Frances Garnet Wolseley, 2nd Viscountess Wolseley

Frances Garnet Wolseley, 2nd Viscountess Wolseley (15 September 1872 – 24 December 1936) was an English gardening author and teacher, as well as a local historian of Sussex. In 1902 in East Sussex. she started the Glynde College for Lady Gardeners, which played an important pioneering role in gardening education for women in the UK.

Quotes

... in quiet old-world Lindfield ... dwelt that master craftsman of stained-glass windows, Mr. Charles E. Kempe, whose emblem of minute golden garb or wheatsheaf is searched for amidst the design of any modern church window that we admire. For many years he here applied his craft, leaving as a heritage that well-planned semblance of an Elizabethan house, complete in all its details, comprising a wondrous sundial, a raised Garden Mount, a Wilderness, A Garden House of Entertainment, all those striking features in short which are alluded to in Bacon's Essay "Of Gardens."
- Some of the Smaller Manor Houses of Sussex. Medici Society. 1925. p. 21. (204 pages)

There are charming avenues of lime-trees in the gardens of St. Mary's House ...
A bedchamber above is named the "Armada Room," because of its paneled walls constructed from wood taken from these enemy ships. In the centre of each panel is a clever inlaid representation of one of these Spanish warships; picturesque objects, all of them, with their fine sails blown by the wind as they combat the waves.
- Sussex in the Past. Medici Society. 1928. p. 72. (151 pages)

… the small village of Ashurstwood ... was once the meeting-place of many bridleways, for in the midst of somewhat modern surroundings we see these narrow gipsy-frequented grass-grown lanes at intervals before coming to an especially practical signboard that directs us to Homestall, the late Lord Dewar's old house.
- Some Sussex Byways. Medici Society. 1930. p. 14. (166 pages)

In a College Garden (1916)

As I watch the young women gathering apples on this still autumn day, coming up the hill bearing on their arms wooden Sussex "trugs," all lined with soft wood wool to prevent their load of fruit being bruised, I am more than ever convinced that gardening is most essentially suitable work for them. There is so much connected with it that requires the dainty touch of a woman, much that her inborn gentleness can help.
Two long, low dark and cool apple-rooms have been excavated out of the chalk, and here on wooden shelves the apples are carefully laid, forming thus the richest treasure-houses of the garden.
- In a College Garden. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1917. (255 pages; 1st edition 1916)

Like the French peasant, we should make a study of thrift, learning to prepare for all emergencies; and thus even the wild fruits of the hedgerows, the blackberry, could be turned to useful account. Especially is this the case in a year when apples are so plentiful that there are barely accepted gratefully as a gift and cannot all find room on the shelves in the fruit house. There is nothing more delicious than blackberry-and-apple jam, and the advantage of this mixture is that the blackberries help to keep the jam, as apples if boiled alone and bottled would not last without the berries.
- p. 12

External links

Encyclopedic article on Frances Garnet Wolseley, 2nd Viscountess Wolseley on Wikipedia