Thomas Hanbury

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the English politician, see Thomas Hanbury (MP).

Thomas Hanbury
La Mortola, Italy Riviera
Resting placeLa Mortola
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, philanthropist
Known forGiardini Botanici Hanbury, Ventimiglia

Sir Thomas Hanbury (21 June 1832 – 9 March 1907) was an English businessman, gardener and philanthropist. He built the Giardini Botanici Hanbury, or Hanbury botanical gardens, at Mortola Inferiore, between Ventimiglia and Menton,[1] on the coast of Italy near to the border with France.

Early life

Thomas Hanbury was born on 21 June 1832 at Bedford Road,

Quakers, and members of the family had been members of the Society of Friends since its beginnings in the seventeenth century.[3] His great-aunt was the philanthropist and centenarian Elizabeth Hanbury
. Thomas Hanbury was sent to predominantly Quaker schools, first in Croydon, and then in Epping. He remained a Friend all his life.

China

From 1849 Hanbury worked for the tea brokers William James Thompson & Sons in Mincing Lane, London. In 1853 he travelled to Shanghai, which had opened to foreign commerce in 1843.[4] With three partners and with the financial backing of his uncle, he started Hanbury & Co., merchants in silk and tea. The partnership dissolved in 1857, and Hanbury and Frederick Bower entered into a new one, Bower, Hanbury & Co., which diversified into currency trading and cotton broking.[2] Hanbury became extremely wealthy,[3] and was the largest holder of property in Shanghai.[2]

Hanbury arrived in China at a time of widespread civil unrest. In 1854 there were five separate rebellions within the country: the

Small Knife Society and the vast Taiping Rebellion (1850–64), which has been described as the "most gigantic man-made disaster" of the nineteenth century.[5] The Taiping rebels had taken Shanghai in 1851, but lost it to Qing dynasty forces in January 1853.[4]
The Small Knife Society occupied old Shanghai and many surrounding villages from 1854 to February 1855.

The European residents of Shanghai lived in self-governing settlements or

concessions outside the city walls, in physical and social isolation from the local population. Hanbury took the unusual step of learning Mandarin Chinese. He travelled within the country and was soon trusted and respected by local people. When he finally left Shanghai in 1871, his Chinese acquaintances and friends brought him so many parting gifts that he begged them to stop.[3]

Hanbury was a member of the Anglo-American

Woosung Railway. The first telegraph message from Shanghai to Hong Kong was sent from his office.[2]

Hanbury financed the Eurasia School in the 1880s and later renamed it the Hanbury Schools for Boys and Girls, which were precursors to Shanghai Shixi High School.

La Mortola

Hanbury visited Europe between 1866 and 1869, and in 1867 travelled on the

Côte d'Azur. He saw and purchased the abandoned villa of the Orengo di Roccasterone family at Mortola, where he planned to make a botanical garden
with the help of his brother Daniel.

Hanbury married Katharine Aldham Pease (1842–1920) of Westbury-on-Trym, now a suburb of Bristol, in 1868. They travelled to China in 1869, where Hanbury wound up his business, and returned to live at La Mortola in 1871. The Orengo villa was restored, and Daniel had already begun planting the gardens, which eventually extended over 18 of the 45 hectares of the estate, and came to be known as the Giardini Botanici Hanbury. The couple had four children: Cecil, Horace, Daniel and Hilda.[6]

The Giardini Botanici Hanbury

Main article: Giardini Botanici Hanbury

In December 1868 Hanbury employed as head gardener the botanist and garden designer

First World War in 1914, Alwin Berger was curator.[6]

The gardens received many visitors. Among these was

Kuo Sung Tao, the first Qing dynasty minister to be accredited in Europe.[9]

Death

La Mortola

Hanbury died at La Mortola on 9 March 1907. He was buried in the gardens under a pavilion in

moresco
style.

References

  1. ^ Emilio Azaretti (1982). Sir Thomas Hanbury Archived 13 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine (speech delivered 20 June 1982 at Palazzo Hanbury, Mortola, for the 150th anniversary of his birth; in Italian). Accessed July 2013.
  2. ^ a b c d Anita McConnell (2009). Hanbury, Sir Thomas (1832–1907). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/54055. Accessed July 2013.
  3. ^
    ISBN 9781860111402
    .
  4. ^ a b S. Wells Williams (1904). The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of the Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants Vol. 1, p. 107. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
  5. ^ Philip A. Kuhn (July 1977). Origins of the Taiping Vision: Cross-Cultural Dimensions of a Chinese Rebellion. Comparative Studies in Society and History 19(3): 350-366. (subscription required)
  6. ^
    ISBN 9788870585292
    .
  7. ^ Alwin Berger (1912). Hortus Mortolensis: enumeratio plantarum in horto Mortolensi cultarum: Alphabetical catalogue of plants growin in the garden of the late Sir T. Hanbury at La Mortola, Ventimiglia, Italy. London: West, Newman. p. v—xv.
  8. ISBN 9788890008405
    .
  9. ^ Friedrich A. Flückiger, Helen P. Sharpe (trans.) (1885). La Mortola: a short description of the garden of Thomas Hanbury, Esq.. Edinburgh: Privately printed.
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