Listen to your sergeant
Introduction
Victorian Bournemouth (226) explores how the show’s committee, combining gentry with domestic servants, could have made decisions. The Chrysanthemum Society equipped itself with a royal patron, some gentry, and respectable people. In addition, however, it involved several local gardeners who worked as domestic servants for large households. What relationship enabled the servants, who occupied a deferential position to the others, to deploy their professional knowledge to the show’s benefit?
Victorian Bournemouth (226): personnel
Gardeners
The committee contained several men described in the census as gardeners who worked as domestic servants. Some had a presence that extended through the 1890s: William Earp (1833-1914), William Reeves (1856-1935), George Shave (1856-1940), Charles Phillips (1857-1937). William Earp, for example, appears to have worked at Hume Towers perhaps for as long as forty years. The others may have changed employers, but settled in Bournemouth. Most had humble origins, their fathers gardeners, thatchers, broom-makers, and agricultural labourers. They married women having similar backgrounds. Apart from Charles Phillips, who left an estate worth more than £1,000, few left little or nothing documented. The professional knowledge needed for such men to maintain substantial gardens, such as Hume Towers, would have classified them as skilled artisans. Thus, some could have sat on the edge of respectability. Nevertheless, as servants, society ranked them far below the gentry sharing the committee work with them.
Nurserymen
The committee also included men so described by the census. Their businesses could perform a range of tasks. These ran from landscaping gardens to selling seeds to providing cut-flower decorations at community events. Herman Ratsch (1852-1905), for example, also managed the public gardens, a council appointment. In addition to Ratsch, this group included John James Swaffield (1842-1908), Thomas Kendall Ingram (1859-1938), and members of the successful Watts family. These men had skilled artisans for fathers at least: nurseryman, shoemaker, carpenter, clerk. Ingram’s father left an estate worth £14,000, his son marrying the daughter of a prosperous farmer. Ingram left almost £10,000. Swaffield left a worthy estate also. Their success meant that, while of working origin, they needed to adopt a manner associated with respectable middling people, for example, retailers. Their blurring of the social order, therefore, may have created confusion amongst the better types with whom they associated on the committee.
Victorian Bournemouth (226): humble officers
Treasurer
The Chrysanthemum Society’s income depended on subscriptions and takings at the gate during the two-day shows. Against this, they funded a wide array of prizes awarded to those successful in the competition. Adverse weather constituted a threat to these finances. This could affect plant growing before the show, but it could also reduce attendance during it. The society appears to have kept afloat, nevertheless. The same did not apply to Bournemouth’s Steam Packet company, a much larger enterprise. This staggered through a series of crises, including bad weather, under the management of a board comprising wealthy local businessmen, few of whom appeared to have relevant business knowledge. The Chrysanthemum Society, however, managed its finances by employing John James Swaffield as its treasurer. A short obituary in the press described him thus: ‘well known as an excellent florist and nurseryman’. The society’s finances remained stable through these two skills.
Secretary
The society’s success, however, depended not only on these two skills of Swaffield. It also required somebody having relevant knowledge and appropriate social skills to supervise the show’s design, structure, and operation. For this, they turned to James Spong (1854-1902). He derived much working experience from gardening on a large scale. Furthermore, his membership in Bournemouth’s Horticultural Mutual Improvement Society indicates an appetite for technical innovation. At most shows, the presiding officer acknowledged in public Spong’s contribution. At the eighth show, he said: ‘… for some years now, under the capable management of Mr James Spong, the exhibition has made most rapid progress, and now ranks as one of the chief in the South of England’. During this period, Spong continued to work as the Head Gardener at Lindisfarne, owned by Lady Cairns. Thus, a domestic servant ran the Chrysanthemum Society’s show, for which he received a small honorarium.
Victorian Bournemouth (226): discussion
Servants in charge
Despite occasional inclement weather, the show appeared to prosper during the 1890s. The number of entrants increased. In 1891, these numbered 433, almost a hundred more than the previous year. By 1899, however, the show included 1,000 displays, just of cut blooms. Knowledgeable visitors commented on annual improvements in the show’s quality. The show appears to have constituted a social success, in the sense of attracting the attention and participation of great and good people. By the middle of the decade, the Queen submitted entries through her gardener. For this, the panoply of gentry and nobility involved must have employed their networks. Nevertheless, the horticulture provided the society’s reason for existence. For this to improve each year, ideas, discussion, and decision-making had to occur. Horticultural experience must have led the process. Thus, domestic servants and the nurserymen involved must have accounted for many of the decisions made.
An analogy
Hence, a situation where working people made important decisions despite the presence of privileged counterparts reversed the rules under which contemporary society operated. Working people did not receive but paid deference. Such an arrangement represents saturnalian disorder, where masters become servants, but running a flower show requires order. The two types may have adopted military procedures which combined men of different social standings. In battle, an officer might take private advice from his sergeant, a man having a lower social rank than him. On peaceful parade grounds, however, orders emanated according to the social hierarchy. Thus, in the privacy of the committee room, working people could prevail through their experience. In the public context of the show, however, the better people came to the front, their ‘sergeants’ off to the side. Nevertheless, on occasion, Spong did receive public acknowledgement for his contribution. Thus, flowers dissolved social hierarchies.
Takeaway
Victorian Bournemouth (226) has speculated on how experienced men, although designated as servants, guided respectable and privileged people in making decisions about the chrysanthemum show’s management. To explain how this may have succeeded, it offered, as an analogy, how the army’s non-commissioned and commissioned officers made shared decisions. Relevant experience overcame the need for deference and induced mutual respect. Victorian masters referred to their servants by surname alone. In contrast, the speeches congratulating James Spong’s organisational efforts used the title ‘Mr’.
References
For references and engagement, please get in touch. Main primary sources: here and here (subscriptions needed). See also here and here.
Kitablios