Olive Fitzhardinge (1881–1956) was an Australian rose breeder, the first to patent her work. Her four surviving roses are held in Australian collections. Her roses were well received in the 1930s but after the Second World War favoured styles of roses changed significantly.
Life Olive Rose McMaster was born in 1881 at Warialda, northern New South Wales.BDM records for NSW online for the birth of Olive Rose MacMaster, retrieved 7 April 2012. She was brought up in the country at Moree.Australian Town and Country Journal, 2 April 1898, p. 35. retrieved from Trove 6 April 2012.Presbyterian Ladies' College Croydon archive, thanks to Debby Cramer, supplied 16 April 2012. She was the elder daughter of Colin James McMaster (1853–1930) and Sarah Ross (1855–1927). Her father was for twenty years Chief Commissioner and chairman of the Western Lands Board, which administered land leases in the whole western third of NSW. Note the surname's spelling as McMaster not MacMaster.
Olive was educated by a governess at home and boarded 1897–1898 at Presbyterian Ladies' College, Croydon.
She and her sister Dorothy Jean (1884–1966), later Mrs C.W.D. Conacher of Crona, Warrawee, were influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, and through it Victorian Medievalism. They collected medieval objects, dress fabrics and tapestry. They cultivated quiet Country Life interiors furnished with old things and lit with tallow candles in medieval candlesticks. Exteriors would show the luxuriant informality of Gertrude Jekyll's Roses for English Gardens.See the photo captioned "A Picturesque Corner of Warrawee" in Later Olive was to breed roses to look well in candlelight. Her second daughter was married in a "mediaeval gown".
It lent depth to Olive's interest that she married into a pre-Conquest, west of England family ennobled by Henry II in the twelfth century. In 1909 she married Dr Hardinge Clarence Fitzhardinge (1878–1958), a Macquarie Street dental surgeon.BDM data for NSW online, Fitzhardinge–MacMaster marriage 1909 , retrieved 7 April 2012. He was the son of M.A.H. Fitzhardinge, a prominent Sydney solicitor from the second generation of the well-known NSW legal family founded in the 1840s by W.G.A. Fitzhardinge. W.G.A. Fitzhardinge had nine sons, five of them NSW lawyers. He was a descendant of the Earls of Berkeley and of Earl Fitzhardinge.
Hardinge and Olive lived at Cremorne Point for some years but in 1917 bought with a northerly aspect and good volcanic soil at Warrawee 21 km northwest of Sydney. Text kindly supplied by Patricia Routley of HRIA. As all North Shore suburbs with aboriginal names, Warrawee was the name of a railway station which became attached to the surrounding suburb. Warrawee had developed in the 1900s as an exclusive residential district with no shops, offices, post office, public school, churches or through roads.Paul Davis, November 2010, Kuring-Gai Potential Heritage Conservation Areas North Review "HCA 23 – Warrawee" retrieved 16 April 2012.Knox Grammar, attended by the Fitzhardinge boys, was founded at Earlston, a Warrawee property across the railway line, in 1923, senior school 1924. All the blocks were kept to between one and four acres and the form of houses tightly controlled. See especially p. 27. The Fitzhardinges had Bridge End at No. 1 Warrawee Avenue, where they built a spreading single-storey house and established "quite a famous garden".The present two-storey house at Bridge End was built in 1939, so was not built by the Fitzhardinges. The eastern half-acre of their block has been hived off to form another property.The Sydney phone directory for 1923 shows Mrs Fitzhardinge's parents living across the railway line in Heydon Avenue, her sister Dorothy Jean, Mrs C.W.D. Conacher just behind her house at Crona in Pibrac Avenue. As well-to-do citizens of the Empire they followed London manners and taste: in a world of "lounge" rooms they kept to a drawing-room.
The Fitzhardinges had daughters Jean Mary Hardinge Dean (1910–2009)Ryerson Index accessed 26 April 2012. and Olive Prudence Bryant (1912–2001)NSW BDM records for Bryant-Fitzhardinge .Ryerson Index accessed 26 April 2012 and sons Colin Hardinge Fitzhardinge (1914–1998)Robert Bolton and Elizabeth Thurston, "A country to write home about", Sydney Morning Herald, 19 April 2003; obituary. and Brian Forbes Fitzhardinge, who died at fourteen in 1932.The opening of memorial gates at Knox Grammar in memory of her son, Brian is the only known occasion on which Mrs Fitzhardinge's photo appeared in the press: Sydney Morning Herald, 16 June 1993, p.14, retrieved from Trove 7 April 2012.
Olive Fitzhardinge began to breed roses at Bridge End about 1920.Sydney Morning Herald, 30 January 1931 p.9. Retrieved from Trove 6 April 2012. Because she was wealthy and related to prominent people in the history of New South Wales, her activities as a rose breeder were unusually well reported.For instance, Sydney Morning Herald 18 October 1932 p.10. retrieved 6 April 2012. In fact society and rose-breeding themes were closely intertwined. The Sydney Morning Herald on 16 May 1934 reported the wedding of the Fitzhardinges' daughter. Five of Mrs Fitzhardinge's 12 roses were named after those present, six if one includes 'Warrawee'.
A gleaming golden girdle added a note of colour to the mediaeval gown of white velvet worn by Miss Prudence Hardinge Fitzhardinge ['Prudence'] for her wedding last night to Mr. Bowen Bartlett Bryant, which took place at St. John's Church, Wahroonga … the two bridesmaids, the Misses Jean Fitzhardinge ['Plain Jane'], sister of the bride, and Peggy Prell (Goulburn) … At Bridge End, Warrawee … a marquee was erected on the lawn for the wedding breakfast … Mrs. Fitzhardinge received her guests wearing a gown of silver grey lace and a black velvet toque, and carrying a posy of shaded berries … Among the guests were … Mr. and Mrs. L. Bice (Inverell) ['Kitty Bice'], Lady David ['Lady Edgeworth David'] … Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Prell (Goulburn) ['Mrs C.E. Prell'] … Joseph Beresford Grant, who had used his money to guarantee the exclusiveness of Warrawee, was also a guest.
Mrs Fitzhardinge planted many trees in public spaces, including the long avenue of the Pymble Ladies College (where her daughters were pupils)Pymble Ladies College archive, thanks to Kim Collins, supplied 26 April 2012. and many of the majestic tree groupings at the Avondale Golf Club (where she was a member).Avondale Golf Club retrieved 10 April 2012.Sydney Morning Herald 11 June 1931 p.3. retrieved 15 April 2012.
In 1937 Dr Fitzhardinge, Olive and their surviving son moved to Wongalong, a sheep and cattle property at Mandurama (pr. ManDOOrama) on the Central Tablelands of NSW.The Fitzhardinges of Warrawee disappear from the Sydney phone directory for 1937 but reappear in the country phone directory for Mandurama as Fitzhardinge H.C. of Wongalong. Despite her intentions, Mrs Fitzhardinge bred no more roses, though she continued to grow them in "drought, many high winds, and mineralised water."Mrs O. R. Fitzthardinge, Mandurama, "'New Garden—New Roses." Australian Rose Annual, 1941 p.58. She did experiment with breeding improved geraniums. She died in 1956.Online BDM records for NSW for the death of , retrieved 7 April 2012. Her son Colin, married to the writer Joan Phipson, inherited Wongalong and her rose 'Warrawee' was still growing there in 1980.
Rose breeding Fitzhardinge's roses were hybrid teas. She registered twelve between 1932 and 1939.Mrs Fitzhardinge wrote in the Australian Rose Annual for 1932 of at least six other roses, all unnamed and unregistered. None has survived. Except for 'Beatrice Berkeley' and 'Plain Jane' they were released for sale through Hazlewood Brothers' nursery. She was a friend of the Hazlewoods and of the rose breeders Alister Clark "I was taken to Bridge End, Warrawee by Walter Hazlewood, where Mrs Fitzhardinge works out her problems with Rose crossing. I saw the new Rose, Warrawee, at a disadvantage, but it is obviously a very fine Rose of colour and petal." and George Knight.Help Me Find reference for George Robert Knight, retrieved 11 April 2012. She told the Sydney Morning Herald in 1931 she had bred 12 satisfactory roses in ten years, so it is possible that her rose breeding (as opposed to testing and registration) had been completed between 1921 and 1930. Certainly all the plant material she bred from had been released by 1921 (see the list of her rose parents below). She bred twenty thousand seedlings in ten years, ten times the average number bred by Frank Riethmuller in Turramurra after the Second World War. Olive Fitzhardinge described herself as an "amateur hybridiser" but behind a domestic facade she operated on a commercial scale. She knew people who ran big pasture and stock breeding businesses in country NSW and the Northern Territory.C. E. Prell had 7000 acres near Goulburn. Her brother-in-law, C.W.D. Conacher, was the Australian director of Vestey's.
Australia had no Plant Breeder's Rights Act at that time.Plant breeders' rights did not exist in Australia till the Plant Variety Rights Act of 1987, replaced now by the Act of 1994. The only way to secure rights was to take out an overseas patent. Fitzhardinge is the only Australian breeder before the 1960s known to have done so, in her case an American patent on 'Warrawee.' To that extent she had commercial ambitions for her work, unlike her friend Alister Clark or North Shore successor Frank Riethmuller.
'Warrawee' especially received enthusiastic press notices, emphasising the ladylike quality of the rose, said to be due to its being bred by a lady. At the same time the rose was seen as an Australian nationalist venture into world markets.Townsville Daily Bulletin 7 December 1942 p.4 (retrieved from Trove 6 April 2012) gives the flavour and scotches any simple idea of prejudice against her. That is a late article, but it recycles material that appeared in the Western Mail, Thursday 11 June 1936 p.38. TA Stewart, The Argus 5 April 1938 p.18 strikes the same note.
But the predicted commercial triumph of her roses did not occur, though 'Warrawee' was introduced in England and America in 1935. Her shrub roses had been modelled on 'Ophelia' as the ideal rose; after the war a shift in taste took place to roses modelled on 'Peace.' p.263: "The boom years of rose popularity in the 1950s and 1960s can single-handedly be attributed to 'Mme A. Meilland'", that is to 'Peace.' Her climbing roses were huge plants best suited to prewar gardens. Even to post-war enthusiasts Fitzhardinge's roses seemed under-bred. For instance, 'Sirius' 1939, a dark red climber, was criticised for lack of vigor by those who still grew it.See for instance . Moreover, nearly all her roses have very double flowers which in humid climates can rot before opening.
Patrick Grant, a fellow member of the NSW Rose Society, had more success in between-wars overseas markets with his 'Salmon Spray' and 'Golden Dawn', a rose destined, like hers, to be outmoded by 'Peace'.
Ten years after her death, her roses had nearly been forgotten. The Australian registrar of roses and president of the National Rose Society of Victoria was A.S. Thomas. The 1967 edition of his Better Roses prints a list of eighty "highly prized cultivars" from Australia and New Zealand. Twenty of them are roses by Alister Clark. Seven are by Frank Riethmuller. Only 'Lubra' and 'Warrawee' are by Olive Fitzhardinge.
Rose names 'Beatrice Berkeley' had an unknown dedicatee. But the Fitzhardinges were interconnected with the Berkeley family and the Barons Berkeley from the twelfth century. 'Kitty Bice' was Catherine, Mrs Luke Bice, an Inverell friend of Olive Fitzhardinge. 'Warrawee' was the name of the sequestered suburb and society in which the Fitzhardinges lived. 'Captain Bligh' (later Admiral Bligh) was an early governor of New South Wales (1806–1808) after he became the object of mutiny on HMS Bounty in 1789.