Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll ( JEE-kəl; 29 November 1843 – 8 December 1932) was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote over 1000 articles for magazines such as Country Life and William Robinson's The Garden. Jekyll has been described as "a premier influence in garden design" by British and American gardening enthusiasts.

Early life

Jekyll was born at 2 Grafton Street, Mayfair, London, the fifth of the seven children of Captain Edward Joseph Hill Jekyll, Esquire, an officer in the Grenadier Guards, and his wife Julia, née Hammersley. In 1848 her family left London and moved to Bramley House in Surrey. Gertrude’s education was at home, but it included meeting various well-known figures such as Michael Faraday and Felix Mendelssohn. She started sketching and gardening at Bramley House, and in 1861 she went to the National School of Art, South Kensington. Her paintings were exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Society of Female Artists. In 1863, she went with Charles and Mary Newton to Greece and Turkey, which stimulated a life-long interest in Mediterranean plants.

Her siblings were also interested gardeners – her sister Caroline in Italy and her younger brother, Walter Jekyll, in Jamaica. Walter, sometime Minor Canon of Worcester Cathedral and Chaplain of Malta, was a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, who borrowed the family name for his 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.