James Shirley Hibberd (1825 – 16 November 1890) was one of the most popular and successful gardening writers of the Victorian era. He was a best-selling editor of three gardening magazines, including Amateur Gardening, the only 19th-century gardening magazine still being published today. He wrote over a dozen books on gardening and several more on natural history and related subjects. He promoted town gardening, aquariums, bee-keeping, vegetarianism, water recycling, environmental conservation and the prevention of cruelty to animals and birds, all before they were taken up as 'causes' in the twentieth century. Most important of all, he taught and promoted amateur gardening, before it was acceptable among the gardening establishment, and helped to found the whole consumer industry in amateur gardening that we have today.
Early life
Shirley Hibberd was born in Mile End Old Town, now part of Stepney, in east London, England. His parentage is obscure but it is believed that his father died when he was about 14 and he then started work as a bookbinder or bookseller. His earliest known writing dates to about 1849, when he was active in the Vegetarian Society and edited their magazine, the Vegetarian Advocate. During that time he was described as an 'operative chemist', which meant an experimental scientist. As well as editing the magazine he lectured on vegetarianism throughout east London. By 1851, however, he seems to have lost interest in vegetarianism, and then began to lecture more widely on science, natural history and other subjects. He even gave a series of talks on the Crimean War at Wyld's Great Globe in Leicester Square. As a journalist, Hibberd worked on a succession of popular family magazines and was a frequent contributor to Notes and Queries.
After his marriage in 1850 to Sarah Voyer, Hibberd moved into a small house in Pentonville, north London, and began to take an interest in gardening, which seems to have been a natural progression from his childhood interest in wild flowers, birds and insects. He soon discovered the difficulties of gardening in inner city London where the atmosphere was laden with soot, and fog and smog was prevalent throughout the winter. The other problem was that there was very little information available for amateur gardeners, especially those living in towns and cities. The professional gardeners, who dominated the gardening press, refused to believe that city gardening was either possible or desirable. This was Hibberd's opportunity to make a name for himself, and he began to teach himself gardening, discovering what plants could survive in London and how amateurs could learn things for themselves.
Publications
Hibberd's first gardening book was The Town Garden (1855), which described his own garden in Pentonville and advised novices how to start gardening. The same year he had already published Brambles and Bay Leaves, a book of essays on science and natural history, largely based on articles he had previously written for magazines or on lectures he had given. These were followed by three books on aquariums, another enduring interest for early scientists, who were fascinated with the complexities of preserving living things in water and how oxygen was used. By 1856 Hibberd had moved to Tottenham, further north in London, and there began to keep a variety of aquatic creatures, birds and bees. These experiences led to his best known book, Rustic Adornments for Homes of Taste. The book was so successful that a second edition followed in 1857, and in 1858 his publishers, Groombridges, invited him to start a monthly magazine for amateur gardeners, The Floral World and Garden Guide. With the Floral World, Hibberd proved himself to be one of the first successful writers for amateur gardeners. He encouraged correspondence and discussion, answered queries and encouraged local amateurs to write for him. He began to publish a series of books on every aspect of gardening and reported on his own experiments in trying out different varieties of plants. He became particularly interested in the problem of potato blight which had caused the Irish famine, developing his own method of growing potatoes on tiles to combat the disease.