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Penicuik Horticultural SocietyEstablished 1842
Elizabeth "Bissie" Cowan (1810-1887) who started the Penicuik Flower Shows was the daughter of Alexander Cowan the papermaker. When just twenty she married Captain Thompson of the Madras Cavalry. Her husband's health broke down in India and he returned to Britain to take Holy Orders, but died after only five years marriage in 1836. A family member wrote: "Aunt Bissie was only twenty-six when she became a widow. And a few years later a man of good family, and good everything else, fell in love with her, and I believe she would have married him had not her brothers and sisters dissuaded her, thinking it almost sacrilege to her first husband's memory." With the help of her brothers and friends she helped to start the first Penicuik Horticultural Show at the tiny Gardeners Hall in Lambs Pend. Usually there were two shows a year, with Penicuik Silver Band often in attendance. By 1853 the Summer Show had entries for Gardeners, Amateurs, Cottagers, and a section for Exhibition Plants, and the Autumn Show that year had a special class for Bird Fanciers. In the 1870s, the shows moved to the new Volunteer Drill Hall at the foot of Kirkhill Road. In 1881 a new title Penicuik Industrial & Horticultural Society appeared, with women taking part and special prizes for work by girls. In 1886 the work of local beekeepers featured for the first time. Bissie Cowan's great nephew, C. W. Cowan, became known nationally as a spring flower enthusiast and began to open his Valleyfield gardens at the end of March 1887 -his camellias were judged "the finest in Scotland" and his daffodils and narcissi took leading honours at the Royal Horticultural Society in London. In 1889 the Midlothian Rose & Pansy Society linked to the PHS; that year, the town was shocked by the loss of life in the Mauricewood Pit disaster. As the century ended, the society began to use the new Cowan Institute.
Dogs tooth violets at Valleyfield, Penicuik in 1933Apart from breaks in two world wars the Society grew mightily in the last hundred years, starting spring bulb shows in 1950 and marking its first 150 years in 1992. Long may it prosper!
Autumn show in Penicuik Town Hall in 1992 -the 150th Anniversary year.
Flowerbed laid out by members to mark the Society's 150th Anniversary.Full details of the Society's history can be found in: To Tend & Care: A History of the Penicuik Horticultural Society (1842-1992) by Jack McGowan | ||
