LILIES - RHS Lily Group

suggestion that White grew or certainly knew of the existence of the “new” North
American lilies.
Lilium superbum
This species is grown at the Wakes. Synge writes “Lilium superbum was one
of the earliest American lilies to be introduced into Britain”. He says that Peter
Collinson grew it in his garden at Mill Hill and it flowered for him in 1738. A
specimen in his garden was painted by the German artist Georg Dionysus Ehret,
perhaps the most famous botanical artist of the period. This painting is in the
Victoria and Albert Museum in London. As with Lilium philadelphicum White
would almost certainly have been aware of this species.
Gilbert White died in Selborne in 1793. He never married. He is buried in the
cemetery at St Mary’s Church, Selborne. St Mary’s was built in around 1180 on
the site of a Saxon church. In the gales of 1990 the Churchyard yew tree was
blown down. White would have known this tree well as it was almost opposite
his house. The Yew was believed to be 1400 years old.
White’s life spanned the American and the French Revolutions. The wind
of change was upon Britain at the end of his life and the day of the Industrial
Revolution was soon to dawn signalling the move away from a rural economy.
His writings would be read by Keats and Coleridge. Jane Austen in the Hampshire
village of Chawton, just a few miles from Selborne, would a few years later write
her famous novels. White could never have imagined that the well recorded
observations of a clergyman living in a small Hampshire village with around 600
inhabitants in eighteenth century England would have been translated into several
languages, in many separate editions and publications and be read around the
world. He could never have thought that the Natural History of Selborne would
survive his death by over 200 years and have such a wide readership today..
Internet references:
Gilbert White’s House and the Oates Museum http://www.gilbertwhiteshouse.org.uk/
The Bewick Society http://www.bewicksociety.org
The Project Gutenberg collection where you can read part of the Natural History
of Selborne. There may be copyright restrictions in some countries.
http://www.gutenberg.org
Visit the BBC Four Michael Wood website where you can see video clips and
footage of Selborne from the series Gilbert White, The Nature Man
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/gilbert-white.shtml
Readers with broadband internet access can digitally view The Natural History of
Selborne online at: http://www.archive.org/details/naturalhistoryan02whituoft
with the kind permission of Canadian Libraries and the University of Toronto
With many thanks to David Standing and the members of staff at the Gilbert White’s House
and the Oates Museum, Selborne, Hampshire, UK for their assistance with this article.
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