Tulips in Britain
Spalding’s modern fame is largely due to this industry, celebrated every spring since 1958 by a parade of floats decorated with tulip heads. Although tulips are the best known crop, the narcissus and daffodil bulbs are equally important.
In the late 1880’s two or three people in Spalding began collecting and selling snowdrops to retailers in London and other large towns. At the same time other forms of market gardening and fruit farming were adopted in the area.
The first bulb grower listed in a Lincolnshire directory was Mrs Elizabeth Quincey of Fulney, Spalding, who in 1885 was described as a Wholesale Fruiterer and Bulb Grower. Three years earlier Mr Christmas Quincey had been described as a Gardener and Seedsman. In 1889 one other Bulb Grower was listed in Lincolnshire, Henry Knipe of Bourne.
George Dickinson of Whaplode was described as a Bulb Merchant and Florist.
A leading pioneer in the development of the industry in Spalding was John Thomas White, who had a marine store business at the corner of the Sheep Market and the Crescent. He supplied snowdrop bulbs for medicinal purposes, but as he acquired more bulbs than he could dispose of, he planted some in Little London, and sent their flowers to London as an experiment.
In about 1890, along with others including Richard Wellband, Phillip Clarke and George Dickinson, he began to plant a few Double Daffodils to produce cut flowers for the market. In 1890 he bought seven acres of land with warehouses and greenhouses, and planted daffodils. In three or four years he had extended his holding to twenty acres.
The other growers were also increasing their acreage but not to the same extent.
In 1892 a county directory listed twelve growers in Spalding, with ten others in South Lincolnshire. They were mainly people already connected with agriculture or horticulture, experimenting with other ways of earning a living. At this time the sale of bulbs was a secondary activity, although J T White was selling them from about 1893. In the early years narcissus was the main flower and about 1895 the industry extended to Wisbech Cambridgeshire, where R H Bath Ltd and W T Ware started planting. Many of the first bulb growers had other lines, particularly market gardening, though as early as 1892 Richard Wellband was apparently specialising as a wholesale bulb grower and merchant.
In 1905 the Darwin Tulip was introduced to the area when considerable quantities were planted by Mr Ware at Wisbech. The first Darwin Tulips in the Spalding area were planted in 1907 by Samuel Culpin, who had entered the bulb industry in 1896. He was also the first in Spalding to grow the Carlton daffodil, which is now the chief variety.
The industry was depressed during the First World War, but increased considerably after 1918. In 1933 there were about 2,500 acres of bulbs between Spalding and Wisbech, and the number of growers in the Spalding area had increased from about 15 to 150. In 1933 the consignments of flowers leaving Spalding amounted to about 100 tons per day. Around 6,000 tons in the course of the season. The forcing of bulbs did not start until about 1920 when glass began to be erected in a small way. By 1933 there were twenty-five to thirty acres of glass for the forcing of Tulips, Narcissus and Iris, requiring about twenty-five million bulbs per annum. An annual flower show was held in the Corn Exchange, where growers could see and buy new varieties of bulbs. The regular meeting place of the Spalding bulb growers was the White Swan in New Road.
After the Second World War the bulb industry moved rapidly forward. In 1958, when there were about 6,000 acres of bulbs in the area, the annual Tulip Parade was started in Spalding. As the emphasis was now bulb production rather than cut flowers, the superfluous heads were used to decorate the parade floats. In April 1966 the locally formed `Publicity for British Bulbs Ltd’ opened Springfields Gardens at Fulney on the outskirts of Spalding, as a shop window for the British bulb industry.
Source material “Spalding, an Industrial History”. Neil Wright.
