ORCHID ART

NellyRoberts
Trrouas ArrEN OoEn recounts the life story of the first and longest
serving RHS orchid artist on the 50th anniversary of her death

T,IAGINETHE CONTRAST
s.hen members of the Royal
Horticulrural Society's Orchid
Comrnittee gathered in the Drill Hali
at StJames, \Westminster, for their
meeting on 12 Jantary 1897. Harry
orchid nurseries ofthe day and knolvn
as the Orchid King, was one of the
committee's .11 members. Individually
and collectively, they represented the
learned old guard ofthe orchid world.
Joining them for the firsr rimc was
paint orchids granted an Award of
Merit or a First Class Certificate. As
she watched, the committee granted
Awards of Merit to Lzel ia Lucy Ingram
(C att Iq, a Lucy I ngr arn), M o rn o da b a dia
' Lute:rm', P ap b i op e di h m Leb attdyanu n.r

Ve itch, who many regarded as the
most outstanding horticulrurist of
the time, was the chairman. Sir Trevor
Lawrence, RHS president! was a vrce
chairman. Frederick Sancler, owncr
ofone ofthe largest, ifnot the largest,
NelhRoberts, avoungpainter, urknown
and unheralded in the artistic or orchid
communities. Aged just 2,1, Nelly
attended the meeting as the committee's
first artist. She had been hired for a
probationary period of six months to
and Paph iopedi lum Llliarr Greenwood.
As Nelly left the Drill Hall to take the
llowers home to produce the
paintings, neither she nor the other
members of the committee could
have imagined that she would servc

32 March 2009

x Rhy n c hol a eli o c af f leyd Ambersolis.
FCC/RHS, 19 0ctober 1926
as the RHS orchid arrist for 56 years.
During that time she would produce
4,500 to 5,000 paintings of awarded
orchids (plus countless more on
private comrnission), be awarded the
RHS Gold Medal and Silver Veitch
MemorialMedal, have the satinpink
C att Iey a N ellrc Ftob erts and O dont o -
glosnm Opheron'Nellie Roberrs'
named for her, and have avolume of
The Orcbid Rwieu dedicated to her.
This year, 29 March marks the
March 2009
50th anniversary ofthe death ofthis
remarkable woman. Because of her
fascination with orchids and work
for the Royal Horticultural Society,
she avoided the fate of so many other
female Victorian artists who laboured
in obscuriry, many never receiving
recognition for their effons, no
matter how talented they might
have been. Even so andwith more
than halfa century ofservice and an
extensive body ofofficial and private
OithidReview
paintings, she remains one of the
importaat but under-chronicled
figures in orchid history.
Familylife
Nelly Roberts was bom on 15 October
1872,the fust of four children of
Ifilliam and Rebecca Roberts. Her
father, a jeweller, was from Hempnall,
Norfolk, and operated a clock, watch
and repair shop at 72 Loughborough
Road in Brixton, then in Surrey and
33
ORCHID ART

Above: x Pf yncf o laeliocattleya Amber

FCC/RH5, 21 September, 1920

lelt:, 0dontoglossum Opheron'Nellie

Roberts' AM/RHS. tB November 1952

Righl:, Cynbidiun Galaxy'Sutherlands'

AM/RHS, t4 April 1942

34 I-

now in the London borough of
Lambeth. Her mother, born Rebecca
\7ilson, was from Caittescamp,
Cambridge .t" Thev listerl their
daughter's name as Nellv on her
birth certifi cate.( l) Christmas was
special for the Roberts that year.
They baptisecl their claughter on
22 December in the parish of St
John's Brixton - nou StJohn the
Evangelist, Ar-rge ll Torur - and gave
herthe Christian name of Nelly.(3)
By the time oithe l88l census,
Nellyhad three siblings - Edith,
five; Roger, one; ancl Svclner., three
months. Another bor'. .\lbert
McCara, 12, r.r'ho ri'rrs born in Drury
Lane, near Covent (iarclcn, lived
with them in the hor.ne above the
clock, watch ancl repair shop.(+)
Opportunity knocks
Like manv u onren irr Vic(orian
England. NelI rook up painting.
She became intcrestccl in orchidswhen
she was 17 ancl sarv a r-:rse oiorchids
in a south Lonclon florist shop.(5)The
encounter left her bervitched. There
is no record that sl-re received formal
art training. She apparentlv sharpened
her artistic skills bv cloin-q what manv
botanical artists do - sruclv the work of
other artists and e mulate their sryle.
Nelly based heru'ork on that of
JL Macfarlane (1838 c1913), who
ofportriving orchids
pioneered the style
that would become the standard fbr
botanical artists: a fronta.l view ofthe
flor.l'er. at narural size, and sometimes
with a tinted background for emphasis,
especially ifparts of the flowerwere whiteio
At her fhther's urghg, Nellv displayed
her paintings in his shop's street-front
window. The business was on a route
that the son of Richard Isaac Measures
of Cambridge Lodge on Flodden Road
in Camberwell was taking home one
day in 1896. This section of Brirton
was home to variery of small shops,
a most able orchidgrowers and hytridisers
merchants and theatre and music hall
artists. The younger Measures likely
March 2009
No one can seem to 4gree on how to spell
the name of the fust artist of the Royal
Honicultural Sociery Orchid Committee.
It's Nelly on her binh cenificate.
It's Nellv on her baotismal record.
And it's Ne[y on her death certificate.
But, at some point Nelly Roberts
apparently became Nellie.
In 1952, for example,Odontoglosun
Opheron 'Nellie Robens', raised by
S Thalp (a member of the Orchid
Committee at the time), gained an
t
Award ofMerit;in 1953, Black Flory
regSstered, CanleyaNellie Roberts and
The Orchid Reaietp dedicated its 59th
volume to Nellie Roberts.
She's often Nellie in orchid literarure
or botanical references, including: the
Diaionary of Brhish and lrish Botanists and
Hort i cu lnrias by RD esmond; theJ ou,na I
of tbe Royal Honialaml Sociery; Orchids
window-shopped as he walked along
Loughborough Road. He might have
paused at the collar dresser Emma
Armstrong's at no. 60 or the boot-
maker Fred Williams' at no. 62.
Possibly ChadJ Peploe's greengrocery
at no.64 caught his eye, or maybe he
found Thomas King's wardrobe shop
at nos. 66,68 and 70 interesting.(t
But what he saw at \trilliam Roberts'
shop at no. 72 must have stopped him
in his tracks. Measures recognised
that the flowers in the paintings
in the window were similar to the
ones his fathergrew. After staring
at Nelly's paintings, it is easy to
imagine him hurrying home to tell
his fitherwhat he had discovered.
His father, Richard Isaac Measures,
had 18 greenhouses of flowers. Among
his favourites were orchids, especially
cr.oripediums and masdevallias. His
collection was considered representat ive
ofthe known species at the end ofthe
19th cenrury, and his plants were often
shown at RHS meetings. Measures'
gardener, HJ Chapman, was one of the
in England. Significantly, in 1894 he
became a member of the RHS Orchid
Oithid Review
bvMark Griffiths:the KHS Auarded
6 rcb i ds CD -ROM 2003; Th e Story
oftbe Royal Horticultural Society
I 8 04-19 68,by HR Fletcher;
Tbe Orchid Artists of the Royal
H o rt i c u ltur a I S o c i ety, an uticle by
'Sf
ilma Rittersh awen in Tb e Orc b i d
Reaieu, Vol. 95, No. ll23 (May, 1987.
But she's Nellv in: The Art of Botanical
-W
I IIu s tr at i o n, by lfred Bfunti O ut lV ut,
Grouing Cynbidiun Orchid: and Otber
Flowers, The Story of el Rancbo
Rinconanada,by Louis M Boyle;
and in her obituary nThe Orchid
Reaieu,Y ol. 67,N o. 7 9l (May, 19 59).
Even 2lst centuryinternet search
engines cannot find records that have
been lost to time or information that
was never recorded, so perhaps we
will never know how Nelly became
Nellie - or 4gree which to use.
9
Cypripedium
(Paphiopedilum)
Moira 'Zenobia',
registered by
Hassell.1916
Committee, which had been formed
on March 26. 1889. and he knerv the
committee was seeking an an ist to pai nt
flowers granted Awards ofMerit or First
Class Certifi cates.(8) Measures' brother,
Roben H, also gew orchids, and owned
the extensive collection at The Wood-
lands, Streatham. Both brothers were
fellows of the RHS from 1894 to 1897.
The Comrnitteets needs
Up to this point, the RHS Orchid
Comrnittee had no means of recording
images of the flowers it awarded. With e
35
 ORCHID ART

orchid growing becoming increasingly

a
popular and the number ofhybrids
rising rapidly, the members realised
=
they needed a permanent visual record
of awards by which lirture entries
L
could be judged. They also wanted
to avoid giving duplicate awards to
plants they had already considered.
In 1896, according to the Council
Report for 189G97, the Orchid
Committee approached the Council,
the governing body of the RHS, about
hiring an artist. The Councilwas in
f-avour and asked for a formal proposal
x 0dontioda Saxa'Sutherlands'
AM/RHS, 25 February 1941 that would include details and probable
cost. The Committee duly submitted
a proposal and the Council formally
approved the request at the Annual
General lleeting on 9 February 1897,
a rnonth arrer .t.telly began painting
for the committee. Thev added a
stipulation - a percentage of the salary
for the artist must be paid bv the
members ot rhe Orchid Committee.
Members who had the committee's
work at heart voluntarily agreed.

Nelly's previous experience

Villiam Roberts must have been
surprised when strangers with
connections to the Royal Horticultural
Sociery asked about the paintings in
his shopwindow. Like otherwomen
in Victorian England who were
expected to take up watercolouring,
piano playing and at least one non-
English language, Nelly probably
Still in great never expected her paintings to
receive any recognition. It must have
demand at 81. come as quite a surprise, then, when
but needing to the visitors asked her to paint orchids
the senior Measures grew. ChaPman
then brought these paintings to the
f attention oithe Orchid Committee.
f
while painting, Nelly had painted orchids for Sir

Nll\ NellY finallY Trevor Lawrence before becoming

the Committee's artist. Macfarlane
and another well-known orchid artist,
Pa phi o pe d i lu m ve n u st u m JohnNugent Fitch, nephewof the
'Measuresianum' AM/RHS, prominent botanical illustrator
12 December 1893
Walter Hood Fitch. also painted

March 2009

orchids for Sir Trer.or, but there is no
record that Nellv met either of them.
There is also no record ofwhether
Nellv pa-rnted fbr Sir Trevor before
or afte r she painted fbr Measures at
Cambridge Lodge. It is difficult not
to wonder rvhat role Sir Trevor, the
RHS president a:rd Orchid Committee
vice-chairman, might have played in
the Committee's decision to hire Nelly.
A paid post is agreed
Regardless ofwhether Measures or
Lawrence was the greater influence,
the Committee decided in the waning
months of 1896 to commission her on
a six-month trial basis beginningwith
its l2January 1897 meeting. Keeping
their promise to pay a percentage
ofthe expense for an artist, in the
beginning the committee members
contributed more than a thfud ofNelly's
salary, a total of S37 lls the fust year,
and s38 8s the second year.(e) It is
unclear from the information avai-lable
whether this was Nelly Roberts'
annual salary or just the portion paid
bymembers of the Committee. It did
not take Nelly long to convince the
members that they had found their
artist, and they hired her firll time.
The members found her award
paintings useful on many occasions.
and they are still used in Orchid
Committee meetings today.
Recognition for her paintings
At a Comrnittee meeting on 3lJuly
1900, chaired by Veitch and attended
bv 12 members, all4l5 of her award
paintings to date were spread out for
nrembers to inspect. In appreciation
oiher faithfulness to botanica.l
rccuracv and the excellence ofher
peintings, the Council, acting on the
reconmendation of the Committee,
.rg ucled Nellv the RHS Gold Medal.
.\ll oi \elh's award paintings are
:n rhc RHS archir es. Other paintings
r, rnrerime s come onto the market.
Trese are clupLcates she painted for
l{arch 2009
owners of award plants as well as ones
painted as aresult ofadvertrsments
she placed in Tbe Orchid ReaieTD or
requests she received from some of
the most prominent orchid growers
in England. One suchgrowerwas
SirJeremiah Colman, who became
vice-chairman of the Orchid
Committee in 1909 and chairman
inl9l4.ln1928, Nellywas awarded a
silver medal for watercolour paintings
oforchids in his collection that she
displayed at the Roval Counties
Agricultural Society Show in Gatton
Park, Reigate. The exhibit was of
scientific interest because ofthe way
Nelly arranged her work - paintings
of species were on one side and images
ofhybrids that had been raised from
themwere on the other.(lo)
Nelly, at least occasionally, also
painted flowers other than orchids.
In1922 the Orchid Committee's
programme for painting awarded
flowers was extended to all award-
winning plants. That year Nelly
painted at least two non-orchid awards
(Primula malac o ides'P rtncess Marf
and, Gladiohr'Perfect Peace) granted
bythe RHS Floral Committee. Borh
are signed in her characteristic style,
with the initials NR, and are in the
Wisley Herbarium collection.
The person behind tJre paintings
Nelly apparently lived at the house
atT2Lotglborough Road for her
entire life. She painted flowers for the
Committee in a small, neat but cold
room. In the only known photograph
ofher, she is wearing glasses and
a cardigan and sitting at her artist's
table as she paints a Caxleya rlliance
flower in the manner attributed to
Macfarlane.(ll) Brian Rittershausen,
who met Nelly a few times near the
end ofher careerwhen he was young,
remembers her as beingvery shy and
retiring. He recalled that the Orchid
Committee in those days was very
much male-dominated.
OfthidReview
I I71n Poate, East Suney FamilyHistory
Society, personal email, 8Jun, 2000
2 General Register Office, England,
birth certificate for Nelly Roberts
3 Baptisms solemnised in the Parish
ofStJohn, Brirton, in the County of
Surrey in the year 1872173. &amberh,
Surrey, 1872) Entry no. 1827, page 229
4 ITyr Poate, East Surrey Family History
Society, personal email, 8Jun 2000
5 Griffiths, M (2 002) Orchid:: fron
the Archives of tbe Roual Horticultural
SaczetT.Scriptum, London
(r Kramer,J ftonicultural consultant).
Letter to the author. 6 Aug 2000
7 Street Directory, Brixton and
Clapham. Lambeth fuchives
'Watson,
8 W & Bean, S( (1890)
Orchids, Their Cuhure and Mawgement.
Revised byHJ Chapman (1903).
9 Hermans,C&Hermans,J
(2003) The life and times of the Royal
Horticultural Sociery Orchid
Committee. In Hermans,J & Cribb, P
(eds) Proceedings of the htrEean Orcbid
Conference and Shozr. EOC. London
10 Th e Orch id Revieu,Jul 1928,
Vol.36 No. 421:193
1l Boyle, L (1952) Out lY/ut, Growing
Cynbidiun Orchids and other Flouers.
The Story ofEl Ranchero Rinconada:169.
Times-Mirror Press, Los Angeles
12 Black, PM (1979 Beautifiil Orchift .
Ham.lyn, London
13 The Orchid Reviea,Jarruary,
1977:20 0rol. 85 No. 1003)
14 Journal ofthe Royal Horticuhural
Soc i e4,, 19 54t 163 N ol. 7 9)
15 \7ilma Rittershausen, former
editor, Tbe Orc bid Rea ieu, letterc
to the author, 13 March 2001, and
15 September 2000
l6 Margaret Stevens, president,
Society of Botanical Artists, personal
emal,,27 Sep2007
17 Celia Smith, Supervisor of london
Sorough ot Lambeth yrolects
Borough ofLambeth Projects and
Memorials, personal email, 26 Sep 2007
UISg ROBERTS.
Orcttdl Artlct lo tbe
Royal Hortlcdtsral gslcty.
Awaldcd ih. Soci.tyr cold N.dd,
-
Jrly, !N,
72 Loughborough ld.. Brlrro4 LoEdo!, E.tf.
Above Nelly Roberts' advertisement in the
February 1925 issue of The )rchid Review
37
ORCHID ART
Orchid accolades
In 1951,volume 59 of The Orchid
Reviezuwas dedicated to Nelly for her
years ofdevotion and for her body of
work. By this time, she preferred to
spend onJy part of her time painting
for the Committee, but had so many
commissions on hand that she could
not do this. She even thought of
retiring, but kept working for the
Committee because apparently there
was no one to take over her work.
ln recognition ofher service.
Odontoglosnm Opheron'Nellie Robens'
was raised by S Tharp (a member of
the Orchid Committee at the time)
and named for her. It gained an Award
of Merit on 18 November 1952.
In 1953, with her years ofservice
obviously nearing an end, Peter
McKenzie Black of Black & Flory
Ltd, registered Canlq/a Nellie Robens
(C. Bow Beils x C. douiana) to honour
her. It was painted by \Winifred Price
(in the sryle of Nelly), but when she
was presented with the painting she
said thank you and then remarked
that she'would have preferred to
have painted it herself!'(r2)
Nellyretires
The same year and still in great
demand at 81, but suffering from
attacks of rheumatoid arthritis and
chilblains that caused her to wear
mittens while painting, Nelly 6na11y
retired.(rl) The president of the
RHS, the Hon. David Bowes-Lyon,
announced her resignation at the
February 16, 1954 Annual General
Meeting. He praised Nelly for her
five-plus decades ofservice and said
he believed that she had'painted every
single orchid receiving an award during
that period.'(rl) He then presented
her with the Veitch Silver Medal and
a cheque for 25 guineas. The financial
gift was the result of donations by
all of the members of the Orchid
Committee. He also announced that
Ann V tJTebster from Kew had been
38
\ THoMAS ALLEN ODER is a past
lycasfe Balliae,
AM/RHS, 23 May 1900,
exhibited by Charlesworth
and Co, at the Temple Show
appointed as her tempora-ry successor.
Interestingly, after 56 years of
service, the Committee's first artisr,
'who appears to us to be a fascinating
lady, would have been a mere
employee in those days,'said Wilma
Rittershausen, a former editor of
The Orcbid Revres;. 'Remember, after
all her years ofdevotion she was only
given a Silver Veitch Medal! She was
not considered worth a Gold.'(rs)
Nelly's legacy
By some standards, perhaps Nelly
did well carving the niche that she did.
'So manywomen dabbled in this
during the 19 th
field
and eaiy 20th cenrury
and many just laded into obscuriry
and, really, only a connection with
Kew - like Marianne North - or
the RHS saved them from obscuriry,'
said Margaret Stevens, president of
the Sociery of Botanical Artists.( r6)
Nellywas sharing her house with
her sister, Edith, when she died on
Easter Sunday,29 Marchl959 at
St Giles Hospital in Camberwell.
She was 86. She was buried on
3 April 1959 in Lambeth Cemetery
on Blackshaw Road in Tooting,
London, in Grave No. 262D3
General - a public, or unpurchasecl,
grave. Because public graves, in which
as many as 20 people may be interred,
are less costly than individual graves,
it was not uncommon for families to
avail themselves of this option.(lD
It was not possible, because ofthe
nature ofa public grave, to erect a
stone bearing Nelly's name. Perhaps
that is fitting. She rests now as she
lii ecl her life - respected and admired
fbr her dedication and contributions to
illustrating an important chapter in the
historv of orchids. And in obscurigv. +
president of the Atlanta Orchid
Society and ac o-editor of Pbalaenopsis,
the journal ofthe International
Phalaenopsis Alliance. He and his
wife. Susan. own and run Orchids and
More. Email: T0M0DER@comcast.net
ffi Some paintings in the RHS Orchid
Committee archives are fbr awards
granted befbre 1897 and some ofthese
are attributed to Nellv Roberts. These
paintings are the result ofan effort to
lill gaps in the award historv of the
committee and, as Brent Elliott writes
in his historv of the RHS, are'of such
pre-1897 award winners as could
readilv be found fbr her.'
rc The authorwould like to thank: the
late Mary McQuerrv; Paul and Mary
Phillips;Jack Kramer; Brian and \7i1ma
Rittershausen; Richard Sanford; Brent
Elliott; and Isobvlla Croix. Also:
Nlartin Clark, lbrmervicar of StJohn
the Evangelistl Margarct Stelens ot
the Society ofBotanical Artists; and
in oarticular. Gabrielle Bourn at the
Lambeth Archives, and Celia Smith
of Lambeth and Streatham
cemeteries and crematoria.
March 2009