Some further research by Francois Gordon, via email, 2020
Born 1872
School until 1886 (?)
Monitor at school 1887-8
Gardener at Witherslack vicarage 1889 - March 1891
March 1891 May 1894 at Brathay House
He first applied to Kew 15 May 1894. William Purdom provided a reference dated May 10 1894:
“James Abbott has worked under me for the last three years and two months [i.e. since March 1891] and I have great pleasure in saying that he is a strong, steady and obliging young man. He has had charge of vineries, peach house, stove including orchid and other houses is very well up in the culture of fruit under glass I have every trust in recommending him for any place of trust in a good garden”
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James was placed on the waiting-list, had to write again on 6 August 1894 to renew his application, when he said “I have worked both inside the vineries and greenhouses and in the kitchen garden also on the lawn and in the shrubberies. I am leaving my present situation so as to try to get into some large Botanic Gardens”
The curator sent him a telegram on 27 Oct 1894 “CAN YOU COMMENCE WORK HERE NOV 5th?”
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Period at home in Witherslack working in a local nursery (?)
Nov 1894 - Sep 1898 at Kew, subforeman equivalent from Sep 1896
He obtained the following lecture certificates: |
Geographical Botany
Economic Botany
Oceanographic and Systemic Botany
British Botany
Elementary Physics and Chemistry
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1895
1895
1895
1895
1896
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At Kew Gardens, he was a student gardener between 1894 and 1898. Prior to that he was an apprentice gardener at Brathay Hall, Ambleside (3 years and 2 months) and before that apprenticed to the vicar at Grange-over-Sands (2½ years). Before that he "went for a teacher" and was a monitor at his school for two years, roughly when he was fourteen and fifteen, when he seems to have decided his future lay in horticulture and botany. James did well at Kew, promoted to propagotor (sub-foreman crossed out) and left to go into commercial horticulture. [extracts from his file at Kew]
1901 nurseryman on his own account in Rushden
June 14 1902 wrote to Kew Curator from 73 High Street South, Rushden recommending Will Purdom for a place as a student gardener
1908 advertised various plants for sale from business in Rushden
1915, May 24th - married Maud Lewis in Rushden St Mary's Church
1918 still in business in Rushden
1946, Sep 15th died, aged 74, buried in Rushden Cemetery, Grave F.1524.
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