A Most Peculiar Chap

John Abercrombie.

 I keep finding "eccentrics"?  I don't think they are by modern standards, but it was hard to get public recognition outside of your town in the 1800s unless you were a scoundrel or a good self promoter.


The latest I just met only today, so there is only a glimpse of the man so far.  Stuff like going food shopping, and grading papers gets in the way of following these hints of an interesting story.  From the pile of odds and ends I have still in a folder, J. A. is worth following.

Here is what I have so far.

 Blackwell's Rare Books says in their bibliographic entry for a first edition copy  ‘About 1770 Abercrombie established a market garden near Hackney, and also leased a public house near Mile End, which he turned into the ‘Artichoke Tea Garden’. He later sold the lease and set up a nursery and market garden at Tottenham. His first work on practical gardening, Every Man his Own Gardener, appeared in 1767 under the title of Mawe’s Gardener’s Calendar. Abercrombie had written to Thomas Mawe, head gardener to the duke of Leeds, offering £20 in return for permission to use his name’ (ODNB). For the full story (and Johnson and Goldsmith connections), see Fussell II, pp. 138 et seq. Fussell calls Abercrombie ‘a most peculiar chap.’
The text begins, for the month of January: ‘As it is the ambition of most gardeners to excel
each other in the production of early cucumbers ...’

Above is the frontispiece to the later editions, while on the right is the earlier version.
1767 - The 2nd edition
1782 - The 9th edition
1787 - The 11th edition

and so on....
1848 - The 20th  edition has the same engraving

There are more of his books online than you can shake a stick at.


















Philip J. Pirage who has an 1825 copy for sale now writes -
"This was the first work by Abercrombie on practical gardening, which appeared initially (with permission) bearing the title "Mawe's Gardener's Calendar" in 1767. It was greatly successful, being issued in revised editions until 1879 (Abercrombie added his name as joint author in 1776). John Abercrombie (1726-1806) wrote a number of popular works on gardening, becoming so well known that he was invited to Russia by Catherine the Great to tend her imperial gardens. He decided not to go, sending a copy of this work instead. Although there are no reports of what Her Imperial Majesty thought of this guide, it is a very detailed and comprehensive work, going systematically through the tasks that must be accomplished in the kitchen, fruit, and flower gardens, the nursery, and the greenhouse each month. It ends with a thorough list of varieties of vegetables, trees, flowers, and hot-house plants, with brief descriptions and and instructions for cultivation. Our copy is in surprisingly good shape for a reference book of this sort, which one might expect to find in far sorrier condition."

WIKIPEDIA: John Abercrombie (1726–1806) was a Scottish horticulturist important to renovating garden techniques. He is noted for the book Every Man His Own Gardener (1767), which he co-wrote with Thomas Mawe.^[1] He also taught botany at the University of Cambridge.^{[citation needed]}

As a young man Abercrombie was employed at the Royal Gardens at Kew, and at Leicester House; and later set up a successful market gardeningbusiness in Hackney and later at Tottenham. He rote a number of other works on gardening.^[2]

Selected writings[edit]

• The Universal Gardener and Botanist; or, a General Dictionary of Gardening and Botany (1778)
• The Garden Mushroom (1779)
• The British Fruit Gardener; and Art of Pruning (1779)
• A General System of Trees and Shrubs (ca. 1780)
• Every Man His Own Gardener, 9th edition (1782)