Gardeners - was there an apprenticeship ? (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, July 25, 2013, 22:26 (4133 days ago) @ pojames

The key to answer your queries are knowing where and when your ancestors were "gardeners" in the Forest ?. Is this information gleaned from PRs or from Census returns ?.
If the latter then presumably they state where or who they "gardened" for, thats IF they were in the staff of a private house/estate (a distant ancestor of mine was a 1900s gamekeeper at Bishopswood, a lovely country house estate overlooking the Wye, the same Census quotes the other staff members including gardeners). I guess that in this respect they'd have served a form of apprenticeship, if only verbal guidance under a more senior/skilled head gardener, who perhaps had training & even qualifications, I'm sure such things existed via the RHS etc (I'll look it up).
Then again I'm sure that just as nowadays, anyone could call themselves a gardener and offer to work the various privately-owned gardens in a village or town, I've seen "gardeners" in my tree and they were largely older men, perhaps too old or unfit for fulltime ag-lab or mining jobs etc yet still needing to earn, no retirement or pensions in Victorian times of course.

Re the FoD itself, it would be a great help when answering this & other general queries you raise if you tell us approx where you are and what you do or don't lnow about the Forest ?. Sorry to ask, but some forum users are from t'other side of the world and don't know the area at all, so it helps to know if possible to ensure we best hep you. If you've not seen it this ebook, written about the area in 1858, can be freely read (and searched) and is an excellent social record of the Dean.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/ebooks/gutenberg/24505/24505-h.htm

The Forest varies greatly in physical geography terms, some parts were & still are dense Forest, yet there are also open flat fertile agricultural areas around the edges. Hence some "Foresters" were woodmen or more likely/recently hard manual workers in the pits or ironworks, certainly around Bream area, whereas others towards Ross or Gloster were farming. There is an agricultural college of some renown at Hartpury but only since post WW2, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartpury_College
Indeed another of my ancestors was a maid at Bradley Court Mitcheldean, once a grand house but by 1911 it was an "agricultural school" with abt 20 young students, more recently it was a hotel.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/gallery/mitcheldean/pages/page_26.html

The FoD has no large towns hence no grand public areas such as the very "posh" Cheltenham Spa and their Pittville Pump Rooms etc etc; I guess Lydney is nearest to this, so the most skilled gardeners would be in the "posh" private houses/estates of maybe colliery owners or gentry such as Lord Bathurst at Lydney.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/kellys/Lydney_&_Aylburton_1879.htm

The majority of "normal" residents across the Forest, particularly the miners, kept small gardens for their own pleasure and particularly food growing, keeping a pig or two was also commonplace, this was mainly a poor area and life was hard so every effort was needed to feed the family.
I cannot think of anywhere in the "deep" inner Forest where market-gardening occurred, but yes maybe on the edges bordering Herefordshire particularly, and also of course the flat and very fertile Severn Vale. After WW2 areas of the Vale such as Blaisdon, famous for fruit particularly red plums, had market gardens presumably aimed at feeding expanding Gloucester, but long after your family's time of course. I've just read another of your threads (very welcome too!) and you talk about gardeners being at Tidenham, which is presumably the reason for this thread. This is a little out of my knowledge area but I'd suggest this it's in the ROUGH area of Lydney/Bathurst mentioned above. It would certainly be very fertile ground being close to the confluence of Wye and Severn, and Tidenham Chase did have some farming within it's boundaries as per this very detailed history from the ever-reliable British History Site. By the way, its a "Chase" as in ancient Royal hunting lands.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15757