Books: Book inspired by love of wild flowers

(Redirected from Book inspired by love of wild flowers)

Vivienne Smith uncovers the life story of the Rev William Keble Martin, a one time curate in Ashbourne whose wild flower sketches led to a bestselling book.

These four postage stamps based on the Rev William Keble Martin’s sketches were issued in 1967

Wild flower sketches by the Rev William Keble Martin

The front cover of the 1972 Sphere edition of The Concise British Flora in Colour

Forty years ago, a book on wild flowers was published which became an unexpected bestseller. The Concise British Flora in Colour was the work of 88-year-old Reverend W Keble Martin. It had taken a lifetime to complete.

In fact, some of the illustrations had been drawn more than half a century earlier, when he was a young curate in Ashbourne.

William Keble Martin was born in Radley, near Oxford, on July 9, 1877. He was the sixth of nine children of the Rev Charles Martin, warden of St Peter’s College, and his wife, Dora.

Natural history was his passion from an early age. By the time he won a place at Christ Church, Oxford, Martin had opted to study botany, in addition to Greek philosophy and church history.

He first took up drawing wild flowers to help fellow students on his course who complained how difficult it was to identify plants from wordy descriptions alone.

After graduation, Martin attended Cuddesdon Theological College to train to be a priest.

His career in the church began with a posting to the Nottingham suburb of Beeston.

It was a bicycle trip into the Peak, with a group of Sunday school teachers, which resulted in one of the earliest drawings to appear in his bestselling book.

While walking along the Via Gellia, the young man spotted children with arms full of lilies of the valley.

Although he disapproved of the wholesale gathering of wild flowers, he picked a few himself in order to sketch them in detail.

In September 1906, Martin moved to Ashbourne to take up the post of curate. He lodged in a house in Church Street kept by two sisters.

The vicar at the time was Canon Ernest Edwin Morris, an imposing character who wore a top hat and frock-coat every day of the week.

As well as helping out at the parish church of St Oswald’s, Martin took Sunday services in nearby Mapleton.

But, although happy in his work, he had little social life and often spent evenings alone at his lodgings.

Aside from playing the odd game of mixed hockey, his spare time was occupied in the study of wild flowers.

He developed a skill for drawing the plants and also cataloguing them at the same time.

The search for suitable specimens took him deep into the countryside. On occasion, he would hitch a ride with local GP Harry Hollick on his rounds to villages in the neighbourhood.

However, it was not botany that was uppermost in his mind the day he caught sight of Violet Chaworth-Musters at Dovedale.

The young lady lived at Dove House, in Ashbourne, with her widowed father, and was a regular worshipper at St Oswald’s Church. A sporty outdoor person, she also played hockey and tennis.

Getting to know someone of the opposite sex in those days could be tricky, but Martin was determined.

He persuaded his older sister, Dora, to pay a visit and stay at the nearby Hall Hotel.

Next stage of his plan was to invite Violet and her sister to tea at his lodgings, ostensibly to make Dora’s acquaintance.

Not long after this, the lovesick cleric popped the question despite the fact he had kept the nature of his feelings a secret.

As he noted in his autobiography years later, the reply came back: “I do not even know you, Mr Martin.”

Violet’s father, Henry Chaworth-Musters, was originally from Colwick Hall, near Nottingham, and he had a reputation for being somewhat eccentric.

It was said he once drove to Derby in his dogcart to collect a new cook and the unfortunate woman fell out on the journey back.

Yet Chaworth-Musters never noticed she was missing till he arrived in Ashbourne. He had to turn back and look for her.

News that a lowly cleric had asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage did not go down well at first. Martin later discovered the initial response had been: “The curate has proposed to Violet: what cheek!”

However, the young man’s persistence eventually paid off and, in March 1908, the pair became engaged.

From then on, the curate’s plant-hunting expeditions were often made with Violet in tow.

Among the drawings set to feature years later in his Flora were a number made on visits to Ashbourne Green. These included the Strawberry-headed Clover (Trifolium fragiferum) and Knotted Pearlwort (Sagina nodosa).

In order to capture the likeness of Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium caeruleum), the clergyman required a little extra help.

Recalling the occasion in his autobiography, he wrote: “For this I reached down the steep bank of the Bentley Brook, my fiancée holding me by an ankle to prevent my falling.”

Martin married his sweetheart at Ashbourne Church on July 8, 1909, the ceremony being conducted by Canon Morris.

The couple went on to have two sons and three daughters together, but it was not in Ashbourne that the children were raised.

The year of their marriage, Martin accepted a curacy in Lancaster and, soon afterwards, became vicar of Wath upon Dearne, near Rotherham.

During the First World War, he served as chaplain to the Armed Forces in France. After this, the minister settled with his family in Devon where he worked for the rest of his life.

He continued to add to his collection of flower illustrations. When exhibited at the International Botanical Congress in Cambridge in 1930, they brought him considerable recognition as a botanist.

Nevertheless, the church remained Martin’s true vocation.

Even after his retirement, at the age of 72, he still helped out part-time in neighbouring parishes which were short of clergy.

Over the years, the minister and his wife returned to Ashbourne on several occasions. But the most memorable trip came in the summer of 1952.

Having travelled up from Devon by train and bus, the couple attended Sunday service in the church where they had married.

Among the old friends they met up with in Ashbourne was Dr Hollick, with whom the flower drawings were discussed over tea.

The Martins even stayed for a couple of nights at the Isaac Walton Hotel, at Dovedale, to visit old haunts. This led to yet another illustration for the future Flora.

While taking a walk from Dove Holes to the Stepping Stones at the beauty spot, Martin sketched the Common Spike-rush (Eleocharis palustris).

In July 1959, back at their home in Woodbury, near Exeter, the couple celebrated 50 years of married life together.

Sadly by then Violet was suffering from the effects of a stroke. A heart attack followed in 1960, and she died three years later.

Around the same time, the minister also lost his eldest daughter to leukaemia. They were dark days indeed.

Yet, as Martin later wrote in his autobiography: “The two things that helped to keep me going were the church work and the flower painting.”

For it seemed there might be a chance of publication for his illustrations, which now numbered almost 1,500. The main problem was finding a publisher willing to undertake the expense of reproducing the plates in colour.

An appeal was launched to raise the necessary funds and it received the support of several leading botanists. The Duke of Edinburgh also gave his backing to the project.

In fact, he was so taken with Martin’s work that he even offered to write a foreword to the book.

The Concise British Flora in Colour was eventually published in May 1965. It took the publishing world by storm. The book was an instant bestseller, and more than 100,000 copies were sold in the first year alone.

Some 60 years of painstaking fieldwork and meticulous drawing had finally paid off. Martin became a celebrity overnight.

BBC reporter Kenneth Allsop even turned up on the clergyman’s doorstep with a film crew to record a piece about him for the Tonight programme.

The book itself was hailed a modern classic and became a standard work on British flowers. The elderly cleric, who was chosen as Author of the Year in 1965, enjoyed his five minutes of fame.

But when asked how it had affected his life, he smiled and said: “When you are 88 your head is not easily turned by sudden success.”

Exeter University awarded him an honorary doctorate. Meanwhile, the Postmaster-General requested he design a set of postage stamps based on his botanical sketches.

When the Post Office issued the four stamps in April 1967, Martin found himself in great demand to sign first-day covers.

Following the runaway success of the Flora, he was also persuaded to write his autobiography which duly appeared in 1968 entitled Over the Hills.

But sadly its author was by then in failing health.

William Keble Martin was 92 when he died at his Devon home on November 26, 1969. His whole life had been dedicated to the church.

Yet, the lasting legacy of this one-time curate of Ashbourne was inspired by a love of wild flowers.

Pages linking here