This unique manuscript was produced by Richard Hammond (1692-1773) a shoemaker and amateur florist living and working in the county of Suffolk. This unique manuscript provides an insight into the cultivation of carnations, roses, annuals and perennials. Consisting of eighteen vibrant, watercolour illustrations it mostly focusses on his special interest, carnations, but gives wider information about plants he was growing to accompany them.
Hammond had a leading role in Suffolk floristry, indicated by his hosting a “Meeting of Florists” on 30th July 1734 at the Crown public house in his hometown of Coddenham. He competed in several flower shows from 1720 into the 1740s, and in July 1743 is known to have won a wig “of fifteen shillings value” for showing his carnations. Hammond was also known locally as a “staunch churchman with anti-nonconformist sentiments”, and this is further evidenced by the nine pages of homilies included in the manuscript.
The title page is unusually printed, a practice that is rarely seen in manuscript books and is therefore artistically significant. It was probably printed by John Bagnall of Ipswich, who founded the Ipswich Journal, Ipswich’s first paper. Bagnall printed advertisements for Hammond’s Florist Feasts and it therefore records an important relationship between Hammond and the printing industry as a method for distributing information and widening interest and access to information about floristry.
