The Christmas Present.
The Lady's Recreation, Charles Evelyn, 1707
In my first research chapter, ‘Education’, I’ve been exploring how women learnt about the natural world, with a particular focus on horticulture. I started by trying to understand what books were available, and came across The Lady’s Recreation by Charles Evelyn (1717), in the photograph (which psst was used in a uni photography competition, keep reading to see how that went). If you’ve checked out my research page or last blog, you’ll know that in my thesis I am exploring the long-nineteenth century, and while I’m pushing the traditional end date of that to 1930, the start point remains at 1789. For those that aren’t maths whizzes that puts the publication of this book way outside of my timeframe.
So why have I got it?
Well partially, it’s because I couldn’t resist buying such an old book, but it’s partly because another author, Jane Loudon (1807-1858), who wrote fairly prolifically in the 19thC including horticultural books, wrote a book, Gardening for Ladies in 1840. With that book, Loudon was described by Dawn Macleod as being, ‘the first to deal with this subject since Charles Evelyn wrote The Lady’s Recreation in 1707’. It was in reading that sentence in Macleod’s book that I started to wonder why had it taken 133 years for women gardeners to get another book, and in that moment, I resolved to get myself a copy of Evelyn’s work.
The Christmas Present
Over my Christmas holiday, with a bit of time available I decided I’d buy myself a little present, so started the process of looking for this 318 year old book. Amazingly, I got lucky, and on my very first search I found a first edition of The Lady’s Recreation that I snapped up, having only vaugely noticed that it came with some kind of letter. When the book arrived, I carefully opened it up and retrieved the mystery letter. It was from ‘Uncle Will H’ to Andrew, and it revealed that in 1976 it was given as a Christmas present, long before it became a gift to myself. Will reveals that the book was his, but he wanted Andrew to have it due to his interest in gardening, and tells us that before it was owned by Will, it was his father’s, and before that it was his grandfather’s. I haven’t been able to verify if Andrew was in fact Will’s nephew, or perhaps a family friend, but the book was owned at the very least by three generations of the same family (four if Andrew was a nephew) in it’s then 269 year history.
The artefact I found here, in the form of the letter, gave the book an added layer to its history. You don’t always know what route books have taken to get to you, but here I had at least some insight into where the book lived, and who had held it before. To learn a little more I decided to do a bit of a deep dive on Uncle Will and see what I could find out, and thought I’d share it here.
Uncle Will & The Heasell family
William Egbert Heasell (1894-1990), was born in Saffron Walden, Essex to Egbert C Heasell and Jane Heasell. In 1920 he married Nora Mclaughlin, and had a son, Dennis in 1925. By the age of 16, in 1911, William had moved with his mum, dad, and sister (Kathleen) to Bristol where they lived at 69 Elton Road. In 1916 at 22, with the First World War raging in Europe, William’s service record lists his occupation as a Clerk, before going on to tell us that he was exempted from combatant service on 21 March 1916, joining the Non-Combatant Corps, presumably as a conscientious objector, as that who was typically in the corps - unfortunately I’ve been unable to get certainty around that though. When William and Nora married, at 26 and 23, his father, Egbert’s - previous owner of the book - profession was listed as a tailor (a man after my textile-loving heart). The pair continue to live in Bristol for the rest of Nora’s life, and after she dies, William moves to Devon, where he lives for the rest of his life.
As mentioned, we also know two previous owners, so a quick word about them: William’s father, Egbert Cornelius Heasell (1868 - 1947) was born in Hampshire, moving to Bristol via Somerset, Wiltshire, and Essex; and Williams’ grandfather James Lovell Heasell (1837-1906) was born in Wiltshire and had nine children with his wife Elizabeth. I would love to know what the book was doing before it reached the Heasell family, as even if James received it at birth, 130 years of the book’s ownership is still unaccounted for. That’s one mystery I suspect I’ll never solve.
Photography Competition
Back to the present day, and for the big photography competition reveal! Well, I took the above photo for a photography competition organised by the university, where we were asked to share a photograph that summed up our research. William came to my rescue, and I entered this photo, titled The Christmas Present, and I found out a few weeks later that I’d won the People’s Choice Award. My prize was a bit of cash (also ideal) and the money I won has been used to pay for this site, so William has given another gift.
