Fanny Wilkinson

Fanny Wilkinson (1855–1951), Britain’s first professional female landscape gardener, developed a passion for gardening as a child, possibly inspired by the grounds of her family home, Middlethorpe Hall, Yorkshire. Having completed an 18-month course at the Crystal Palace School of Landscape Gardening and Practical Horticulture in London, which was intended for men, in 1884, she was elected as honorary gardener to the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association. In 1886, this became a paid position. In 1899, she co-founded the Women’s Agricultural and Horticultural International Union and in 1902 became the first female Principal of Swanley Horticultural College, Kent.

Wilkinson designed and laid out more than 75 public gardens and open spaces across London, including Goldsmith’s Square, Hackney; Paddington Street Gardens, Marylebone; and Vauxhall Park. In later life, she retired to Suffolk and bred prize-winning goats.

A suffragist and friend of Millicent Fawcett, Wilkinson championed women’s rights and equal pay. In her only known interview, published in the Women’s Penny Paper, 8 November 1890, she declared ‘I certainly do not let myself be underpaid as many women do. There are people who… think because I am a woman I will ask less than a man… I know my profession and charge accordingly, as all women should do.’

This portrait sculpture of Wilkinson stands in the Coronation Gardens, Wandsworth which she designed. Installed above the drinking bowl on a granite water fountain of 1904, it replaces a statuette which had disappeared. She holds a small plant, which the sculptor explains commemorates ‘her devotion to planning gardens’ and symbolises ‘the growing shoots of creativity’. The repeat motif of olive branches on the hem of her skirt references the Friends of Coronation Gardens’ logo. Putney School of Art and Design, Heritage of London Trust (HOLT), Friends of Coronation Gardens, Enable and Wandsworth Council were involved in the project.

Location: Coronation Gardens, Southfields, Wandsworth, London, SW18.