Joachim Conrad Loddiges

Joachim Conrad Loddiges

Birth date: 1738

Birth Place: Hildesheim, Germany

Date of Death: 1826

Burial 20 Mar 1826 aged 88 – St. John at Hackney, Middlesex (address Church Street)

Place of Death: Hackney, London

Portrait can be seen in this article written by Rudolf Jenny in Lankestteriana 8(2): 43-52. 2008 http://www.lankesteriana.ucr.ac.cr/lankesteriana/Lankesteriana%208(...

Parents Father: Casper Lochlies was a gardener to the Elector of Hanover, George II of England.
Mother:

Marriage: Sarah Aldous (1740-3 Dec 1815) Date – 5 Dec 1769 St. Leonard Shoreditch, Hackney. Surrey

Burial Dec 9 1815 St. John Hackney aged 75

Children

William Lodigges (1776 - 28 Dec 1849) (Married Alice (1786-3 Jan 1858)

George Loddiges (1786–1846)

Mary bapt 27 Dec 1782 St. John Hackney bburial of a Mary Loddiges 29 Oct 1798 St. John Hackney

Occupation: Nurseryman/Gardener

Career:

Conrad was trained as a gardener between 1758 and 1761 with Josef Conrad Wefer in Velzen, near Haarlem in the Netherlands.

Conrad emigrated to Britain in 1761 during the 'Seven Years' War' to take up employment as a gardener for where he was gardener to Sir John Silvester in Hackney.

It was then that the family name was anglicised. When, in his forties he married, he had accumulated sufficient knowledge and savings to expand a small seed business started by fellow German emigree John Busch, from where he began to write to people all over the world, urging them to send him packets of seeds collected from trips to native hills, valleys and plains. From these small beginnings, the nursery business gained a specialist market in Britain, and was increasingly able to attract clients from estates and botanical gardens throughout Europe.

In 1800 his nursery was the largest in Britain. in 1818 he erected the first gigantic, steam-heated palm house, using revolutionary technology, 24 years before Kew got its famous palm house. Visitors were amazed that artificial rain in the palm house. Loddiges and Sons was one of the first companies to take advantage of the Wardian Cases invented by Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, using them immediately after their invention. These were small, transportable greenhouses which increased the survival rate of specimens dramatically. Before its use only 1 plant in 20 would survive – this figure mentioned by Loddiges himself according to Rudolph Jenny [2]

Loddiges started to import Orchids around 1812. His cataloge listed 84 species in 1826. Realising their potential he and his son George made them the mainstay of the business.

Publications:

1777 first of ‘A catalogue of plants and seeds which are sold by Conrad Loddiges, nursery and seedsman, at Hackney, near London.’ – published by his son George in 1839. There are orchids dedicated to Loddiges, either Conrad Snr or his son George. The genus Loddigesia Sims (1808, Leguminosae) was dedicated to Conrad Liddiges.

Physosiphon loddigesii Lindley (1835)

Lepanthes lodddigesiana (Swartz) Rchb.f. (1856)

Octomeria loddigesii Lindley (1836)

Dendrobium loddigesii Rolfe (1887)

Cirrhaea loddigesii Lindley (1832)

Acropera loddigesii Lindley (1833)

Cycnoches loddigesii Lindley (1832)

Cattleya loddigesii Lindley (1821)

Other Notes:

Conrad Loddiges never became an English citizen.

Notes, References, Sources/Links, Family Trees etc.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Conrad_Loddiges

[2] http://www.lankesteriana.ucr.ac.cr/lankesteriana/Lankesteriana%208(...