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ABSTRACT
This article challenges the assumption that Frederick Law Olmsted was the first to call himself a landscape architect in the 1860s. Systematic study of archival records establishes that William Andrews Nesfield (1794–1881), an overlooked but pivotal practitioner in Victorian England, used the title as early as 1849. Dismissed by many historians as a revivalist of parterres and Italianate terraces, Nesfield encouraged the burgeoning field of landscape architecture by elevating the vocational landscape designer to professional landscape architect, expanding his audience from aristocratic clientele to the general public, and shifting his focus from rural estates to urban and suburban sites. That Olmsted stands in a landscape by Nesfield, as identified by Antonetti, when musing on his future profession, further demonstrates that Nesfield is an essential addition to the landscape studies canon. That Nesfield had broad disciplinary training and practiced a more rigorously comprehensive style of design than traditional garden design sheds new light on the origins of landscape architecture and its more expansive role in landscape studies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks are due to Charles Beveridge for information regarding Olmsted; to Christopher Ridgway for his inside knowledge of Nesfield at Castle; to Anne Helmreich, Robert Holden, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, and Tom Turner for their insights into the fields of garden history and landscape architecture, to Paula Deitz for her deep knowledge of landscape literature; to Hazel Conway for her encouraging feedback; and to Dean Flower, Helen Horowitz, and Pamela Petro for their careful reading. Thanks also to Jane Wainwright, Alice Baldwin and, of course, Martin Antonetti for their sustained interest in all things Nesfield. and are reproduced by permission of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the many resources at Smith College that funded my travel and supported my research, and the two venues that graciously have hosted talks, The Victorian Society and the Institute of Historical Research.
Notes
1. For more details of Olmsted's ‘first’ use of the term ‘landscape architect’, see Rogers Citation2001, p. 355, endnote 15.
2. Although the two earliest known uses of ‘landscape architecture’ appear in book titles — Meason's On the Landscape Architecture of the Great Painters of Italy (London 1828) (which Phyllis Andersen mistakenly names The Landscape Architecture of the Great Paintings of Italy) and Loudon's edition of Repton's writings The Landscape Gardening and Landscape Architecture of the Late Humphry Repton (London 1840) — the former refers to painting and the latter to broadscale design. For more on Meason's use, specifically that he was building upon Uvedale Price and Richard Payne Knight, see Watkins & Cowell (Citation2006) p. 60.
3. Frederick Law Olmsted Papers, vol. 3, p. 267, note 1, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress. See also Beveridge & Rocheleau (Citation1998).
4. Olmsted Papers, vol. 5, pp. 373-74, 420, and 422-23.
5. The reminiscences of Eliza Anne Salvin. Chapter 3, p. 56, Salvin Collection [6787/7], London Borough of Barnet Libr Serv
6. Nesfield, ‘General Observations & Remedial Propositions’ (Sept. 1852), Archives, Sudbury Estate. This project was never executed.
7. Nesfield, ‘Report on the Formation of a National Arboretum at Kew’ (July 1845), Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Library and Archives, file KEW 207.
8. Nesfield, Royal Institute of British Architects [153/07 PA91/1(1)-(5)].
9. Nesfield, Royal Institute of British Architects [153/07 PA91/1(1)-(5)].
10. Nesfield, ‘References & Remarks on Plans for an Arboretum & alterations of the Bowling-Green at Keele Hall’ (1842) University Library Keele [S2768].
11. See Conway Citation1991 and Cranz Citation1982.
12. ‘Sir W. J. Hooker's Report on Kew Gardens’ Royal Gardens, Kew 31 December 1855, Kew Archives [Box II A 72].
13. See Hunt Citation2004, pp. 24-30.
14. Letter from Nesfield dated 11 May 1850 in which he mentions his work at Eaton Hall, Castle Howard Archives [F5/73]. Architect William Burn had already made alterations to the house in 1845–46 for Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster, and the grounds previously were laid out by Capability Brown.