The First Ladies of Kew

If you try to think of grand dames of Victorian gardening and plant science, the names of Marianne North or Gertrude Jekyll might come to mind, but what about Annie Gulvin and Alice Hutchins? In 1896, the year after Lilian Lindsay became the first woman to qualify as a dentist in Britain, Gulvin and Hutchins also took their first steps into a male dominated space: Kew Gardens.

Both graduates of the pioneering Swanley Horticultural College, that educated a great number of female gardeners, Gulvin and Hutchins received support from some male colleagues, and were derided by others who wondered if the work would be too hard for them. After their acceptance a small group of other women followed. The ladies of Kew first and otherwise had all gone by 1902, either to further their careers or get married, but they had left their mark. Come the First World War there were women at Kew again and there continued to be from that point onwards.

Like the women of Endell Street Military Hospital, Annie Gulvin and Alice Hutchins proved that women could be just as capable and talented as men at a time when that truth was constantly questioned.

Come back next Thursday for a minute about another gardener of interest.