Like Ada Teetgen, Edith Wheelwright was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction who, in her later years, wrote a significant book about medicinal plants. In Wheelwright’s case: The Physick Garden: Medicinal Plants and Their History (1934).  During WWI, the two women worked to reduce Britain’s dependence upon imported drugs. Also like Teetgen, Wheelwright never married. But there the similarities end.

Whereas the Teetgens were a catholic family, Wheelwright was the daughter of the Church of England Curate of Crowhurst, Surrey. Her father, George, had been educated at Merton College, Oxford. Unfortunately, he died when she was only seven years old. By the time of the census of 1901 she and her mother were ‘living on own means’ in Bath, and she was about to publish her third novel¹.

What happened in the intervening years as far as education and an interest in plants is concerned remains largely unknown but is made all the more intriguing by her obituary, published in the Western Daily Press, 29^th September 1949, which states that she studied botany and geology at Oxford. The archives of Somerville College and Lady Margaret Hall, the two women’s colleges open at the time when she is most likely to have been a student, i.e. the 1890s, have no record of an Edith Wheelwright. Nor does her name appear among the – admittedly more scattered – records of students with no college affiliation.  

In trying to explain her interest and expertise in medicinal plants, there is firmer evidence; it concerns her connections with Mrs Maud Grieve and Beatrix Potter (Mrs Heelis).

The most important factor in the collection and preparation of herbs was their drying. Grieve was considered the foremost expert in this and had installed at Chalfont St Peter some of the finest drying facilities in the country².  It seems that Wheelwright was first a student at Chalfont and later a teacher: the National Herb Growing Association (NHGA) report for 1917, tells that Miss Wheelwright acted as superintendent and principal for the drying shed at Chalfont St Peter, ‘…enthusing a band of students’ who later opened and supervised facilities elsewhere³.

In The Physick Garden, Edith Wheelwright stresses that ‘a good clean herb root, leaf or bark is one that has been perfectly dried’.  Although she praises Mrs Grieve’s work, both during the war and after the war when Maud had done so much to arouse interest in purely herbal remedies, no personal connection is recognised. The only warmth Wheelwright displays is for Edward Morrell Holmes (widely cited in her book), whom she describes as her ‘sincere’ friend.

In July 1916, Edith Wheelwright was in Crowborough, Sussex, and in Wallingford, Oxon, promoting the NHGA by delivering talks about medicinal herbs that aimed to encourage local growing and collecting; similar talks were given in January 1917 when she was in Chester (where her talk was introduced by the Duchess of Westminster) and in March when she was in Chelmsford, Essex⁴.

Edith Wheelwright was a founding member of the NHGA and it was through the Association that her friendship with Potter began. Writing to her sister-in-law in September 1916, Potter tells her that Wheelwright has just left Far Sawrey having spent some time advising Potter on the growing and collecting of medicinal plants⁵. In the same year, Potter was advertising in Medicinal Herbs (a pamphlet of the Royal Horticultural Society), that she had foxglove seedlings for sale the plant being a source of the drug digitalin. Potter and Wheelwright developed a close and lasting friendship. A first edition has survived of The Tale of Johnny Townmouse (1918) which carries the inscription, ‘Miss Wheelwright with kind regards from “Beatrix Potter”’, while The Physick Garden is dedicated to Beatrix.



The dramatic events of Wheelwright’s life, alluded to above, occurred in the years shortly before the outbreak of WWI.  She was deeply involved in the suffragist movement, serving as Secretary of the Bath branch of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) from 1909-13.  She had close links nevertheless with the more militant suffragettes via the Blaythwayt family of Bath; a family that welcomed into their home Emmeline Pankhurst and other campaigners after their release from prison following hunger strikes¹. 

As found in contemporary accounts, and described by local researcher, Helen Hobbs, Wheelwright appears to have been a woman whose life was governed by strong enthusiasms and emotions. ‘In October 1912 whilst walking to visit a friend one evening she was chloroformed from behind and robbed of a ring”. Her attacker, a 39-year-old Irish woman, Emily Jane Manning, died shortly afterwards. However, she confessed on her deathbed. The ring was recovered, after Wheelwright hired a private detective – a woman - to resolve the case, rather than reveal its full details to the police⁶.

A few months after the chloroform incident, Edith was found unconscious in the canal whilst botanising amongst the water weed but was “restored to animation by artificial respiration” by a passer-by.’  Her later years were less dramatic, excepting her death at age 81, which was through coal gas poisoning.

                                                                               *****

The help of Helen Hobbs and Gareth Evans in putting together this account is gratefully acknowledged.

Sources

1.     Hobbs, Helen.  2018. Edith Gray Wheelwright 1868-1949. Resident of 52 Sydney Building, Bath 1910-1912. (Available at ‘sydneybuildingsbath.org/blog’)

2.     Carle, Claire de. 2017. Maud Grieve. ‘Now let me tell you about that wonderful plant’. (claire@decarle.plus.com)

3.     Uxbridge and West Drayton Advertiser and Gazette, 15 February 1918.

4.     Kent and Sussex Courier, 7 July, 1916; The Berks and Oxon Advertiser, 14 July 1916; The Cheshire Observer, 27 January 1917; Chelmsford Chronicle, 30 March 1917.

5.     Evans, G. 2016. A Tale of Beatrix Potter’s War. Herbs, 41, 10-11. Available online at ‘Gareth Evans; botanical and cultural histories’, www.garethevans.com

Now read Hilda Leyel, or return to Medicinal Plants in Wartime