Thomas Hayton Mawson

Thomas Hayton Mawson (Born 5th May 1861, Scorton, Lancashire; died 14th November 1933, Applegarth, Hest Bank, Lancaster, Lancashire age 72), better known as T.H. Mawson, was a British garden designer, landscape architect, and town planner.

Personal Life

Mawson left school at age 12. His father, who died in 1877, was a warper in a cotton mill and later started a building business.

Thomas married Anna Prentice in 1884 and made their family home in Windermere in 1885.

Working Life

To make a living, he worked first in the building trade in Lancaster, then at a London nursery where he gained experience in landscape gardening. In the 1880s he moved back north, where he and two brothers started the Lakeland Nursery in Windermere. The firm became sufficiently successful so that he was then able to turn his attentions to garden design.

Mawson's first commission was a local property, Graythwaite Hall, and even then reflected his hallmark blend of architecture and planting. He then designed the gardens at Langdale Chase, Holehird [ [http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/holehird.htm Holehird House, Troutbeck, Cumbria] ] , Brockhole [ [http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/brockh.htm Brockhole, Cumbria] ] , and Holker Hall around the turn of the century.

In time Mawson designed gardens throughout Britain, and in Europe and Canada. In 1908 he won a competition to lay out the Peace Palace gardens at the Hague. He also advised on the development of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in America. One of Mawson's more noted plans was for the city of Calgary, Canada. Mawson's vision, had it been implemented, would have changed what was then a dusty prairie town, into a city of the City Beautiful movement.

In 1923 he became president of the Town Planning Institute, and in 1929 the first president of the Institute of Landscape Architects.

Mawson is buried in Bowness Cemetery within a few miles of some of his best gardens and overlooking Lake Windermere.

References

Selected writings

* "The Art and Craft of Garden Making", 1st edn 1900, 5th edn (recommended), 1926.
* "Civic Art" 1911
* "The Life and Work of an English Landscape Architect", 1927

ee also

*Landscape Institute

External links

* [http://www.visitcumbria.com/mawson.htm Gardens designed by Thomas Mawson in Cumbria]
* [http://www.gardenvisit.com/b/mawson.htm Thomas Mawson a Gardens Guide biography]
* [http://www.shellguides.freeserve.co.uk/Thm/THM.htm Thomas Mawson 1861-1933 edited by Chris Mawson]
* [http://www.southlakeland.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=1380 Bowness Cemetery, South Lakeland Council]