George Percival Baker

[Obituary Text]

KENTISH TIMES

FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1952

MR G.P. BAKER DIES AGED 95

A REMARKABLE CAREER RECALLED

LIFE’S INTERESTS CLOSELY ENTWINED

The death of Mr. George Percival Baker, F.R.G.S., F.R.S.A., at his home, Hillside, Kippington, Sevenoaks, on Saturday at the age of 95 years, brought to a close a career remarkable not only for its span of nearly a century, but for the aims and achievements which were continuous and conspicuous throughout the years.

Mr. Baker’s father was a landscape gardener, who was sent to Turkey in 1848 by the British Government to lay out the grounds of their Embassies in Constantinople, one in the city and the other on the Bosphorus. On coming-of-age, Mr. Baker was given three months holiday to go where he pleased. The glamour of the East drew him to Persia, from whence on the return journey he made the ascent of Mount Ararat. In this journey, undertaken after a year of thought and preparation, can be found the origins of Mr. Baker’s life interests. The visit to Persia determined his business career in the Oriental carpet trade and in the establishment of G.P. and J. Baker, who in 1893 acquired the business of Swaislands Printing Co. at Crayford, where many Oriental fabrics imported by Mr. Baker and his brother partner had been printed. The expedition to Mount Ararat was also the beginning of Mr. Baker’s mountaineering exploits and of his interest in the plant life of mountain ranges all over the world, culminating in his appointment as vice-president of the Alpine Club, and later as president of the Iris Society.

Mr. George Baker was the eldest son of a family of seven, his early years being spent in Constantinople, until he was sent home to England to be educated. He then became his father’s representative in London in the business of exporting Oriental carpets.

He married in 1884, Mary Emily, a daughter of Mr. Robert Davis, a prominent City merchant. There were five sons and two daughters, of whom there are three living.

In his brochure, “Mountaineering Memories of the Past,” Mr. Baker wrote of his first sight of Mount Ararat: “As I travelled along it occurred to me that I would like to try and reach the top.” There could be no better epitome of the long life which has just closed. In every field of endeavour and enterprise in moments of danger on mountain crags or of adversity and anxiety in the fluctuations of world trade, there can be seen that determination not only to avoid defeat, but to excel in the overcoming of every menace to the noble ambition to reach the top.

WORLD WIDE FAME

As stated already, Mr. Baker, with his brother, succeeded the Swaisland Printing Co. at Crayford in 1893, since when their products have attained world wide fame, due in great measure to Mr. Baker’s deep interest in the historical side of the business of textile printing and his many researches into the ancient origins of the craft, visiting India for this purpose and resulting in the publication of a classic work, “Calico Painting and Printing in the East Indies in the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries.” He was an enthusiastic collector of ancient specimens of Oriental printed chintzes, his collection of which he presented to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

No less spectacular were his mountaineering exploits, which included , in addition to many individual new ascents, climbing most of the well-known alpine ascents as well as in Scotland, Wales, Kashmir, the Caucusus, Crete and the Rocky Mountains. Associated with all these expeditions was his interest in the plant life of these mountain ranges, the results of which can be seen in the records of the Alpine Club, the Scottish Mountaineering Club, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Horticultural Society, the Alpine Garden Society, the Iris Club, the Garden Society, and the Royal Society of Arts, of several of which he was a life member. As recently as 1949, Mr. Baker was awarded the Reginald Cory Memorial Cup for his production of a new saxifrage, an achievement which derived from one of his discoveries during an ascent of Mount Olympus.

These life interests, so closely intertwined, did not however exclude concern for more local affairs, nor an escape from responsibility for the welfare of the community of which he was a part. He had a real sense of civic responsibility, and by example and precept encouraged others to play their part in local government, in religious and social work. He had literally worked with his own hands and side by side with his employees in establishing and building up the firm G.P. and J. Baker, whose prestige is now world-wide, and he enjoyed nothing so much as to gather about him on what he called family meetings those who had a part in that enterprise and their families. He knew them all by name and the historical association of many of them with the origins and development of textile printing. He was hon. Secretary of the Furnishing Trades Benevolent Association, and did much to restore its depleted finances.

STRENUOUS BUSINESS LIFE

After a strenuous business life divided between his City office and the Crayford factory, he retired to Sevenoaks, where he was able to pursue to the full his favourite hobby, that of gardening, specialising in the alpine flora and irises in which field he achieved many honours.

Previously, when he lived at Coldblow, Bexley, he took part in parochial activities, which included a special interest in all forms of juvenile welfare and in particular, the Boy Scout movement. Among other activities he was a churchwarden of St. Mary’s, Old Bexley, and treasurer of Bexley and Bridgen Church of England Schools. During the period of unemployment following the 1914-18 war, he was a member of the Dartford Board of Guardians. In that post-war period he was a member of the Rodney Hut Trust at Crayford, and helped greatly in the development of this war-time Y.M.C.A. establishment as a centre of social and cultural activity. He was also a member of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital committee, and joint hon. Treasurer of Alexandria Hospital at Swanley.

In 1923, in conjunction with the late T. Nevill Cannon and Clive Kinnison, he was instrumental in erecting the Bexley Boys’ and Girls’ Hall as a centre of juvenile welfare work, in special memory of his own sons who had fallen in the 1914-18 war, and he has only recently seen the completion of similar premises in Maxim road, Crayford, as the home of the local Scout group.

INTEREST IN SCOUTING

Mr. Baker’s interest in the Scout movement extended beyond the welfare of the boys who came under his influence, and he thought highly of that, but also because he believed, like its founder, the late Lord Baden-Powell, that the practice of its principles could permeate national and international life for the good of all.

On the occasion of the celebration of their golden wedding in 1934, Mr. and Mrs. Baker were presented with an album containing 264 signatures with an inscription in recognition of their contribution to the religious, social and public life of the district.

Throughout his long life, Mr. Baker was devoted to the pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty as revealed in his appreciation of spiritual values, in his humanitarian concern for others, and in the study of colour and design in flowers and fabrics, all of which were harmonized in a character of outstanding strength and charm.

Nothing was too high for his endeavour, nothing was so small as to escape his notice, and his attitude to life, its design and meaning could not be better expressed than in the words with which he himself bade farewell to one part of the earthly scene in which he had been a conspicuous figure:

“What a flood of memories ‘that time is past’ recalls! The many companions of those far off days with whom it was my privilege to climb and make life-long friends, Yeld, Stafford, Anderson, Sligsby, Soly, Broome, Wolley, Hiatt, Baker, my brother Arthur, one and all have crossed the Great Divide and left me to live in retrospect, and in the memory of those happy days.

“No more for me the battle against the forces of nature; no more for me ‘living dangerously’ a short space between time and eternity; no more the joy that comes with the reaching of a lofty goal or a peaceful sheltering roof; no more the glad peace that comes in the eventide when with or without a shelter roof one stretches weary limbs to rest and tired eyes close in sleep; no more the distant scene through a rift in the clouds of a Skyee smiling valley rich with verdure.

“All these experiences and many others I have enjoyed in more than 50 years of mountain climbing, and now although their further physical attainment is denied me, yet still I can recapture in spirit with undiminished enjoyment the thrills and raptures evoked by their memories and so in taking FAREWELL of the mountains I am able with the Psalmist to say ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the Hills from whence cometh my help.’”