Susan Irvine

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" 'Restless'. Tall bush. Hybrid Tea … Very dark velvety red with magnificent scent. Very recurrent."—Susan Irvine, A Hillside of Roses, p. 121.

Susan Irvine (1928–2019) was an Australian educator, author and rose authority.

Family and education

Susan Irvine (pronounced Ervin) was born in Dalby, Queensland in 1928. She was the second of three daughters of John Moore and Niree Hunter (b. 1897, m. 1923).[1][2][3][4] Her self-supporting mother ran a full-time and wide-ranging business called Arts and Antiques.[5] At the same time her mother was socially and geographically prominent, her house Lynfield overlooking Toowoomba from The Range. Susan, like her sisters, boarded at The Glennie School – down the street from Lynfield[6][7] – from the age of four till the age of 17 and "absolutely hated" it.[8]

Straight after the Second World War Susan began a music degree in voice and cello at the University of Melbourne,[9] married at 19 a Sydney radiologist ten years older, Peter Tod,[10][11] and moved to Sydney.[12] To further her husband's training they moved to London (1949–1951), where she had a daughter, Felicity (b. 1950).[13][14][15] Peter and Susan returned to Brisbane where a second daughter, Diana, was born (b.1951). Susan commenced a B.A. in medieval German mysticism, German poetry and philosophy at Brisbane university. The family travelled to Germany in 1955 where Susan continued her studies at Heidelberg University but returned to Australia in 1956 without completing a PhD at the University of Heidelberg in Germany due to the serious ill health of her daughter, Diana. Fluent in German, Susan commenced her teaching career at PLC Orange.[16] A third daughter, Josephine, was born in Brisbane in 1958. Josephine's father was Reginald St Leon OAM (b. 1928), associate professor of German in the University of Sydney, and founder of the multilingual International Grammar School in central Sydney. He later remarried and had a second family.

Career

Mostly as Susan St Leon, Susan taught at the following private schools:

  • 1956, Presbyterian Ladies' College, Orange, New South Wales.
  • 1965–72, Abbotsleigh, Sydney, New South Wales under Betty Archdale as headmistress, Susan managing administration and teaching German
  • 1973–83, Lauriston Girls' School, Melbourne, as headmistress.[17]

Susan was the first headmistress of Lauriston appointed by the School Council, implying Lauriston was now a public institution more than a private school. "Elegant, charismatic and vivacious", she presided over Lauriston's response to the enormous professional and material expansion of private education in the Whitlam era. Though overt expression of authority was reduced, she strongly favoured doing "one or two things very well [rather than] eight or nine things badly". Things worth achieving undoubtedly included high standards in mathematics, science and languages. These were soon reflected in public exam results. Music, art and drama were also favoured.[18] Mrs St Leon's example showed marriage and children did not preclude a career.

In 1985 Susan married W. R. M. (Bill) Irvine OAM, who had been chairman of the Lauriston School Council 1977–81.[19][20] Originally a solicitor at Hedderwick, Fookes and Alston, Bill was chairman of the National Australia Bank 1979–97 and its associated companies in the UK and New Zealand.[21] He was also chairman of Phillip Morris Australia and a director of Burns Philp and Caltex Australia. Bill Irvine makes an early appearance in Susan's Garden of a Thousand Roses as a lawyer friend and visitor to Bleak House who reveals a light touch adjusting Shire planning decisions.[22]

Roses

In 1982 Susan retired[17] to establish a garden and what became a well-known rose nursery on 15 acres (6.1 ha) at Bleak House, Malmsbury[23][24] and, with Bill Irvine in 1992, the garden of Erinvale on 1.5 acres (0.61 ha) in Gisborne, Central Victoria.[25] At Gisborne she held the Alister Clark Rose Collection and the Australian Rose Collection for Ornamental Plants.[26]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s Susan used her social and garden connections to find, save, identify and revive scores of roses by the best-known Australian breeder, Alister Clark.[25][27] Clark's rose 'Nancy Hayward' for instance was identified by Nancy Hayward herself. Little known roses like 'Restless' were carefully evaluated as garden plants.[25] Her companion in many of these explorations was the Coldstream nurseryman John Nieuwesteeg. They surveyed possible Clark material in gardens at Berwick, Kyneton and at Glenara, Clark's house at Bulla.[27] Riethmuller's 'Carabella' was another rose rescued from obscurity.

From this period date her most influential books, describing her discoveries. A Garden of a Thousand Roses started with "a century-old stone cottage called Bleak House on the windswept plains of Central Victoria and transformed it into a mecca for thousands of rose lovers".[28] A Hillside of Roses about the design and construction of Erinvale was greeted as "a rose book that reads like a novel." She had become "a leading authority on roses".[29]

By 1992 Irvine had named after her mother 'Niree Hunter', a Rugosa rose she had discovered at Bleak House.[30] In 1994 she received the Australian Rose Award from the National Rose Society of Australia.[31] A Hybrid Gigantea rose called 'Susan Irvine' was introduced in South Australia in 1996.[32] She became a Life Member of Heritage Roses in Australia in 2001.[33]

In 1996 she and her husband moved to Forest Hall at Elizabeth Town in Northern Tasmania where she again established a large garden. It contains many Alister Clark roses.[4] (All her gardens are attached to nineteenth century houses.) The Irvines moved to a much smaller property at Evandale, Tasmania in 2013. Illness obliged them to sell it at the end of 2014. Bill died in September 2017;[34] Susan died on 6 September 2019.[35]

Books

Fragrant Roses was illustrated with photos by Gary Aitchison. All later books have photos by Simon Griffiths. They lack the vividly eccentric character of the early books laid out for Hyland House by Al Knight[36] using Irvine's own amateur photos.

See also

Further reading

  • Richard Aitken; Michael Looker, eds. (2002). The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens. South Melbourne, Victoria [u.a.]: Oxford University Press.
    ISBN 0-1955364-4-4
    .

References

  1. The Australasian
    . Melbourne: National Library of Australia. 4 December 1897. p. 55. Retrieved 23 November 2014.
  2. Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative
    . NSW: National Library of Australia. 12 April 1923. p. 26. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  3. ^ Her older sister Lyndsey became Mrs DC Ferguson of Manningford, Dalby. "GIFT TEA PARTY". Queensland Country Life. National Library of Australia. 10 January 1946. p. 11. Retrieved 21 November 2014. Her younger sister was named Jennifer, Mrs Tom Moxon. "Travel is their aim". Sunday Mail. Brisbane: National Library of Australia. 4 February 1951. p. 11. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  4. ^
    ISBN 9780670041404
    .
  5. ^ "Something from Nothing". The Argus. Melbourne: National Library of Australia. 8 January 1946. p. 9. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
  6. ^ "The History of Glennie Preparatory School". Glennie Archives. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  7. ^ "GLENNIE SCHOOLS". The Courier-Mail. Brisbane: National Library of Australia. 11 December 1941. p. 7. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  8. ISBN 0958678537
    .
  9. ^ "Who's Where". Queensland Country Life. National Library of Australia. 6 June 1946. p. 7. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  10. ^ "Glennie Girls To Wed Next Month". Queensland Country Life. National Library of Australia. 15 January 1948. p. 6. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  11. ^ "Obituary Dr Peter Alexander Tod 11 September 1918 – 5 August 2013". Doctor Q. AMA Queensland. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  12. ^ "The COUNTRY WOMAN". Queensland Country Life. National Library of Australia. 19 February 1948. p. 7. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  13. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 24 November 2017.
  14. ^ "Who's Where". Queensland Country Life. National Library of Australia. 28 July 1949. p. 5. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  15. ^ "FROM TANGANYIKA". Queensland Country Life. National Library of Australia. 15 February 1951. p. 6. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  16. ^ Rasmussen, page 199
  17. ^
    ISBN 0958678537
    . Irvine resigned in 1981 but left in early 1983.
  18. ^ Rasmussen, pages 208–212
  19. ISBN 0947062963
    .
  20. ^ Rasmussen, page 260
  21. ^ National Australian Bank annual report 1997
  22. ISBN 0947062963
    .
  23. ISBN 0947062963
    .
  24. ^ "Bleak House Malmsbury". National Trust of Australia. Archived from the original on 18 November 2010. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  25. ^
    ISBN 1875657371
    .
  26. ^ "Famous five welcome visitors as Dart of Open Garden Scheme". The Canberra Times. National Library of Australia. 25 October 1992. p. 26. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  27. ^ a b Kinsey, Melanie (1 February 2010). "Interview with John Nieuwesteeg". Genus. 22 (1).
  28. ^ "Famous five welcome visitors as Dart of Open Garden Scheme". The Canberra Times. National Library of Australia. 25 October 1992. p. 26. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
  29. ^ "A novel way with words and roses". The Canberra Times. National Library of Australia. 13 November 1994. p. 26. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
  30. ^ "Niree Hunter". Help Me Find. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  31. ^ "Susan Irvine". Penguin Books Australia. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  32. ^ "Susan Irvine". Help Me Find. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  33. ^ Irvine, Susan (2013). "Reflections on Alister Clark Roses". Journal of Heritage Roses in Australia. 35 (1): 7.
  34. ^ "William Robert Irvine". The Age. 27 September 2017. Archived from the original on 24 November 2017. Retrieved 23 November 2017.
  35. ^ "Susan Irvine". Tributes. The Examiner. Retrieved 14 September 2019.
  36. ^ Personal communication of Al Knight
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