A PINT FULL OF ROSES

Stephen
Apr 9, 2023
3 min read

Despite never been in the major league of rose breeding, my own county of Cambridgeshire has still played it's part going back to at least the late 1860s and William Farren of the How's House Nursery. William Farren is best known as a talented photographer and engraver, who also had a business in Cambridge, which at one time he ran with his brother, Robert, who was a well known landscape painter. The Nursery, which was later operated by John Burrell and Ernest Doncaster, was located just off the Huntingdon Road in the old hamlet of Howes. It was established by Farren after he had purchased the former Black Bull Public House in 1869. There William Farren started growing roses both to sell and to exhibit.

We known thanks to a newspaper cutting that he raised at least two roses of his own and they were exhibited a rose show at Crystal Palace in 1880. Both having been named after two of his daughters. Whether he bred others is not known but as he had other daughters, one of which was a florist, is it is likely so. His known roses being:

Bessie Farren - a fine dark red hybrid tea rose

Annie Farren - a hybrid perpetual rose that is a lighter rose to Bessie

Farren, who was born in 1836 and was married to Elizabeth (nee Taylor), is known to have had in all six children: Alfred (1866-1953), Alice (1861-1939), Annie (1862-?), Bessie (1863-1943), Edward (1871-1948) and Rose (1867-1931).

One of the roses he grew to exhibit (later to become classed as the first hybrid tea rose) was La France.

Some of the roses he exhibited, and probably sold through his nursery, were:

Baron of Rothschild - a crimson-red hybrid perpetual rose

Caroline de Sansal - a flesh coloured hybrid perpetual seedling

Countess of Oxford - a hybrid perpetual rose with carmine-pink flowers with violet shading

Dr Andry - a hybrid perpetual rose with carmine-red flowers

Duc. de Wellington - a hybrid perpetual rose with dark red flowers with crimson shading

Duke of Edinburgh - a dark red hybrid perpetual rose

Exposition de Brie - a hybrid perpetual rose with crimson to dark purple flowers

Fisher Holmes - a hybrid perpetual rose with crimson-scarlet flowers

General Jacqeminot - a hybrid perpetual rose with flowers of a red blend

John Keynes - a hybrid perpetual rose with scarlet flowers that have brown shading

La France - a silverly lilac rose that was later classed as a hybrid tea

Louis Van Houte - a hybrid perpetual rose with purple and red flowers

Mme Caillot - a rosy-red hybrid perpetual rose

Mme Canribert - a hybrid perpetual seedling with bright crimson flowers

Mme Charles Wood - a rosy red hybrid perpetual rose

Mme Verdier - a hybrid perpetual rose with bluish flowers

Marechal Niel - a noisette rose with golden-yellow flowers

Maria Baumann - a soft carmine hybrid perpetual rose

Paul Verdier - a hybrid perpetual rose with deep pink flowers

Senator Vaisse - a hybrid perpetual rose with flowers of a crimson to carmine-red colour

Sophia Coquerelle - a pink hybrid perpetual rose

Souvenir d'un Ami - a tea rose with light pink flowers

Victor Verdier - a hybrid perpetual rose with deep pink flowers

Not long after adding a number of glasshouses to the site, he decided to sell both businesses - due to continuing ill health. Having already sold most of his plants, the nursery itself was sold to John Burrell in late 1883, who was to carry on the business. William Farren died in Cambridge on November 21st 1887.