A Memory of Violets (38 page)

At a time when social etiquette meant that a declaration of love was tricky (to say the least), flowers could express everything that a person could not state
more explicitly. This very formal and reserved society used the powerful language of flowers to express their strongest passions and emotions—love, grief, devotion, and jealousy. Sometimes the interpretations were quite dramatic. “I attached myself to you but shall die if neglected.” No pressure there, then!

It is quite something to think that all this could be expressed through a posy of flowers, bought, perhaps, from impoverished street sellers such as Flora and Rosie. How fascinating to think that the simple arrangements made by the women and children on the steps of St. Paul's Church at Covent Garden by candlelight were so important to the everyday lives of the ladies and gentlemen who paid their tuppence for a bunch of violets or a tussie-mussie (a small bouquet of flowers, presented in a lace doily, tied with satin).

With so many varieties of flowers and herbs and so much riding on the correct translation of their meaning, it was important for Victorian women and men to familiarize themselves with the language of flowers. As a result, a number of beautiful books—flower dictionaries—were written, to explain the meanings of hundreds of varieties of flowers and herbs. How many hearts must have raced beneath corsets as young ladies pored over the pages of these little books to decipher the messages contained within the carefully selected posies sent to them by secret (or not-so-secret) admirers!

With flowers being paired or used in a bouquet to add a more
complicated meaning, with the size and shade of the flowers and even the direction in which the flowers faced, all resulting in slightly different meanings, these flower dictionaries must have been very well used. Far from being simple lists of meanings, most flower dictionaries were beautifully illustrated with color plates showing flower combinations and their meanings, and many were accompanied by poetry.

One wonderfully titled Victorian flower dictionary from 1852,
Flora's Lexicon: An Interpretation of the Language and Sentiment of Flowers; with an Outline of Botany, and a Poetical Introduction,
outlines the importance placed on the language of flowers in this evocative opening paragraph:

The language of flowers has recently attracted so much attention, that an acquaintance with it seems to be deemed, if not an essential part of a polite education, at least a graceful and elegant accomplishment. A volume furnishing a complete interpretation of those meanings most generally attached to flowers, has therefore become a desirable, if not an essential part of a gentleman's or a lady's library. In the manual now offered to the public, an attempt has been made to comprise all that is important in the way of interpretation in a
reasonable compass, and to adorn this part of the work with such quotations from the best poets of our language, both native and foreign, as have a direct and graceful reference either to the peculiarities of the flowers, or to the sentiments which they are made to express. The outline of Botany placed at the end of the volume will be found to contain a sufficiently clear exposition of the Linnean system to explain fully the scientific terms and the classification used in the body of the work.

On the occasion of her marriage to Prince William, in April 2011, the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, used the traditional language of flowers to select the combination of flowers and herbs for her bouquet. The main component of the bouquet, lily of the valley, represents that which is “trustworthy.” Myrtle, another flower selected for the bouquet, has traditionally been included in royal wedding bouquets since Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Victoria carried it in her wedding bouquet in 1858. The myrtle in Kate Middleton's bouquet was picked from a tree planted by Queen Victoria at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight in 1845. Myrtle represents “hope and love.” And the sweet william in her bouquet? I think we can guess why she chose that!

Although we still use certain flowers to express emotions—red roses, for example, being the ultimate expression of love—the language and meaning of flowers has largely been forgotten. Where we might now go to the florist's shop and select a bouquet based on color preference or how a particular flower looks, the Victorians selected their flowers so very carefully. In an increasingly hectic world where social media is such a dominant form of communication, there is a part of me that mourns the loss of the hopelessly romantic notion of floriography. Through writing
A Memory of Violets
and sharing the meaning of the flowers hidden among the pages of Flora's journal illustrated so beautifully at the start of each “part” of the novel, I hope that I have reawakened a little piece of history and have given the flowers a chance to speak once again.

Some popular flowers and herbs and their meanings:

Pink carnation—I will never forget you

Red carnation—my heart breaks

Daffodil—new beginnings

Daisy—innocence

Purple hyacinth—please forgive me

White hyacinth—beauty

Ivy—fidelity

Lavender—mistrust

Lilac—first emotions of love

Lily—majesty

Lily of the valley—return of happiness

Mignonette—your qualities surpass your charms

Michaelmas daisy—farewell

Moss rose—confession of love

Oregano—joy

Pansy—you are in my thoughts

Peony—anger

Primrose—I can't live without you

Red rose—love

Pink rose—grace

Yellow rose—infidelity

Rosemary—remembrance

Snowdrop—consolation; hope

Stock—you will always be beautiful to me

Violets—faithfulness

Extract from
Flora's Lexicon
taken from Catharine Harbeson Waterman
,
Chatsworth Vintage (Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co., 1852).

Flower meanings from Mandy Kirkby
, A Victorian Flower Dictionary: The Language of Flowers Companion
(Ballantine Books, 2011)
.

 

W
AY BACK IN
2010, I had a notion to write a book about flower sellers in London. Perhaps it was driven by my love of Eliza Doolittle (I did, after all, play Eliza in the school production of
My Fair Lady
at the tender age of seventeen). Perhaps it was those lazy Sunday afternoons spent pottering around Covent Garden when I lived in London. Whatever the reason, I was drawn to the lives of the flower sellers—but it took a while to discover my story.

After dabbling in some research books and online sites about everything Victorian, I discovered the work of the social researcher Henry Mayhew. I found extracts from his writings online and was immediately drawn to his transcribed interviews with London's street sellers. I picked up a copy of
London Labour and the London Poor
and found myself folding down the corner of every page because I wanted to go back to it and read more. As I read the account of two orphan flower sellers—sisters—my heart leaped. I knew immediately that it was their story I wanted to tell.

From there, I followed the trail of bread crumbs to the fascinating life of the Victorian philanthropist John Groom and his incredible work to support the watercress and flower sellers who worked around his Clerkenwell home by giving them an occupation that would remove
them from the streets. Discovering the history of Groom's “Crippleage” and the blind and disabled girls and women who produced artificial flowers for a queen was like finding buried treasure.

In 2012 I visited the London Metropolitan Archives in Clerkenwell, where a vast amount of information about John Groom and Alexandra Rose Day is held. I returned home to Ireland with a head full of stories and characters. It was simply incredible to see photographs of the young children at the orphanage in Clacton and the girls and women in the flower workrooms in Clerkenwell. To see their handwriting on the simple postcards Groom produced to promote their work, to read accounts of their daily routine and their work, to walk the street where they'd lived, to hold one of the pink Alexandra roses that had been made a hundred years earlier—it was all very humbling and hugely inspiring.
A Memory of Violets
was under way.

With the exception of Albert Shaw, who was based on John Groom, the characters in the novel are fictional. Florrie and Rosie were inspired by the many heartbreaking accounts of street children whose harrowing tales are recorded, in their own words, in Henry Mayhew's “masterpiece of personal inquiry and social observation” and in numerous other accounts of Victorian street life.

The inhabitants of Violet House are drawn from my imagination and from stories told in two fascinating pieces of work:
Reminiscences of a Flower Girl
and
More Than One Mountain to Climb.
Both were written by former flower girls who had lived and worked at John Groom's Edgeware estate from the 1930s onward. They provide a fascinating insight into how these incredible women lived and worked together.

Way back in 2010, I had a notion to write a book about flower sellers in London. I simply had no idea of the amazing stories that were waiting to be told.

P.S. The name Albert Shaw was derived from Queen Victoria's much-loved husband, Albert, and the surname of the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, who wrote
Pygmalion
, in which he created the unforgettable character of Eliza Doolittle, the most well-known flower seller of all.

 

M
Y CHARACTER
A
LBERT
S
HAW
is based on John Groom, a man who deserves to be acknowledged in his own right.

John Groom grew up in Clerkenwell, London. Raised in a happy Christian home, he had a strong faith and, despite his apprenticeship as a silver engraver, always felt he had another calling.

In the streets and markets around his home, John was regularly exposed to the lives of the young watercress and flower sellers, many of whom were disabled or deformed. Many were born this way as a result of diseases that were rife amid the unsanitary conditions of London's slum housing. Others had worked in factories as very young children and suffered terrible accidents. Unable to take up other occupations because of their disabilities, the children turned to selling on the streets, as this was the only way to make a living without begging or stealing.

At the age of twenty-one, John started his own engraving business from his home on Sekforde Street, but he still knew his calling lay in helping the street sellers. When he was invited to become superintendent of a local Christian mission, visiting people in his district and offering practical and spiritual help, his life changed forever.

From the humble beginnings of a hired room at Covent Garden, where he would provide hot cocoa and bread and butter to the street sellers, John's
ambitious plans led him to the idea that the flower sellers could make artificial flowers. From 1866 in small workrooms in Harp Alley, to Woodbridge Chapel Hall, to a dedicated factory on Sekforde Street, the Watercress and Flower Girls' Christian Mission (initially known as John Groom's Crippleage) was formed. With the support of patrons such as Lord Shaftesbury, the mission went from strength to strength. In 1890 John's attention turned to helping London's orphans, and the Flower Village at Clacton was established.

In 1912 the work and recognition of the flower girls reached new heights when they were asked to make roses for Queen Alexandra Rose Day. On June 26, thousands of society ladies took to the streets carrying baskets of roses. Over thirty thousand pounds was collected for the hospitals from the sale of the roses. This was the first charitable “flag day” of its kind—the forebear to all the familiar events we see today, such as Daffodil Day, Poppy Day, and other charitable collections days.

After his death in 1919, John Groom's name continued to be associated with assisting the disabled. In 1932 the organization moved to a new premises at a large estate in Edgeware, North London, where the flower girls continued to live and work. During the war years in the 1940s, they even turned their skills to producing munitions and rivets instead of flowers.