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Sir Joseph Paxton (3 August 1803 – 8 June 1865) was an English
gardener A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby. Description A gardener is any person involved in gardening, arguably the oldest occupation, from the hobbyist in a residential garden, the home-owner suppleme ...
, architect, engineer and Liberal Member of Parliament. He is best known for designing
the Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around ...
, which was built in Hyde Park, London to house the
Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition that took ...
of 1851, the first
world's fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition, is a large global exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specific site for a perio ...
, and for cultivating the
Cavendish banana Cavendish bananas are the fruits of one of a number of banana cultivars belonging to the Cavendish subgroup of the List of banana cultivars#AAA Group, AAA banana cultivar group (triploid cultivars of ''Musa acuminata''). The same term is also use ...
, the most consumed
banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...
in the Western world.


Early life

Paxton was born in 1803, the seventh son of a farming family, in
Milton Bryan Milton Bryan is a village and civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace the ...
, Bedfordshire. Some references, incorrectly, list his birth year as 1801. This is, as he admitted in later life, a result of misinformation he provided in his teens, which enabled him to enrol at Chiswick Gardens. He became a garden boy at the age of fifteen for Sir Gregory Osborne Page-Turner at Battlesden Park, near Woburn. After several moves, he obtained a position in 1823 at the Horticultural Society's Chiswick Gardens.


Chatsworth

The Horticultural Society's gardens were close to the gardens of William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, at
Chiswick House Chiswick House is a Neo-Palladian style villa in the Chiswick district of London, England. A "glorious" example of Neo-Palladian architecture in west London, the house was designed and built by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington (1694–1753 ...
. The duke met the young gardener as he strolled in his gardens and became impressed with his skill and enthusiasm. He offered the 20-year-old Paxton the position of head gardener at Chatsworth, which was considered one of the finest landscaped gardens of the time. Although the duke was in Russia, Paxton set off for Chatsworth on the Chesterfield coach arriving at Chatsworth at half past four in the morning. By his own account he had explored the gardens after scaling the kitchen garden wall, set the staff to work, eaten breakfast with the housekeeper and met his future wife, Sarah Bown, the housekeeper's niece, completing his first morning's work before nine o'clock. He married Bown in 1827, and she proved capable of managing his affairs, leaving him free to pursue his ideas. He enjoyed a friendly relationship with his employer who recognised his diverse talents and facilitated his rise to prominence. One of Paxton's first projects was to redesign the garden around the new north wing of the house and expand Chatsworth's collection of conifers into a
arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...
which still exists. He became skilled at moving mature trees. The largest, weighing about eight tons, was moved from Kedleston Road in Derby. Among several other large projects at Chatsworth were the
rock garden A rock garden, also known as a rockery and formerly as a rockwork, is a garden, or more often a part of a garden, with a landscaping framework of rocks, stones, and gravel, with planting appropriate to this setting. Usually these are small ...
, the Emperor Fountain, and rebuilding
Edensor Edensor (pronounced ) is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 145. Much of the village is privately owned, by the Dukes of Devonshire, the Cavendish family. Most of the dec ...
village. The Emperor Fountain was built in 1844; it was twice the height of
Nelson's Column Nelson's Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, Central London, built to commemorate Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's decisive victory at the Battle of Trafalgar over the combined French and Spanish navies, during whi ...
and required the creation of a feeder lake on the hill above the gardens necessitating the excavation of of earth.


Greenhouses

In 1832, Paxton developed an interest in greenhouses at Chatsworth where he designed a series of buildings with "forcing frames" for
espalier Espalier ( or ) is the horticulture, horticultural and ancient Agriculture, agricultural practice of controlling woody plant growth for the production of fruit, by pruning and tying branches to a frame. Plants are frequently shaped in formal patt ...
trees and for the cultivation of exotic plants such as highly prized pineapples. At the time the use of glass houses was in its infancy and those at Chatsworth were dilapidated. After experimentation, he designed a glass house with a ridge and furrow roof that would be at right angles to the morning and evening sun and an ingenious frame design that would admit maximum light: the forerunner of the modern greenhouse. The next great building at Chatsworth was built for the first seeds of the '' Victoria regia'' lily which had been sent to Kew from the Amazon in 1836. Although they had germinated and grown they had not flowered and in 1849 a seedling was given to Paxton to try out at Chatsworth. He entrusted it to Eduard Ortgies, a young gardener and within two months the leaves were in diameter, and a month later it flowered. It continued growing and it became necessary to build a much larger house, the Victoria Regia House. Inspired by the waterlily's huge leaves – 'a natural feat of engineering' – he found the structure for his conservatory which he tested by floating his daughter Annie on a leaf. The secret was in the rigidity provided by the radiating ribs connecting with flexible cross-ribs. Constant experimentation over a number of years led him to devise the glasshouse design that inspired the Crystal Palace. With a cheap and light wooden frame, the conservatory design had a ridge-and-furrow roof to let in more light and drained rainwater away. He used hollow pillars doubling as drain pipes and designed a special rafter that acted as an internal and external gutter. All the elements were pre-fabricated and, like modular buildings, could be produced in vast numbers and assembled into buildings of varied design. In 1836, Paxton began construction of the Great Conservatory, or Stove, a huge glasshouse long and wide that was designed by the 6th Duke's architect Decimus Burton. The columns and beams were made of
cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...
, and the arched elements of laminated wood. At the time, the conservatory was the largest glass building in the world. The largest sheet glass available at that time, made by Robert Lucas Chance, was long. Chance produced sheets for Paxton's benefit. The structure was heated by eight boilers using of iron pipe and cost more than £30,000. It had a central carriageway and when the Queen was driven through, it was lit with twelve thousand lamps. It was prohibitively expensive to maintain, and was not heated during the First World War. The plants died and it was demolished in the 1920s. In 1848 Paxton created the ''Conservative Wall'', a glass house long by wide.


Crystal Palace

The Great Conservatory was the test-bed for the prefabricated glass and iron structural techniques which Paxton pioneered and would employ for his masterpiece:
The Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around ...
of the
Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition that took ...
of 1851. These techniques were made physically possible by recent technological advances in the manufacture of both glass and cast iron, and financially possible by the dropping of a tax on glass. In 1850 the
Royal Commission A royal commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue in some monarchies. They have been held in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Malaysia, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia. In republics an equi ...
appointed to organise the Great Exhibition were in a quandary. An international competition to design a building to house the Exhibition had produced 245 designs, of which only two were remotely suitable, and all would take too long to build and would be too permanent. There was an outcry by the public and in Parliament against the desecration of Hyde Park. Paxton was visiting London in his capacity as a director of the
Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 in rail transport, 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had ...
to meet the chairman John Ellis who was also a member of parliament. He happened to mention an idea he had for the hall, and Ellis promptly encouraged to produce some plans, provided they could be ready in nine days. Unfortunately he was committed for the next few days, but at a board meeting of the railway in Derby, it is said he appeared to be spending much of his time doodling on a sheet of
blotting paper Blotting paper is a highly absorbent type of paper used to absorb ink or oil from writing material, particularly when quills or fountain pens were popular. It could also be used in testing how much oil is present in products. Blotting paper ...
. At the end of the meeting he held up his first sketch of the Crystal Palace, inspired by the Victoria Regia House. The sketch is now in the
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
. He completed the plans and presented them to the Commission, but there was opposition from some members, since another design was well into its planning stage. Paxton decided to by-pass the Commission and published the design in the ''
Illustrated London News ''The Illustrated London News'', founded by Herbert Ingram and first published on Saturday 14 May 1842, was the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. The magazine was published weekly for most of its existence, switched to a less freq ...
'' to universal acclaim. Its novelty was its revolutionary modular, prefabricated design, and use of glass. Glazing was carried out from special trolleys, and was fast: one man managed to fix 108 panes in a single day. The Palace was long, wide and high. It required 4,500 tons of iron, of timber and needed over 293,000 panes of glass. Yet it took 2,000 men just eight months to build, and cost just £79,800. Quite unlike any other building, it was itself a demonstration of British technology in iron and glass. In its construction, Paxton was assisted by Charles Fox, also of Derby for the iron framework, and William Cubitt, Chairman of the Building Committee. All three were
knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...
. After the exhibition they were employed by the Crystal Palace Company to move it to
Sydenham Sydenham may refer to: Places Australia * Sydenham, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney ** Sydenham railway station, Sydney * Sydenham, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne ** Sydenham railway line, the name of the Sunbury railway line, Melbourne un ...
where it remained until it was destroyed by fire in 1936.


Publishing

In 1831, Paxton published a monthly magazine, ''The Horticultural Register''. This was followed by the ''Magazine of Botany'' in 1834, the ''Pocket Botanical Dictionary'' in 1840, ''Paxton's Flower Garden'' (vols. I & II) in 1850 and the ''Calendar of Gardening Operations''. In addition to these titles he also, in 1841, co-founded perhaps the most famous horticultural periodical, '' The Gardeners' Chronicle'' along with
John Lindley John Lindley Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (5 February 1799 – 1 November 1865) was an English botanist, gardener and orchidology, orchidologist. Early years Born in Old Catton, Catton, near Norwich, England, John Lindley was one of four c ...
,
Charles Wentworth Dilke Charles Wentworth Dilke (1789–1864) was an English liberal critic and writer on literature. Professional life He served for many years in the Navy Pay-Office, on retiring from which in 1830 he devoted himself to literary pursuits. Lite ...
and William Bradbury, and later became its editor.


List of selected publications

*


Political career

Paxton was a Liberal Member of Parliament for
Coventry Coventry ( or rarely ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centurie ...
from 1854 until his death in 1865. In June 1855 he presented a scheme he called the Great Victorian Way to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Metropolitan Communications in which he envisaged the construction of an arcade, based on the structure of the Crystal Palace, in a ten-mile loop around the centre of London. It would have incorporated a roadway, an
atmospheric railway An atmospheric railway uses differential air pressure to provide power for propulsion of a railway vehicle. A static power source can transmit motive power to the vehicle in this way, avoiding the necessity of carrying mobile power generating e ...
, housing and shops.


Later life

Although he remained the Head Gardener at Chatsworth until 1858, Paxton was also able to undertake outside work such as the Crystal Palace and his directorship of the Midland Railway. He worked on public parks in
Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
,
Birkenhead Birkenhead () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic co ...
,
Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
, Halifax (the People's Park) and the grounds of The Spa, Scarborough. In October 1845 he was invited to lay out one of the country's first municipal burial grounds in
Coventry Coventry ( or rarely ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centurie ...
. This became the London Road Cemetery, where a memorial to Paxton by Joseph Goddard was erected in 1868. Between 1835 and 1839, he organised plant-hunting expeditions, one of which ended in tragedy when two gardeners from Chatsworth sent to California drowned. Tragedy also struck at home when his eldest son died. In 1850, Paxton was commissioned by Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild to design
Mentmore Towers Mentmore Towers, historically known simply as "Mentmore", is a 19th-century English country house built between 1852 and 1854 for the Rothschild family in the village of Mentmore in Buckinghamshire. Sir Joseph Paxton and his son-in-law, George ...
in Buckinghamshire. This became one of the greatest
country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...
s built during the
Victorian Era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...
. Following the completion of Mentmore, James Mayer de Rothschild, one of Baron de Rothschild's French cousins, commissioned Château de Ferrières at Ferrières-en-Brie near Paris to be "Another Mentmore, but twice the size". Both buildings still stand today. Paxton also designed another country house, a smaller version of Mentmore, at Battlesden near Woburn in Bedfordshire. This house was bought by the
Duke of Bedford Duke of Bedford (named after Bedford, England) is a title that has been created six times (for five distinct people) in the Peerage of England. The first creation came in 1414 for Henry IV's third son, John, who later served as regent of Fran ...
thirty years after its completion, and demolished, because the Duke wanted no other mansion close to
Woburn Abbey Woburn Abbey (), occupying the east of the village of Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the family seat of the Duke of Bedford. Although it is still a family home to the current duke, it is open on specified days to visitors, ...
. In 1860, Paxton also designed Fairlawn, 89 Wimbledon Park Side, for Sir Edwin Saunders,
Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
's dentist. Paxton was honoured by being a member of the Kew Commission, which was to suggest improvements for Royal Botanic Gardens, and by being considered for the post of Head Gardener at
Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a List of British royal residences, royal residence at Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, about west of central London. It is strongly associated with the Kingdom of England, English and succee ...
. On 17 March 1860, during the enthusiasm for the
Volunteer movement The Volunteer Force was a citizen army of part-time rifle, artillery and engineer corps, created as a popular movement throughout the British Empire in 1859. Originally highly autonomous, the units of volunteers became increasingly integrate ...
, Paxton raised and commanded the 11th (Matlock) Derbyshire Rifle Volunteer Corps. Paxton became affluent, not so much through his Chatsworth employment, but by successful speculation in the railway industry. He retired from Chatsworth when the Duke died in 1858 but carried on working at various projects such as the Thames Graving Dock. Paxton died at his home at Rockhills, Sydenham, in 1865 and was buried on the Chatsworth Estate in St Peter's Churchyard, Edensor. His wife Sarah remained at their house on the Chatsworth Estate until her death in 1871.


Notes


References

* * Cooper, B., (1983) ''Transformation of a Valley: The Derbyshire Derwent'' Heinemann, republished 1991 Cromford: Scarthin Books


Further reading

* Kate Colquhoun – ''A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton'' (Fourth Estate, 2003) * George F Chadwick – ''Works of Sir Joseph Paxton'' (Architectural Press, 1961)


External links

* * * * John Kenworthy-Browne
Paxton, Sir Joseph
in:
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...
, 2004 (subscription or British public library reader's card required) * * Joseph Paxton'
Crystal Palace on ArchDaily

Joseph Paxton
Joseph Paxton's work on orchids
BBC Historic Figures


* ttp://www.familyresearcher.co.uk/covshame.htm#paxton Joseph Paxton his early work – London Road Cemetery Coventry
Eddie Richardson's page
on Sir Joseph Paxton – includes photographs and a family tree {{DEFAULTSORT:Paxton, Joseph 1803 births 1865 deaths People from Central Bedfordshire District 19th-century English architects English landscape architects 19th-century gardeners English gardeners Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1852–1857 UK MPs 1857–1859 UK MPs 1859–1865 Knights Bachelor Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Coventry Architects from Bedfordshire