It's about the roses

My favourite high school history teacher was Diane Haskins. I thought her beautiful and admired her intelligence, wit and talent. Those formative years of life cast their beam through our entire life. I think of her often, and, oddly enough, in my rose garden. Soon my garden will be a profusion of blossoms. Today there are dozens of gorgeous buds, and Abraham Darby opened for me to treasure yet again this year. The rose Abraham Darby is a David Austin English rose. It produces very large cup-shaped flowers in shades of yellow and apricot. It’s rich fruity fragrance is well worth stooping over to draw in.

When I grow a rose named after a person, I know it has to have been named after someone of importance. Researching the name of a rose invariably leads me through history and teaches me more than I ordinarily would ever learn. That, my friends, brings us back to why I think of my favourite history teacher when I am tantalized by my roses. 

There were three Abraham Darbys. The first was the son of  Quakers  John Darby, a yoeman farmer and locksmith, and his wife Ann Baylies. In the early 1690’s Darby apprenticed to Jonathon Freeth, a fellow Quaker and a manufacturer of brass mills for grinding malt. The young apprentice grew to change England. His invention of coke smelting enabled the mass production of brass and iron. As important as this invention itself, was the fact that coke replaced charcoal with coal. In 1709 Britain was running out of charcoal and Darby's revolutionary method was important to Britain’s future. He founded the world’s first metallurgy laboratory, and developed the process of sand molding which made it possible for iron and brass to be mass produced. Gone now, were the days of individual casting. He received  a patent for sand casting in 1708. Years later, In 1779,  his grandson Abraham Darby III, would create the first iron cast bridge to cross the River  Severn in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire  England, designed by Architect Thomas Farnolls Pritchard. 

“What’s in a name?That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

Abraham Darby

Abraham Darby bud

Queen Elizabeth

John Cabot

Scentimental bud will open tomorrow

but double delight may open today

I promise you a rose garden.