The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity.
The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (North Yorkshire), Rosemoor (Devon) and Bridgewater (Greater Manchester); flower shows including the Chelsea Flower Show, Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, Tatton Park Flower Show and Cardiff Flower Show; community gardening schemes; Britain in Bloom and a vast educational programme. It also supports training for professional and amateur gardeners. the president was Keith Weed and the director general was Clare Matterson CBE.
History
Founders
The creation of a British horticultural society was suggested by John Wedgwood (son of Josiah Wedgwood) in 1800. His aims were fairly modest: he wanted to hold regular meetings, allowing the society's members the opportunity to present papers on their horticultural activities and discoveries, to encourage discussion of them, and to publish the results. The society would also award prizes for gardening achievements.
Wedgwood discussed the idea with his friends, but it was four years before the first meeting, of seven men, took place, on 7 March 1804 at Hatchards bookshop in Piccadilly, London. Wedgwood was chairman; also present were William Townsend Aiton (successor to his father, William Aiton, as Superintendent of Kew Gardens), Sir Joseph Banks (President of the Royal Society), James Dickson (a nurseryman), William Forsyth (Superintendent of the gardens of St. James's Palace and Kensington Palace), Charles Francis Greville (a Lord of the Admiralty) and Richard Anthony Salisbury, who became the Secretary of the new society.
Banks proposed his friend Thomas Andrew Knight for membership. The proposal was accepted, despite Knight's ongoing feud with Forsyth over a plaster for healing tree wounds which Forsyth was developing. Knight was president of the society from 1811 to 1838, and developed the society's aims and objectives to include a programme of practical research into fruit-breeding.
Membership
In 2009, more than 363,000 people were members of the society, and the number increased to more than 414,000 in 2013 and to 525,105 by 2019. Membership and fellowship of the society were previously decided by election, but are now by financial contribution. Fellows are supporters "contributing a suggested £5,000 per annum" (as of 2022).
Members and Fellows of the Royal Horticultural Society are entitled to use the post-nominal letters MRHS and FRHS, respectively.
Gardens
The Royal Horticultural Society's five major gardens in England are: Wisley Garden, near Wisley in Surrey; Rosemoor Garden in Devon; Hyde Hall in Essex; Harlow Carr in Harrogate, North Yorkshire and RHS Garden, Bridgewater in Worsley, Greater Manchester.
The society's first garden was in Kensington, from 1818 to 1822. In 1820 the society leased some of Hugh Ronalds' nursery ground at Little Ealing to set up an experimental garden, but the next year part of the Duke of Devonshire's estate at Chiswick was obtained. In 1823 it employed Joseph Paxton there. From 1827 the society held fêtes at the Chiswick garden, and from 1833, shows with competitive classes for flowers and vegetables. In 1861 the RHS (as it had now become) developed a new garden at South Kensington on land leased from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 (the Science Museum, Imperial College and the Royal College of Music now occupy the site), but it was closed in 1882. The Chiswick garden was maintained until 1903–1904, by which time Sir Thomas Hanbury had bought the garden at Wisley and presented it to the RHS.
RHS Garden Wisley is thus the society's oldest garden. Rosemoor came next, presented by Lady Anne Berry in 1988. Hyde Hall was given to the RHS in 1993 by its owners Dick and Helen Robinson. Dick Robinson was also the owner of the Harry Smith Collection which was based at Hyde Hall. The most recent addition is Harlow Carr, acquired by the merger of the Northern Horticultural Society with the RHS in 2001. It had been the Northern Horticultural Society's trial ground and display garden since they bought it in 1949. In 2013, more than 1.63 million people visited the four gardens.
In 2015, the RHS announced plans for a fifth garden at Worsley New Hall, Greater Manchester, under the name RHS Garden Bridgewater. The garden opened in May 2021.