Charles Isham

Sir Charles Edmund Isham, 10th Baronet (16 December 1819 – 7 April 1903) was an English landowner and gardener based at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire. He is credited with beginning the tradition of garden gnomes in the United Kingdom when he introduced a number of terracotta figures from Germany in the 1840s. Nicknamed "Lampy", the only gnome of the original batch to survive is on display at Lamport Hall and insured for £1 million.

Biography

Charles Edmund Isham was born on 16 December 1819 at the family estate at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire. He was the second son of Sir Justinian Isham, 8th Baronet (1773–1845) and his wife, Mary Close .

In 1847, inspired by the writings of John Claudius Loudon, landscape gardener and horticulturalist, he commenced construction of a large rockery alongside his house. It was in this rockery that he first placed gnomes from Nuremberg as ornamentation.

Isham died on 7 April 1903 at The Bungalow, Horsham, Sussex, at the age of 83.

Isham's collection

In 1867 several extremely rare books and manuscripts were rediscovered in the library and loft of his family home. These included a fragment of Thomas Edwards' Cephalus and Procris; Narcissus which had been lost for 200 years and was the only existing part until a full copy was subsequently discovered at the Cathedral Library at Peterborough.

Also discovered were first editions of Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained in their original sheepskin bindings.

Further discoveries included: The above four works found their way into the Britwell Court Library before being sold in February 1922 to A. S. W. Rosenbach for £3,600.

Isham was a convinced spiritualist. He was a member of the British National Association of Spiritualists.

Publications

Sir Charles Isham on Spiritualism (1856) A Lamport Garland From the Library of Sir Charles Edmund Isham (1881)