Life and Work of Edward Hyams (1910 – 1975)
For a study of notable English garden writers in the mid-20th century Judith Taylor would appreciate hearinig from anyone who knew Hyams or who has information about his life and work. Judith says: “If anything is of a confidential nature I shall treat it with the greatest respect and care. Full credit will be given to any correspondent whose material turns out to be helpful in my studies”.
Category: Forum |
21 Comments » 
I knew Edward from when i was a small boy. My father AA Jackson worked with him on the Orchard and the fruit Garden. If you have any questions do ask.
This is very welcome information. My feeling is that Hyams was a wonderful garden writer though I know he was much more than that. Did your father tell you very much about the man and his background?
I and my two sisters knew Edward and his wife very well both at Molash and at at Hill house Landscove. He was one of the cleverest men that we have ever met. He did everything well and talked just as he wrote, he was very witty. Look at Vin and Grapes under cloches. Both might be serious books but not under Edward’s hand. When he separated from his First wife my mother and father had real problems coming to terms with the new situation however they realised it was for the best. We have most of his horticulture books between us. My sisters Penelope and Sarah were very attached to him as we all were to Christopher Lloyd who I think took over some of Edward’s jobs when he died. We all knew Nick Bagenal the fruit man and many others.
My father advised Edward on setting up his vinyard at Molash where we often used to visit him. He was like so many people that father knew at Wye Colledge a man with many friends and contcts, a bit like Darwin, If he did no know the answere he knew some one who did. It is a pity some one did not talk to my father while he was still alive. His name is not on the internet but Edwards name is.
Thank you for these insights into a very significant writer. Do you, or did your father, know much about his background and family, what led him to take up his career? Which of Hyams’ jobs did Christopher Lloyd take up?
You mention more than one wife. Do you know if he left any children whom I could approach?
I once wrote to E.H., after I had read a remark of his in one of his books (sorry I cannot remember which one now) that “now was the time to write a book on the art of surviving”. I suggested he might write a book on the theme and have it illustrated by some market-catching artist. H. wrote back saying that such a doubly-produced book would not pay.
Strange that after writing that above, I came across an advertisement for a book by De Graaf and Hyams on Lillies!
Thank you for this comment. It is an interesting insight into how EH functioned. He had to earn his living by writing and understood very well how the system worked.
I have been puzzled by the book with Jan de Graaff. De Graaff owned The Oregon Bulb Farm in central Oregon, a long way from EH’s usual beat.
Have you read any of his other books? His novels are hard to find. Our local public library claims it has one but try and find it in the stacks!
I noticed the request while trying to check Edward Hyam’s dates before mentioning him in a forthcoming talk. My memory is that he is dead but I may be muddled.
For a few days in April 1968, I was the BBC film recordist on a film which he presented. I THINK the producer was Nicholas Garnham, who also wrote about TV. We filmed Edward at Stourhead, Melbourne (Derbyshire), Bodnant and then my memory expires. The film must exist somewhere in the archives, and came under Music and Arts at the time. He was a very agreeable person, very relaxed and very informative about a subject I knew little about. And he presented to camera very well. I bought one of his books and visited all three gardens over the decades since -although Melbourne, the one that most intrigued me, is always closed when I pass by.
This vague info. is probably very unhelpful, but if I am right about the director, I am fairly sure that Garnham is still about, and now more of an academic. He could help surely.
All good wishes,
Andrew Barr – brother-in-law of Diana Ross
Andrew,
No information is ever unhelpful, or as Joseph Needham’s father said, no knowledge is ever wasted. Knowing that there is a film out there is very encouraging and I shall pester the BBC to dig it out for me. By now I expect you have seen that Hyams died in 1975, in France. I shall also try to track Mr Garnham down.
Hyams was staggeringly prolific, writing more than 100 books. Quite a few were translations from the French of books which were very widely read in their day, like Zoe Oldenbourg’s “The Cornerstone” and Petru Dumitriu’s trilogy “The Boyars”.
I am really grateful for this help.
Judith
Dear All,
Here one of the world’s leading garden photographers Andrew Lawson recommends Edward Hyams and Edwin Smith’s book, The English Garden (World of Art), as one of his five favourite books on Garden Photography
http://thebrowser.com/interviews/andrew-lawson-on-garden-photography
Thank you. I shall look it up. I am not surprised. Hyams was a very remarkable man.
Judith
Is anything going to come of this interest in Hyams? One of the most intriguing aspects of his work is the crossover between his gardening writing and his interest in revolutionary socialism, political assassination etc. The two are perhaps closer than one might think, and his classic book ‘An Englishman’s Garden’ is so because it contains so much more than the building of that garden (which still exists by the way and can be visited). It has long seemed to me that a study of the entirety of Hyams’s work would be interesting. I toyed with the idea nyself, perhaps as a book to be written when (if) I retire, but I doubt it’ll happen and I would like to think someone else might be considering it. EH’s view of ‘Nature’ is so pungent and refreshing.
Mr Richards,
I am so glad to find that someone else shares my admiration for Edward Hyams. He was a very complex figure and I am sure I am only scratching the surface. The problem is he left almost no family behind, he died a very long time ago and so it is not easy to pick up his traces. Have you read any of his novels?
Your opening question is a bit bracing. Until now I have been the sole person even to revive his name, so I cannot say what is to become of this effort. Do you know of any publisher who would like to bring out the story of a long dead unflashy garden writer? Eg, no one can compete with Vita Sackville West for glamour and prurient interest. Hyams was not at all glamorous but today’s publishing world is driven by such considerations. Even scholarly journals are not completely immune.
What profession are you thinking of retiring from? I assume you are in the UK. Perhaps we could collaborate in some way. I am from London and Oxford but now live in San Francisco. That makes chasing down any of his records even more difficult. I would be glad to share whatever I have with you and perhaps you could do the same.
Please let me know what you think,
best wishes
Judith Taylor
Dear Judith, I am only now starting to get round to the bulk of EH’s work, though I have been meaning to for years. I’m an art historian at Glasgow University. I came across Hyams because my late father, a very keen gardener, had most of his books. ‘An Englishman’s Garden’ was, to some extent, the model for my farther’s last garden in Hertfordshire, as for my sister’s garden in Suffolk and my own small one here in Scotland. The long meandering border down the left side of the garden is a common feature of all three and more or less cribbed from Hyams’ garden in Devon. I re-read AEG at least every couple of years, and it’s as much for the personality as for the garden lore. Although I am in every other respects as ‘green’ as I can be, I like his understanding that a garden is a work of artifice, an aspect of what he somewhere calls ‘the war against our nature’. Had I ever got round to a study of Hyams as a a whole, that would be my title! I hadn’t realised until quite recently that he didn’t live all that long after that book, and I had often wondered if he ever got round to the quite different gardens he talked about for the future. I have been in touch with the present owners of his Devon garden and am hoping one day to visit it. Meanwhile I am about to embark on his study of political assassination and am going to trawl through Amazon ‘used’ and Abebooks for his novels. Might take a while, as he was enviably productive. I suppose getting hold of people who knew him will already be a bit tricky, given the dates, though some of the entries on this site are encouraging. I don’t think I can leave it till I retire – not for another 8 or 9 years even assuming they still let us go at 65. As for EH and publishers, I think though he may not be alluring like Vita (if she is) but I think he could be sold as a particularly salty type of Englishman. I get the feeling that his books about revolution etc, were not universally admired by left wing commentators, but then that’s another peg one which a study might hang its coat. What do you think? I dare say there would be people in the RHS etc who might have useful memories of him. In any case. it’s good to know there’s someone else out there with a Hyams interest! allbest John PS I checked, on a whim really, if our University library has any of his books. Surprisingly, and encouragingly, it has ten – a mixture of horticulture and revolution.
John,
Thank you for this elaboration of your views. Maybe you could give me your e-mail so we can continue to look at detail which may not interest other readers of this blog. If you wish you can give it to the webmaster and she can send it on to me.
One way I approached Hyams was by downloading a list of all his books in the British LIbrary.That shows you pretty well everything he wrote. With that in hand I bought a copy of his book “Vin” and one of his novels. The latter was highly autobiographical and mysogynistic in the casual way of that generation. (I am blocking the title but cannot retrieve it just now. We moved house a month ago and my books are still in some disarray.)
His radical political views make him very different from the other prolific garden writers of that epoch. Hyams was an an intellectual and expert in several different fields. He was also an early pioneer in sustainability, even if he did not use that term. His ideas about the soil were far in advance of the period.
At present I have a couple of deadlines for other work so Hyams is on hold. Knowing that you are also interested will get me going again. I did try to follow up every lead to date but sadly with almost no results. One or two people in the blog sent what information they had directly to me at my e-mail address. Every lead ended in a blank wall: the addresses were no longer correct and/or the people had died or moved to unknown places.
I did contact the lady in Devon and she was very gracious. Going there is very good idea.
Please stay in touch,
Judith
Dear Judith,
yes, let’s talk on personal emails for some of this. Mine is John.Richards@glasgow.ac.uk
I have ordered half a dozen of his other books, chosen with no very great care from what was available, just to get a better feel for his non-horticultural work. I will contact a colleague here who might be able to tell me how Hyams’s politico-historical stuff is now viewed. Could you send me the BL list? I know he wrote regularly for the New Statesman and for the RHS Journal – presumably this and any other journalism would be accessible. Anyway, I shall keep further thoughts on what we might do for our one-to-one emails as we might drive other users of this site mad!
allbest John
I’ve just bought Hyams’s The Changing Face of Britain (1974) from Oxfam in Woodbridge, Suffolk. It is very good & led me to investigate the author, which took me to this site. I am curious to know where in Suffolk E. H. lived. Thank you. Will Taylor
Dear Will,
Hyams bought an old schoolhouse in Beccles. He drilled out all the asphalt in the playground and planted his garden. I believe the property is still there. I have to check my notes to see who owns it currently.
Judith
Dear Judith
I have been to the local library to to see the DNB entry for Edward, very interesting. Do your libraries in California subscribe? My letters from Edward are too faded to scan sorry I did not get back to you sooner. I could send them to you if you like. It is amazing how little we can find out, sad that he has been wiped of the map so to speak. Surely some of the newspapers and magazines he worked for must have archives. Do you know Ethne Clark she was one of my fathers students and knew Edward as did Joy Larcombe the vegetable writer.
hope this is a little help to you.
your
John Jackson
link to edward’s books in the RHS Library.
http://www.lindleylibrary.org.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi.exe/5drf9qa4UK/LONDON/122220015/9
Thank you john,
Judith