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The Society of Herbalists (now The Herb Society) was founded in 1927, an era of herbal revival in Britain. Many of the women involved in the early work of the Society were born in the last quarter of the 19th century, and were young women as the century turned. Their adult lives were punctuated by two world wars and they witnessed social change on an astounding scale. The events and people surrounding them influenced their thinking, shaped their world view and channelled their choices and available options. Exploring the intertwining themes and movements of that period, we paint a picture of the world they navigated, helping understand what drove and inspired them to champion the cause of herbs.

Women’s education in late 19th/early 20th century Britain

After the Education Act (1870), the acceptance of women in education increased dramatically. Around this time Oxford and Cambridge universities began to allow women to attend, and gradually women’s colleges formed and even more slowly gained formal recognition. Actual degrees were granted by Oxford from 1920, but not by Cambridge until 1948. The foundations of women going to university were laid during the late 19th century, with  botany and history considered suitable topics. Continuing education was an option that many more women were able to take and progress from to earn a living. The Bloomsbury set has become iconic of this age of female independence.

In a world with low levels of household convenience technologies, women’s lives typically revolved around the weekly cycle of time consuming household chores. All-female boarding houses came about to facilitate professional women’s working lives – something Virginia Woolf alluded to often. They could fill their time with study and projects, collect libraries, be entrepreneurs – some supported by their families, some completely independently. The 1925 Law of Property finally meant women could own property truly independently. The women in the herbal revival definitely fulfilled this ‘New Woman’ persona being independently minded and of independent means.

Progressive approaches to agriculture in early 20th Century Britain

The Agricultural Depression in the late 19th century had been caused by the influx of American grain, poor harvests and failing techniques, leaving the countryside depleted. By 1914, the UK was importing 80% grain, 40% meat and 100% sugar. The government had chosen not to levy American tariffs, unlike the rest of Europe. Lady Eve Balfour, aged 21 in 1919, bought a farm where she trialled a more holistic approach to growing, culminating in 1946 with her book The Living Soil as she officially founded The Soil Society. Ruralism and environmentalism rallied against industry, pollution and awful living and working conditions in cities and factories. Having trained with Grieve throughout the war, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde (THS advisor) also created a large plant nursery business in Surrey from 1920, focussed on herbs and difficult to find wild species.

Progressive approaches to gardening in early 20th Century Britain

Arts and Crafts was in full flow around 1880-1920; William Morris and his followers created decorative and useful items in their highly distinctive style, preserving heritage crafts. There was also a strong green living element to the whole movement. Within the arts and crafts communities, “good life” experiments were taking place, with women often taking the helm. Olive Cockerell and Helen Nussey took on a plant nursery, logging their journey in A French Garden in England (1909), by turns practical, honest and whimsical (Beatrix Potter fans), their style was basically small holding with glass covers. Famous gardener Gertrude Jekyll was part of their group and shared similar passions with Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) who published her pastoral epic The Land (1927), then went on to design the idyllic gardens at Sissinghurst. Both these women directly inspired and knew Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, as she went on to champion English roses and design gardens, also in the arts and crafts style, comprising effusive colour packed borders, garden rooms of yew, and brick paths and walls.

There was a deeper layer behind the pretty images where Gods and Goddesses abounded. Seeded by the Romantic poets and continuing to flourish through to the Great War, the concepts of the triple goddesses and Pan were marinating, ready for the Wiccan & neopagan leaps mid 20th century. Keats, Shelley, Byron and Swinburne led the Victorian literary craze that kept going through the Edwardian period. Novels and poems began with escapism, often sensational, even salacious – with supernatural beings enticing humans all over the place. Kenneth Graeme helped establish this vogue, his Pagan Papers (1898)began with Pan, spirit of the English countryside, in drowsy glades and twinkling hedgerows. Author Ronald Hutton wryly comments on this idealised landscape where no one was ever at work and the normal agricultural population were invisible. Regardless of the inconsistencies, people were searching for something. Rural yearning had become something to hold onto during the horrors of war and an ever-industrial age. Folklore and music collecting had become a valiant cause too, led by Vaughan Willaims (1872-1958) and Cecil Sharp (1859-1924), seeking to espouse an unchanged timeless rural ideal about to be lost.

Last glimpses

City living was really quite modern, but much outside that was following a slower pace still. Laurie Lee wrote on embarking his journey in 1934 “I was lucky… to have been setting out… in a landscape not yet bulldozed for speed. Many of the country roads still followed their original tracks, drawn by packhorse or lumbering cartwheel, hugging the curve of a valley or yielding to a promontory like the wandering line of a stream.”  Edward Thomas (1878-1917) had captured this landscape, walking through the land, but his output of evocative poetry was cut short by war. Though the car was still a luxury, trains were very well established through this period, as were public buses. Travel to Europe off the beaten tracks was still possible. Folklore collector and artist Estella Canziani and Eleanour Sinclair Rohde set off together in 1920 to the Balearic Islands, noting that lands without cars, roads or any modernity were flashing into a modern haze with indecent haste. Estella logs costumes and customs with a genuine appeal to make sure we would remember, as they travelled so confidently into the unknown with no safety nets!

Second revival

In recent years, interest in foraging and bushcraft has risen massively. Allotment demand is higher than ever. Our understanding of wild nutrition and issues regarding farming constraints, not just F1 vegetables, is increasing due to projects like the Wildbiome Project and attention from many nature and health writers. Given climate changes, looking back to common species and lost edible perennials offers much scope. People want true connections with their local natural habitat, and control and ownership of this knowledge, with a real ethic behind it. Our founders understood so much of this, even back then, and this is a timely reminder not to take these things for granted. We’ve been here before!