentosa L.).

Both Tradescants were incredibly skilled to be able to transport living plants around the world at this time, ensuring enough fresh water was available throughout the changing temperatures experienced on a trip. They also had to protect the plants from rough sea and salty sea spray.

Back in South Lambeth, the Tradescant’s garden business provided their main source of income, staying open throughout the English civil war (1842 – 1651). During this time more common medicinal plants and food were grown in the garden at Lambeth.

When Tradescant started cataloguing his collection and making a garden list, his friends Elias Ashmole, an ambitious lawyer, and Dr. Thomas Warton offered to help. The result was the Musaeum Tradescantianum published in 1656.

In 1652 the Tradescant’s only son died. The collection had many highly prized item such as shells and Tradescant wanted the collection to be preserved. John’s final wish, written in his will, was that it be donated to a university.