May 2025 Talk: Francesca Murray on The Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Institution

On 19 May we welcomed Dr. Francesca Murray to give a talk on ‘The Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Institution and its horticultural heroes and heroines’.

Dr. Murray is an author, speaker and researcher on garden history and the horticultural trades, with a special interest in nineteenth century gardeners and nursery owners.
Her talk focused on the range of benevolent, mutual aid and charitable societies – as well as the individual characters that founded and used them – that were set up in support of gardeners, florists and associated trades in the years before the welfare state was even considered.

There were numbers of organisations that existed, the earliest of which was probably the Worshipful Company of Gardeners: a guild first recorded in 1345 but gaining a Royal Charter in 1605, and still in existence. Freemasonry uses horticultural themes and operated as mutual aid, and later came local ‘box clubs’ and ‘friendly societies’, until an outspoken and outgoing journalist named George Glenny became a founder in 1839 of the Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution (with ‘Royal’ added in 1851). A former watchcase maker, he had turned to horticulture and already set up both the Horticultural Journal and the Metropolitan Society of Florists and Amateurs, as well as writing ‘Gardening for the Million’, a very popular book which was followed by lots of pocket-sized handbooks to various areas of gardening.

The GRBI was subscription-based, as well as holding annual fundraising dinners attended by the great and the good who supported the Institution. It primarily gave pensions to those working in gardening and related fields (and their widows), based on a set of strict requirements, a petition and elections. It was fascinating to learn about some of the individuals who requested pensions, though the process of probably quite desperate people garnering votes and often failing to ‘win’ their pension was quite saddening. Charles Dickens famously said, at the 1852 fundraising dinner:

“…His gains are not great and [he] knows gold and silver more as being the colours of fruit and flowers than by their presence in his pockets. He is subjected to that kind of labour which renders him peculiarly liable to infirmity and when old age comes upon him, the gardener is, of all men perhaps, best able to appreciate the benefits of the Institution…”

In total, nearly 850 people received pensions from the GRBI over the years. Many more applied! When state pensions were introduced in the early 20th century, the GRBI moved toward providing retirement homes and other support. In 1960 the ‘Institution’ became the ‘Society’ (GRBS) and in 2003 changed its name to ‘Perennial’. It now provides help of many kinds to people across horticulture, from emergency grants to a wellbeing app, money/housing/legal advice and a career hub service. It also owns three gardens (which were donated) to raise money: York Gate near Leeds, Fullers Mill in Suffolk and The Laskett in Herefordshire.

Dr. Murray also brought and displayed an interesting and intriguing range of artefacts related to her talk, and answered questions from the audience of more than sixty people.

Ali H