Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T07:26:19.599Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Come All and Bring Your Spades’:1 England and Arbor Day, c.1880 – 1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2012

JULIE HIPPERSON
JULIE HIPPERSON*
Affiliation:
The Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UKj.hipperson11@imperial.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In February 1897, villagers in the small Kentish town of Eynsford celebrated their first Arbor Day by planting a row of trees in acrostic form to spell out the proverb MY SON, BE WISE. By 1910 Arbor Day had featured in the discussions of a Parliamentary Select Committee and the House of Commons, and was enjoying national press coverage as the event spread under the auspices of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Garden City Movement. Proponents positioned the ceremony as a prism through which to address the pressing social and economic concerns of rural depopulation, unemployment and deforestation, and by promoting the event as part of the educational experience of children, offered it up as a contribution towards the amelioration of these ills. Although the establishment of the Forestry Commission in 1919 ushered in the increasingly inflexible belief that the state rather than individuals was the only competent custodian of English woodland, Arbor Day can tell us much about how humankind's affective response to nature was conditioned, shored up and survived this increasingly scientific approach from the late nineteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , April 2012 , pp. 59 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

2. The Citizen, 14th March 1913, p. 3.

3. This account is taken largely from The Citizen, 12th March 1910.

4. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 18th March 1874, p. 4; York Herald, 17th March 1874, p. 3; Gentleman's Magazine, 284: 2006 (1898, February), p. 177.

5. 1887 (246) Report from the Select Committee on forestry; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and appendix, 12th July 1887, 105, Col 2137–2139.

6. Daniels, Stephen, ‘The Political Iconography of Woodland’, in Cosgrove, D. and Daniels, S., eds, The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments (Cambridge, 1988), p. 47Google Scholar.

7. Standard, 12th June 1884, p. 5; Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, 5th June 1886, p. 772.

8. Standard, 12th June 1884, p. 5; Standard, 12th July 1886, p. 5.

9. The Newcastle Weekly Courant, 10th August 1888.

10. Elliot Downs Till, ‘The Best Means of Establishing “A Bird and Arbor Day” in the British Isles’ (The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, 1902), p. 2.

11. Douglas Davies, ‘The Evocative Symbolism of Trees’ in Cosgrove and Daniels, Iconography of Landscape, pp. 33–4.

12. Till, ‘Best Means’, p. 3.

13. The Times, 2nd March 1897, p. 8.

14. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debate, 28th May 1897, Vol. 49, c1579; c158.

15. James, N. D. G., A History of English Forestry (Oxford, 1981), p. 198Google Scholar.

16. The Times, 4th February 1907, p. 13.

17. Curthoys, M. C., ‘Cooke, Charles Wallwyn Radcliffe (1840–1911)’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition, Oxford University Press, September 2004Google Scholar.

18. The Times, Monday, 4th February 1907, p. 13.

19. The Times, 4th February 1907, p. 13; Adsett, William. H., ‘The Arbor Day Movement, Eynsford Pioneering Work’, Invicta Magazine, 1 (1908), 76Google Scholar.

20. They were granted their royal charter in 1904, becoming the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

21. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Society of the Protection of Birds, 15G (1901), p. 3.

22. Proceedings, 15H (1902), p. 4.

23. Ibid., p. 6.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., p. 5.

26. Twelfth Annual Report of Society for the Protection of Birds (1902), p. 9.

27. Jenkins, E. W, ‘Science, Sentimentalism or Social Control? The Nature Study Movement in England and Wales, 1899–1914’, History of Education, 10 (1981), 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. The Official Report of the Nature Study Exhibition and Conferences (1903), quoted in Jenkins, ‘Science, Sentimentalist or Social Control’, 39.

29. Board of Education, Suggestions for the consideration of Teachers and others concerned in the work of Public Elementary School, Cd.2638 (H.M.S.O. 1905), 46. Quoted in Jenkins, ‘Science, Sentimentalist or Social Control’, 37.

30. Jenkins, ‘Science, Sentimentalist, or Social Control?’, 42.

31. Thirteenth Annual Report of the Society of Protection of Birds (1903), p. 7.

32. Bird Notes and News, 2 (21st December 1907), 85.

33. Seventeenth Annual Report (1907), p. 11.

34. Viscount Grey of Fallodon (Edward Grey), The Charm of Birds (London, 1927), pp. vii – ix.

35. Shrubsall, Dennis, ‘Hudson, William Henry (1841–1922)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition, Oxford University Press, September 2004Google Scholar.

36. Samstag, Tony, For Love of Birds (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, 1988), p. 140Google Scholar.

37. Jefferies, Richard, The Hills and the Vale (London, 1909), pp. xxii–xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

38. Alborn, Timothy L., ‘Lubbock, John, First Baron Avebury (1834–1913)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition, Oxford University Press, September 2004Google Scholar.

39. Bird Notes and News, 2 (21st December 1907), p. 85.

40. Marsh, Jan, Back to the Land: The Pastoral Impulse in England, from 1880 to 1914 (London, 1982), p. 3Google Scholar; Readman, Paul, Land and Nation in England: Patriotism, National Identity, and the Politics of Land, 1880–1914 (Royal Historical Society, 2008)Google Scholar.

41. Bird Notes and News, 2 (21st December 1907), p. 85.

42. Proceedings for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, 15H (1902), p. 4.

43. Proceedings, 15J (1905), p. 5.

44. Ibid.

45. Bird Notes and News, 3 (25th March 1908), p. 9; Bird Notes and News, 3 (25th March 1909), p. 66.

46. Twelfth Annual Report of the Society for the Protection of Birds (1902), pp. 9–10.

47. Wiener, Martin J., English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit 1850–1980 (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar.

48. Proceedings, 15H (1902), pp. 6–7.

49. Howkins, Alun ‘The Discovery of Rural England’, Colls, R. and Dodd, E., eds, Englishness: Politics and Culture 1880–1926 (London, 1986), p. 64Google Scholar.

50. Cosgrove, Denis, ‘Landscapes and Myths, Gods and Humans’, Bender, B., ed., Landscape: Politics and Perspectives (Oxford, 1993), p. 299Google Scholar.

51. Proceedings, 15H (1902), pp. 6–7.

52. Bird Notes and News, 2 (21st December 1907), p. 87.

53. Bird Notes and News, 5 (20th December 1912), p. 62.

54. Ibid., p. 57.

55. Bird Notes and News, 5 (December 1913), p. 123; Bird Notes and News, 3 (25th March 1909), p. 64.

56. Peter Mandler, ‘Against “Englishness”: English Culture and the Limits of the Rural Nostalgia’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 7 (1997), 155–75.

57. Readman, Paul, ‘Landscape Preservation, “Advertising Disfigurement” and English National Identity, c. 1890–1914’, Rural History, 12 (2001), 61–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58. Proceedings, 15H (1902), p. 9.

59. Proceedings, 15J (1904), p. 5.

60. Bird Notes and News, 4 (31st March 1910), p. 9.

61. Indeed, the Society warned that extracts from books given as part of the competitors' own work were ‘extremely likely’ to lead to the disqualification of the team. ‘Better the baldest little notes, so that they may be honest and true’: Bird Notes and News, 1 (December 1905), p. 102.

62. Ritvo, Harriet, The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (Harvard, 1987), pp. 130–2Google Scholar.

63. Warren, Allen, ‘Popular Manliness: Baden-Powell, Scouting, and the Development of the Manly Character’ in Mangan, J. A., ed., Manliness and Morality: Middle-class Morality in Britain and America 1800–1940 (Manchester, 1987), p. 201Google Scholar.

64. Bird Notes and News, 4 (21st December 1910), p. 88.

65. Taylor, Harvey, A Claim on the Countryside: A History of the British Outdoor Movement (Edinburgh, 1997), p. 13Google Scholar.

66. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Society for the Protection of Birds (1904), p. 12.

67. Bird Notes and News, 2 (21st December 1907), p. 86.

68. Proceedings, 15H (1902), p. 4.

69. In 1908, for example, the competitions in Norfolk and Warwickshire were organised by the Local Education Authorities, Bird Notes and News, 3 (21st December 1908).

70. Bird Notes and News, 4 (21st December 1910), p. 88.

71. Miles, Robert, Forestry in the English Landscape (London, 1967), p. 37Google Scholar.

72. Sixteenth Annual Report (1906), p. 8.

73. Society for the Protection of Birds, Bird and Tree Day – What is it? p. 2.

74. Bird Notes and News, 3 (25th March 1909), p. 65.

75. Daily Mirror, 10th December 1906, p. 8.

76. Garden Cities and New Towns: Five Lectures (Hertfordshire, 1990), p. 7.

77. Howard, Ebenezer, Garden Cities of To-morrow: Being the Second Edition of ‘To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform’ (London, 1902), pp. 39, 62Google Scholar.

78. Cole, F. J., ‘Arbor Day Notes’, The City: A Monthly Magazine, 1 (1909), 98–100Google Scholar.

79. Mabey, Richard, Beechcombings: The Narrative of Trees (London, 2007), p. 123Google Scholar.

80. Cole, ‘Arbor Day Notes’, p. 100.

81. Ibid.

82. The Citizen, 6th March 1909.

83. Meacham, Standish, Regaining Paradise: Englishness and the Early Garden City Movement (London, 1998), p. 3Google Scholar.

84. Minutes of the Letchworth Branch of the Garden Cities Association, 14th November 1906.

85. The Citizen, 2nd March 1907.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid.

88. Minutes of the Letchworth Residents Association, 10th April 1907.

89. The City, 1 (April 1909), p. 81.

90. The Citizen, 7th March 1908.

91. 1911 [Cd. 5708] Royal Commission on Coast Erosion and Afforestation. Volume III (Part I). Third (and final) report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into and to report on certain questions affecting coast erosion, the reclamation of tidal lands, and afforestation in the United Kingdom.

92. The Times, 1st March 1909, p. 16.

93. The Citizen, 6th March 1909.

94. The Citizen, 6th March 1909.

95. The notice of the postponement was placed in The Citizen, 18th March 1911, but there are no additional mentions for that year, and it appears the event did not happen.

96. The Citizen, 1st April 1911.

97. The Citizen, 14th March 1913.

98. The Citizen, 31st January 1913.

99. The Citizen, 12th March 1910.

100. The Times, 4th February 1907, p. 13; for Stone, see Edwards, Elizabeth, Sir Benjamin Stone and National Photographic Record Association, 1897 – 1910 (London, 2006)Google Scholar.

101. The Literary Week, 1751 (1905), p. 1215.

102. Bird Notes and News, 2 (26th March 1906), p. 9; Seventy-Fourth Annual Report (1964), p. 6.

103. The Times, 13th September 1919, p. 11.