Forsyth Notes, Issue43

FORSYTH NOTES March 1, 2002 Welcome to the forty-third issue of Forsyth Notes . Forsyth Notes is published bi- monthly by Clan Forsyth Society of the USA, and is your e-link to your extended Forsyth family. 2003 Clan Forsyth Reunion in Scotland --- UPDATE The Reunion Tour departs from the US on Wednesday, June 18, 2003. Our Reunion participants will meet in Chicago, and fly together direct from Chicago to Glasgow. We are flying American Airlines. American has the best seats in coach because of the additional legroom so the ride over to Glasgow should be much more comfortable. Note: You must book the Clan Forsyth Reunion tour through Marti Van Horne at Maupin Travel. Identify yourself as a member of the Clan Forsyth Group. If you would like to receive a printable Application for the Clan Forsyth Reunion Tour, e-mail Jim Forsythe at [email protected] and request your Application today. Whether or not you expect to participate in the Reunion Tour, you are invited to take the virtual pre-tour tour of the new itinerary by going to http://forsythe.sytes.net/clanforsyth/2003%20Reunion/Reunion.htm . Here you will find the itinerary for the trip, pricing, contact information, and enough links to keep you busy until time for the trip to begin. If you would like additional information regarding the tour, send your request to Marti Van Horne at [email protected] or Jim and Patti Forsythe [email protected] . We expect a great trip, and we invite each of our cousins to join us. A Wee Bit of Scottish Humor Did you hear about the war that broke out between England and Scotland? The English kept lobbing grenades and the Scots were pulling the pins and throwing them back! Who am I? I was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on 3 April 1891. I enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force on 13 August 1914 at the age of 23 and embarked for Egypt as a sapper in the N.Z. Engineers. I served on Gallipoli from May to July 1915 and again from August to November of the same year before I was evacuated to Britain due to illness. In April 1916 I joined the 3rd N.Z. Field Company, N.Z. Engineers, in France. In August 1918 I was attached to the 2nd Battalion of the Auckland Infantry Regiment to gain experience before being recommended for a commission. I was killed in action on 24 August 1918. My posthumous Victoria Cross was bestowed upon me for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in an attack at Grevillers, France, in which engagement I was killed by an enemy sniper. The Victoria Cross is the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. My citation reads as follows "On nearing his objective, his company came under heavy fire. Through Sergeant Forsyth's dashing leadership and total disregard of danger, three machine-gun positions were rushed and the crews taken prisoner before they could inflict many casualties on our troops. During a subsequent advance his company came under heavy fire from several machine guns, two of which he located by a reconnaissance. In his endeavour to gain support from a tank he was wounded. But after having the wound bandaged, he again got in touch with the tank which, in the face of very heavy fire from machine guns and anti-tank guns, he endeavoured to lead, with magnificent coolness, to a favorable position. The tank, however, was put out of action. Sergeant Forsyth then organised the tank crew and several of his men into a section and led them to a position where the machine guns could be outflanked. Always under heavy fire, he directed them into a position which brought about a retirement of the enemy machine guns and enabled the advance to continue. This gallant NCO was at that moment killed by a sniper. From the beginning of the attack until the time of his death, Sergeant Forsyth's courage and coolness, combined with great power and initiative, proved an invaluable incentive to all who were with him and he undoubtedly saved many casualties among his comrades." (London Gazette, 18 October 1918) I am buried in the Adanac Military Cemetery at Miraumont, France. My headstone shows age 25 years. Who am I? Did You Know? William Forsythe 1737-1894 Gardner at Chelsea Physic Garden 1771-1784 WILLIAM FORSYTH, a Scot from Aberdeen, succeeded his former mentor Philip Mifier from whom he received the keys of the Garden on 6 February 1771 . Miller’s forced resignation, due to his intolerance of the Committee formed by the Apothecaries to run the Garden, rebounded on his successor who was forced to promise to ‘in all things, be subject and obedient to the Directions of the Committee’. Forsyth agreed to abide by nine ‘Rules and Orders to be observed by the Gardener’, among which was a prohibition on setting roots or plants ‘or even exchanging any without the Committee’s consent’. Forsyth settled down under the tighter regime at a salary of £50 a year, two staff and apartments in the greenhouse. He was closely supervised by the apothecary who had caused the downfall of Miller, Mr. John Chandler, and by the Demonstrator, Stanesby Alchorne, who repeatedly visited and ‘found the business carrying on with diligence’. The business of the Garden in the early 1770’s was largely taken up with the embanking of the river and, in the summer of 1771 , the large water tank in the center of the Garden, visible on the Haynes’ map of 1751, was filled in with a ‘well dug to pump water from the Thames’. The Committee was as good as its word in providing detailed minutes of expenses and also, more interestingly, of all the species received and dispatched. Over the 13 years of Forsyth’s tenure, this provides a detailed view of the increase of species (especially tropical species) in cultivation in Britain. For example, Forsyth recorded dispatches from Banks and Solander, Dr Pitcairn, Mr. Bewick, Dr. Fothergill, Mr. Aiton (at Kew) and from the nurserymen Gordon and Lee, as well as from the Duke of Northumberland at Sion (now Syon) House where he had been formerly gardener in charge. From Dr Ryan at Santa Croix the Garden received 34 exotics including cotton seeds, wild ginger, the beautiful Poinciana puicherrima and the annatto tree, Bixa orellana, a species still grown at the Garden today. From Dr Clarke of Jamaica he received the allspice tree, Myrtus pimento, mahogany, “Sweetenia mahogania”, the lignum vitae Guaiacum officinale, the sandbox tree Hum crepitans, a species which had been featured on the Sloane series of Chelsea China, and Cassia herpetica, reputedly good for ringworm. In 1781 he reported the receipt of ‘more than five hundred different kinds of seed of plants which were collected in the late voyage around the globe’ of Sir Joseph Banks and also over one hundred from Alexander Anderson in St Lucia. However, Forsyth became known to posterity less for his work at Chelsea than for his later publications on fruit. A selection of apple varieties shown at the Garden are taken from his Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees 1802. The continuation of the rich tradition of plant exchange of his former master Miller came to cause problems. On 8 February 1775 Forsyth obtained a third laborer for the March to October period ‘to assist in the Labouring Work of the Garden, that I may be more at Liberty to take the proper care of the Plants and keep the Garden in due Order’. Since 1773 he had also been involved in rearranging the systematic arrangement of the plants ‘according to the system of Linnaeus’. A picture emerges of greatly increased work ‘by the numerous Collections of new Plants raised and cultivated in the Garden; and as many of them are of foreign Production, of tender natures and especially such as are raised from seeds, in Hot Bedds; and require frequent Shifting and changing of situation, and constant watchfulness, attention and care to preserve them...’. Forsyth complained of insufficient salary in May 1774 and it was agreed that he could sell superfluous plants, under proper restriction; later he was allowed a portion of the kitchen garden to raise plants ‘at his own Expense for his own Advantage’. Forsyth’s expenses were to increase further however by problems with the stove fires and flues in the greenhouse which he claimed were a danger to his family. On 28 July 1777 he petitioned the Garden Committee for relief due to his having to take a house elsewhere for himself and his family at a cost of £25 a year and as the income for himself and his undergardeners had been the same ‘for several years and every necessary article of Life having so much increased of late’. This prompted the thrifty Court of Assistants to ask Forsyth to obtain estimates for putting the flues to right — and indeed Forsyth’s successor, John Fairbairn, was then required to live above the greenhouse. During Forsyth’s tenure two of the Cedars of Lebanon were felled, in 1771, and bricks from their uprooting (and the elimination of the water tank) were used in building new garden walls next to the river. But undoubtedly the most important event during his tenure was the building of the rock garden — a project in which he seems to have had no direct involvement since it appears to have been the personal project of two apothecaries, Stanesby Aichorne, the Praefectus Horti, and Uriah Bristow, first a member of the Garden Committee and later to become Master of the Society in 1804.

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