Magazine  (Jun 2020)  Page(s) 21. Vol 42, No. 2.  
 
Sue Zwar. ....old Hybrid Teas down Petticoat Lane.
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam  (Bennett, before 1880) with an equally delicious scent. She grows along the footpath
 

Magazine  (2019)  Page(s) 41. Vol 41, No. 2.  Includes photo(s).
 
Patricia Routley.  Lady Mary Fitzwilliam - Lost Forever.
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam was one of the famous gene carriers in the old rose world. Long before HRiA came along to preserve it, it got itself lost. This article looks at the three roses involved.
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam 1880. Presumed extinct.
Mrs. Wakefield Christie-Miller 1909. – Syn: “Wallace-Rowley version of Lady Mary Fitzwilliam”
“Money-Beales version of Lady Mary Fitzwilliam”
There have been two re-discoveries of Lady Mary Fitzwilliam: The 1957 Wallace-Rowley version and the 1975 Money-Beales version. I have an own-root, blush-coloured Lady Mary Fitzwilliam (provenance David Ruston-1; Viv Allen-2; Lynne Chapman-3 in 1999;) planted next door to an own-root, pink with dark-reverse Mrs. Wakefield Christie- Miller (provenance Zephyr Brook, Pinjarra Heritage Rose Garden in 1999). I feel that my LMF has to be the Money-Beales version, but I can trace it back no further than David Ruston. It is most likely that David obtained his plant from Ross Roses sometime around 1986 but I have no proof. If my plant is the Money-Beales version there are characteristics which make me feel that even this second re-discovery was not the original 1880 Rose. Early illustrations also show it as having very small prickles, and it was also said to be fragrant, bushy, and with deep green foliage.  If we look at the height and seeds information from the early references before the disastrous 1946-47 European frost when LMF disappeared (anything after that date may be muddled with the Wallace-Rowley or the Money-Beales versions), we find:
SEEDS/HIPS
1908 “A splendid seed-bearer”; 1910 “A few good seed bearing kinds are ....and Mme. Abel Chatenay, Mme. Lambard, General McArthur, G. Nabonnand, Lady Roberts, Lady Mary Fitzwilliam, Marie Van Houtte, etc.” I have extracted from this paragraph only those roses which grow at Northcliffe and they certainly do set a lot of hips. A set of 2019 photos has been placed in the HelpMeFind comments on the hip-set of my LMF here. Consciously not deadheading this year, the beautiful spring flush was hopeless and produced only mummies. Only one small green hip remains from the summer flush. I will desist deadheading again next year to observe. At this stage one hip does not make “a good seed bearer.”
HEIGHT
Lynne Chapman’s memory of the rose which grew in her previous garden (she left there in 2009), was 120cm and I am presuming hers would have been on rootstock. My unpruned rose on its own roots in March, 2019 also measured 120cm (44 inches) high. In England the Money-Beales version was said to be 24-30 inches high. Now I know the English Austins in terms of height, go bananas in the Australian warmth, and perhaps this may explain the height in Western Australia. But I just can’t reconcile the height of 120cm (44 inches) in my poor soil with what LMF was said to be - it was low! 1883 UK “very vigorous, but short, well-branched habit”; 1889 Germany “short densely branched habit”; 1891 Sydney “not vigorous in habit”; 1897 UK “indifferent growth”; 1898 Cannes “dwarf growth...growth seems to be checked by the habit of producing...”; 1905 “feeble growth”; 1908 “growth is so poor”; and 1936 Germany “growth 7/10, 40 cm”.

Continued.....
 

Magazine  (2019)  Page(s) 41. Vol 41, No. 2..  
 
J.....Continued. 
PRICKLES
Illustrations of the original rose are scarce. I note in the 1883 Dr. Neubert's Deutsches Garten-Magazin illustration there are tiny Gallica-like prickles showing. Similarly with the 1886 Rosenzeitung illustration, with a prickly pedicel. The only photo we have is from Gertrude Jekyll 1902 and by zooming in on this photo I think I can see these prickles, but it might well be wishful thinking. My bush at Northcliffe does not have those tiny prickles, just one or two larger ones on the main stem.
There seemed to be a lot of odd things to wade through in the references on HelpMeFind, so I have looked at a timeline of LMF’s history.
1880. Henry Bennett breeds Lady Mary Fitzwilliam. It is said to be “blush”.
1914. Between 1880 and 1914, eighteen descendants were produced from seed. I haven’t counted the pollen-bred descendants. But those eighteen show that it was a good seed bearer, as reported in the 1908 and 1910 references.
1946. A disastrous frost occurred in Europe in 1946-47, wiping out LMF in Sangerhausen and Germany.
1949. Wilhelm Kordes pleads for a plant.
1953. James Gamble pleads for a plant of LMF.
1956. James Gamble, Maryland, USA surveys LMF descendants for colour and fragrance in an extensive article. He actually calls LMF a flesh-coloured, two-toned pink and I feel that he may have had early news from Gordon Rowley about his two-toned pink foundling.
1957 Gordon Rowley finds a rose at Mr. Wallace’s, Norbury, UK home. This rose subsequently sent to Sangerhausen and shared with Harkness. I will refer to this foundling as the Wallace-Rowley version. (This is the rose which was later identified as Mrs. Wakefield Christie-Miller.)
1962. Deane Ross interested in finding a plant of LMF for the Waite Institute collection in South Australia.
1964. Gordon Rowley reports his discovery of LMF in The Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 89, p470.
1965. Harkness & Co. advertises the Wallace-Rowley version as LMF.
1965. Roy Genders, having possibly seen the Harkness plant, called LMF two-toned (unaware that he may have been looking at the two-toned Mrs. Wakefield Christie-Miller).
1970. Harry Wheatcroft wrote of LMF. He published Gordon Rowley’s photo which was correctly credited in his text to Rowley, but incorrectly credited in the photo caption to Graham Thomas - which is probably why Deane Ross in 1972 said it had been rediscovered by Mr. G.S. Thomas.
1972. Deane Ross writes of its re-discovery by Thomas.
1972 to 1979. Ross Roses advertise LMF as silver-pink. The rose they stock was the one they imported from Sunningdale, UK in October 1965 as LMF. They are unaware at this stage that it is in fact Mrs. Wakefield Christie-Miller.
1978. The Wallace-Rowley version proved to be Mrs. Wakefield Christie-Miller.
1975 Keith Money discovers an old rose at Caston, Norfolk. I will refer to this rose as the “Money-Beales version”.
1979. Peter Beales publishes Keith Money’s photo in his booklet Late Victorian Roses and uses the words “thought to be LMF”.
1979 Alex Ross, father of Deane Ross, agrees Money’s photo is LMF.
1980 to 1986 Ross Roses advertise their Mrs. Wakefield Christie-Miller qualifying it with “previously thought to be and sold as LMF”.
1986. Ross Roses advertise the Money-Beales version as LMF.
1992. Beales advertises the Money-Beales version as 60cm (2 ft.) high.
2004. Beales states the height is 75cm (2 1⁄2ft.) high.
So there you have it. Or there we once did have it, up until 1947 I think. I believe the original Lady Mary Fitzwilliam is lost and gone forever. Behcet Ciragan has commented to me: “Going through my pre 1940 old books, I was surprised that LMF was more often than not, not mentioned among recommended garden roses. This would confirm the reports that it was a poor grower, which produced very large blooms suitable for exhibitions, but not really for gardening. The reason it was used so often for breeding was probably due to the extraordinary size of the bloom. I cannot find any specifics, but looking at the drawings, it must have been 5-6" in size”.
If what I have as Lady Mary Fitzwilliam is the Money-Beales version, then I am sure it cannot be the original 1880 Rose because of the height, seeds and prickles. I think here of Wal Johnston’s frustrated words once in this journal, of advice he used to receive: “I can tell you what it isn’t, but I can’t tell you what it is.” However, if you have a rose under the name of Lady Mary Fitzwilliam with a noticeably deeper reverse, it is likely to be the Wallace-Rowley version Mrs. Wakefield Christie-Miller. ֍

Newsletter  (May 2015)  Page(s) 4.  
 
In the early 1960s Wilhelm Kordes went in quest of this productive pink or tawny pink rose. At first he thought he had found it still growing in New Zealand, but that rose was ‘Mrs. Wakefield Christie-Miller’, a two-toned pink. In 1975 Keith Money found a solitary plant growing in a Norfolk garden. When he and Peter Beales published a color photo of the rose is a booklet, two letters from Australia, one from a long-time nurseryman who had grown the rose “extensively,” declared the rose to be ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam’. A photo, however, is not conclusive evidence. The other letter was from the niece of Henry Bennett’s greatgranddaughter, who further added that Bennett’s son Charles had immigrated to Australia and established a nursery in Homebush, New South Wales by 1890. There he bred the rose ‘Mrs. C.B. Pitt’, using the tea ‘Alba Rosea’ and ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam’. Clearly he had taken along some rose stock from his father. But does the rose still grow in Australia? Australian rose authority Patricia Routley grows it there next to ‘Mris. Wakefield Christie-Miller’. The two roses are clearly different. Coincidentally in 2001, when she visited South Australia, she saw the two roses growing side by side as well. What supposedly is the same rose has been found also in a few California locations, including in an old Calaveras County cemetery. But are those the true ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam’? The roses I’ve seen bearing that name are invariably a soft or light uniform pink. Yet the old descriptions from 1883 to that of Dean Hole in 1901 describe it as flesh pink, rosy flesh, delicate rosy flesh, and Bennett himself wrote that it was “light tender flesh colour.” Few rose photos on HelpMeFind show the rose as other than simply pure pink—granted, as I’ve said, photos are not conclusive evidence. Patricia Routley’s rose in Western Australia, however, is clearly “rosy flesh” or “flesh pink.”

Book  (2004)  
 
p12.  This brings to mind my good friend Keith Money, himself a native of New Zealand.  I well remember my first meeting with Keith.  It was a hot day in midsummer at my nursery, then at Swardston, near Norwich.  He lived at Caston, a village not far away.  Having heard that I was building up a collection of old roses, he had come to see what I was up to.  I soon realized that here was a kindred spirit, someone who loved roses, and my initial irritation at his intrusion into my time was quickly dispelled.  Of about my own age, he was very well known internationally as an artist, author, and photographer. In fact, as the latter Keith collaborated with me in photographing roses to ilustrate four little booklets I was writing on their history, published in the 1970s.  Before I met Keith he had already assembled a considerable collection of rare and historically important  roses..... Even more importantly, his painstaking research had led him to rediscover 'Lady Mary Fitzwilliam', an old Hybrid tea bred by the Victorian rose breeder Arthur Bennett and an important stud rose of its day.   Keith had discovered this rose in a nearby garden and it was confirmed as authentic by an elderly Australian who, when shown Keith's photograph of the rose by his  son Dean[e] Ross, a professional rose grower, recalled seeing it in the early 1900s when he was starting the Ross family's nursery.  At the time of its rediscovery this rose, too, had been thought commercially extinct. 

p116.  Introduced some 15 years later than 'La France','Lady Mary Fitzwilliam' also has fragrant, pink flowers, but this rose was raised by an Englishman, Henry Bennett.  It was rediscovered by Keith Money in 1975, having been thought extinct for many years.  A thorny plant with plenty of good foliage, it is slightly taller than 'La France' growing to about 75cm (2 1/2 ft), and is less prone to mildew. 

p236.  Lady Mary Fitzwilliam  Introduced Bennett, UK 1882.  Rediscovered Money, UK 1975.  Parentage: 'Devoniensis' x 'Victor Verdier'.  Shapely, high-centred, soft pink flowers flushed deeper pink.  Fragrant. Growth bushy, thorny.  Foliage copious, dark green. 

Magazine  (2004)  Page(s) 30. Vol 26, No. 1.  
 
Steve Beck.  Early Hybrid Teas.
By far the most important of these releases was Lady Mary Fitzwilliam, a plant of which is supposedly growing in my garden.  However, since its re-discovery and re-introduction in Australia this variety has virtually no fragrance and is more of a soft rose pink than flesh, leading me to conclude that we do not have her here, much to my dismay, and that the rose in my garden is sadly just another old unidentifiable pink!.  If the photo in Peter Beales Roses  [note - this photo is in HelpMeFind]  is true to type, then I would say they do have it in England, and maybe one day we can get bud wood to Australia and try again.  It is one of the most significant stud roses in the history of modern roses, and must never be allowed to disappear. 

[refer also to the 1992 'Roses' reference]

Magazine  (2002)  Page(s) 25. Vol 96, Part 1.  
 
Denise Anderson. Roses in a Cold Climate
Another tough charmer [in central Sweden] is 'Lady Mary Fitzwilliam' from Henry Bennett in 1882. 

Book  (Apr 2001)  Page(s) 95.  
 
Whittle Light-Pink Tea ('Lady Mary Fitzwilliam?) Tea. Found Angel's Camp Prot. Cemetery...
Whittle Light-Pink Tea see 'Mrs. Henry Bowles' (Attrib.)

Magazine  (2001)  Page(s) 12.  
 
Patricia Routley:   Letter to the Editor. 
The best part of the [2001 Hahndorf] Conference for me was.....
While in South Australia at Ross Roses, I saw Lady Mary Fitzwilliam planted as I have done right next to 'Mrs. Wakefield Christie-Miller'.   There is a great story about 'Lady Mary Fitzwilliam'.....

Book  (1999)  Page(s) 52.  
 
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam. Bennett. UK 1882. HT pink.
[Available from:] Cottage, Country Farm, Duncan, Hedgerow, Hilltop, Honeysuckle, John’s World, Mistydown, Minirose, Reliable, Rose Arbour, Thomas.