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6 unusual facts about Herbert Cowley


C.F. Ball

“A delightful companion, unassuming, sincere and a most lovable man…” quoted from a short and touching obituary (and portrait) was also published in The Garden (October 16, 1915, p.514) by his friend and fellow soldier , the editor Herbert Cowley (who had been invalided out of the army).

Herbert Cowley

Herbert Cowley (born 1885 – died November 1967, Newton Abbott, Devon) was a botanist, gardener, garden photographer and garden writer who edited The Garden journal from 1915 to the mid 1920s and wrote many gardening books until retiring in 1936.

His Kew Guild Journal obituary in 1968 mentions prewar plant hunting trips to the Dolomites and a notable visit to Bulgaria as a guest of King Ferdinand in the company of Kew contemporary C.F. Ball of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin in Dublin.

Herbert Cowley became Assistant Editor or Sub-Editor at a different title, The Garden in 1910.

Sadly this prewar lecture lists contain the names of some of other Kew staff including C.F. Ball who would soon be killed on active service.

He appears also to have written garden articles for Country Life after 1911.



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