Researched by Heritage Advisory Group
The Cornishman, William Lobb, became the first collector to be employed by the Exeter nursery of James Veitch and in the process, it seems, the first exclusive plant collector for a British nursery. Following much preparation, William Lobb set sail from Falmouth aboard HM Packet Seagull in November 1840, bound for South America. He was to become one of the greatest of all the Victorian plant hunters. Very little is actually known about the life of Lobb except for the huge range of popular plants he introduced. He came to the attention of James senior through his younger brother Thomas who was already working for Veitch at the Exeter nursery. Thomas Lobb was also, later, to become an important plant collector for Veitch and another one of the Victorian greats.
William collected a wide range of colourful, showy plants from his travels through the Americas, from Patagonia to California. We still grow many of these plants in our gardens and greenhouses today in their wild forms. Amongst his introductions were new orchids, fuchsias, Berberis, Ceanothus, Escallonia, various alpine, herbaceous and climbing plants, as well as
many useful parkland, forestry trees and conifers. A highly sought-after conifer during this period was the Monkey Puzzle, Araucaria araucana. Although first discovered by a non-native in 1780, only six plants had been successfully brought to Britain in 1795 by Archibald Menzies on George Vancouver’s famous voyage. Others had collected seed but demand was high and four years into his first trip, Lobb finally entered the forests where these strange, prehistoric trees can be found. He set about obtaining seed from the large spiny cones which top their canopies. Proving impossible to climb, Lobb apparently pulled out his gun and shot the cones off the trees! He collected 2-3,000 seeds and packed them off to Veitch in Exeter who sold them for £10 for 100 seeds on their arrival in 1844.
The most famous of his conifer introductions was the first commercial introduction of the Giant Redwood, Sequoiadendron giganteum, from California in 1853. Between 1840 and 1844, William travelled across Brazil and Chile before returning again to the same two countries between 1845 and 1848. Following his return from this second trip, he signed a third contract with
James Veitch to collect plants in California and Oregon between 1849-1853. The purpose of this third trip to America was primarily to collect seed of conifers, particularly the scarce varieties discovered in California and Oregon by the late David Douglas. Douglas had been collecting for the Horticultural Society of London (later to become the Royal Horticultural Society), before his untimely death.
Lobb arrived in California in the summer of 1849 at the height of the Californian Gold Rush. Not distracted by the Californian mayhem, he soon started exploring Southern California for his own kind of gold; new desirable plants. During the period of 1850-1852 he sent the seeds and cones of many sought after conifers to England. He returned to California for the final time on a further contract to collect plants for Veitch between 1854 and 1857. William’s health eventually broke down and he died in San Francisco in 1863, ‘seized with paralysis,’ aged 54. So famous was he in his day, that when the French rose breeder Laffay-Portemer launched a fragrant new moss rose in 1855, it was named William Lobb to help boost its success.