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Introduction: Gerard

Life of Gerard.

JOHN GERARD was born at Nantwich, 1545. He was descended from some younger branch of the Gerards of Ince, in Lancashire, as was learnt from his Coat of Arms, printed in his Herbal; but there are no records at the College of Arms of his parentage. The spelling of his name with a final "e" was no doubt due to an engraver's error in the title-page. He was a pupil at Willaston near Nantwich, and probably there received all his scholastic education. At an early age he was drawn to the study of medicine, and travelled, possibly as a ship's surgeon, on board some merchant vessel, since he speaks of having been from "Narva unto Moscovia, . . . the Sownde, beyonde Denmarke", and again, "Denmarke, Swenia, Poland, Livonia, or Russia, or in any of those colde countries, where I have travelled"; possibly he visited the Mediterranean. The Herbal throws one or two side-lights on his boyhood; he recalls the raspberry-picking days of his youth, and he boldly affirms that it is altogether untrue about the Yew-tree, that if any sleep under the shadow it causes sickness and sometimes death, and that birds many times die if they eat the fruit: "For when I was young and went to schoole, divers of my schoole-fellowes and likewise my selfe did eat our fils of the berries of this tree, and have not only slept under the shadow thereof, but among the branches also, without any hurt at all, and that not one time, but many times". Johnson, the author's first editor, had his doubts: and certainly the experiments of eating yew-berries and sleeping in the yew-tree's branches were risky. Johnson remarks of the Yew: "Divers affirme, that in Province in France, and in most hot countries, it hath such a maligne qualitie, that it is not safe to sleepe or long to rest under the shadow thereof". Gerard must have settled in London before 1577, since he speaks of having superintended the gardens belonging to Lord Burleigh, in the Strand, and at Theobalds in Hertfordshire, for twenty years, which occupation took up the greatest part of his time. His employer expended Pound10 weekly, to keep the poor employed in his gardens; "For my servants, I keep none to whom I pay not wages, and give liveries, which I know many do not". L'Obel mentions Lord Burleigh's garden in London, but as he is silent in his earlier works about Gerard, it seems he had not then made his mark as a successful gardener. Hentzner, in his Itinerarium, describes at length the gardens at Theobalds, as they were under Gerard's superintendence. In our author's own garden in London he grew above a thousand different herbs, a garden of rarities raised by his skill which Anne of Denmark admired, with white thyme, with double-flowered peach, and all manner of flowers, strangers in England: "Yet I have them in my garden," he relates, time and again, in words ringing with triumph. That he made friends in his profession is clear from the testimony printed in the Herbal by George Baker, "one of the chife chirurgions in ordinarie" to Queen Elizabeth, who held a high opinion of Gerard's attainments, saying: "If I may speake without partialitie of the Author of this book, his great paines, no less expences in travelling far and neere for the attaining of his skill have bin extraordinarie. For he was never content with the knowledge of those simples which grow in those parts, but upon his proper cost and charges hath had out of all parts of the world all the rare simples which by any means he could attaine unto, not onely to have them brought, but hath procured by his excellent knowledge to have them growing in his garden, which as the time of the yeare doth serve may be seene: for there shall you see all manner of strange trees, herbes, roots, plants, floures, and other such rare things, that it would make a man wonder, how one of his degree, not having the purse of a number, could ever accomplish the same. I protest upon my conscience, I do not think for the knowledge of Plants, that he is inferiour to any: for I did once see him tried with one of the best strangers that ever came into England, and was accounted in Paris the onely man, being recommended unto me by that famous man Master Amb. Pareus; and he being here was desirous to goe abroad with some of our Herbarists, for the which I was the meane to bring them together, and one whole day we spent therein, searching the rarest Simples: but when it came to the triall, my French man did not know one to his foure. What doth this man deserve that hath taken so much paines for his countrey, in setting out a booke, that to this day never any in what language soever did the like?"

The Frenchman referred to could have been none other than Jean Robin who, in 1597, was appointed keeper of the King's garden in Paris. Gerard acknowledged in the Herbal the receipt of numbers of plants from his friend. In the year 1595 Gerard was elected a member of the Court of Assistants of the Barber-Surgeons' Company; at that time no one could carry on the trade of "barbarie or chirurgerie" in the City without being at least a Freeman of that Company. In the next year he was commissioned to seek a better place for a "fruit-ground" than that in "East Smithfielde or ffetterlane". At this time he had a house in Holborn, then the most aristocratic portion of London, and his garden may have been the plot above mentioned. It is unlikely that it was on the northern side of Holborn, since during the last few years of Elizabeth's reign the future site of Ely Place and Hatton Garden was the famous garden of forty acres belonging to the Bishopric of Ely.

About this time Gerard drew up a sort of petition, intended to be signed by his patron Burleigh, to the University of Cambridge, urging the planting of gardens and the employment of himself as Herbarist. After "most hartie commendacions, &c.", and an involved preamble, it runs: "I thought yt good to moove you herin & to commend this bearer Ihon Gerard a servant of mine unto you: who by reason of his travaile into farre countries, his great practise & long experience is throughly acquainted with the generall & speciale differences, names, properties & privie markes of thousands of plants & trees. So yt if you intend a worke of such emolument to yrselves and all young students I shall be glad to have nominated and furnished you with so expert an Herbarist: & your selves I trust will think well of the motion and the man." In this year, 1596, our Author made his first appearance in print, and issued a list of plants he had cultivated in his own garden for some years; this little work of twenty-four pages seems to have been the first professedly complete catalogue of any one garden ever published. The one copy, in duodecimo, known to exist of the first edition is a treasure of the British Museum.