W. R. Guilfoyle 1840-1912 by R. T. M. Prescott

W. R. Guilfoyle 1840 - 1912

The Master of Landscaping

by R. T. M. Prescott

Oxford University Press, 1974, [First Edition], ISBN 0195504542, black and white photographic and illustrated plates, black and white photographic frontispiece, illustrated endpapers (maps), hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges, corners and covers, no inscriptions, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing and bumping (see photographs)

“Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens are famous throughout the world, but few of the thousands of people who visit them each year realize that they are largely the result of one man’s foresight and horticultural skill.  W. R. Guilfoyle, the eldest sone of a large emigrant family, gained his early training in Sydney in the middle of the nineteenth century.  He had the chance to advance his learning and experience by undertaking a plant collecting expedition to the South Seas in 1868; and spent the following five years in the Tweed River district of northern New South Wales, where his family pioneered the growing of sugar cane and other tropical crops.
His greatest contribution to Australia, however, was his remarkable development of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne.  In spite of early opposition from critics, and problems of finance and staff, he produced, over the period from 1873 to 1909, a landscape ‘canvas’ of nearly ninety acres.  Paderewski, who planted an American red chestnut to mark his visit on 26 October 1904, claimed that Guilfoyle did with his trees what a pianist tried to do with music; and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle claimed that the gardens were ‘absolutely the most beautiful place’ that he had ever seen.”