Mr. Patmore left a legacy of his life in the yards and boulevards of Western Canada. They are the trees and shrubs that were planted and raised by the emigrant from England who was born in 1861, and was called “The Nursery man of the West.”
He arrived in Brandon while it was little better than a tent city, Mr. Patmore soon set up a nursery and greenhouse in an attempt to recreate the greenery of his home in Saffron, Walden, Essex, England. He was still planning for the next season when he passed away in Brandon at the age of 86 on 13th April 1946.
Mr. Patmore was descendant from a distinguished family of nursery persons in a country renowned for its gardens. He was educated at the prestigious Newport Grammar School, and passed up a chance to study at Cambridge University, but instead he moved to London to work.
Under Doctors orders to move to a dryer climate for the sake of his health, he immigrated to Canada, and settled in London, Ontario where he found employment as a nurseryman. Mr. Patmore moved to western Manitoba in 1884 soon after the Canadian Pacific Railroad laid the tracks. He traveled as far West as Agazzi, British Columbia to work on an experimental farm, but soon returned after complaining that the mountains “hemmed” him in.
He began working at the experimental farm north west of Brandon, experimenting with European varieties that could be adapted for growth in the harsh Prairie climate. Foreseeing the need for trees to be used in shelter belts and to beatify city streets, he purchased a nursery on Ninth Street and Queens Avenue.
Homestead House
Mr. Patmore had two daughters, Daisy and Muriel, they lived in the century old house that came with the nursery on the Horatio Nelson Way Homestead which is now located on 13th Street across from the provincial Fair Grounds, the attractive frame house surrounded by trees and an iron fence was the first to be built in the south-west corner of the city.
In the bustle of the early tent city, Mr. Patmore looked for signs of the society that would rise once the land was tamed. Mrs. Alice Maud Mary Patmore once said that her husband told her of passing one of the tents on Eighth Street and hearing beautiful piano music from inside, which he thought was delightful.
He set to work planting Elm and Maple trees along the city streets, Muriel Patmore said he thought it was his civic duty because there was nothing but bald Prairie.
As chairman of the grounds committee for the Provincial Exhibition, he was also responsible for the plantings at the fairgrounds.
Mr. Patmore’s nursery business grew quickly and employed over one hundred people during the busy spring season.
The business was expanded with the addition of greenhouses and the only florist shop in western Manitoba at the time. Maintaining the tropical heat in the greenhouses took a boxcar of soft coal every week and two teams of horses working steadily to move it to the nursery.
The nurseryman matched his horticultural interests with politics and public service.
“He was always very interested in politics. It was always a topic of conversation around the dinner table,” says Muriel. Mr. Patmore served on Brandon City Council from 1917-1927. He was also active in organizing the co-op movement in the 1920’s and was appointed first President of the Brandon Pool.
When the depression came to western Canada it allowed Mr. Patmore to combine and utilize both his talents. As a public servant, he was Chairman of the city’s Welfare, and Relief Committee, and worked with the Salvation Army to aid the victims of the drought stricken Prairies. As a nurseryman, he shipped out carloads of trees and shrubs to stabilize the soil that was being blown around the Great Plains.
One of the most popular shrubs to be widely distributed throughout the west at that time was Caragana. Murial said “it just happened that he had a large stock of Caraganas on hand at his nursery when the drought came so they were the ones he shipped out”.
Mr. Patmore was the first to spot the usefulness of the Brandon Pyramidal Cedar, which grows, in thousands of back yards across Canada. The first trees were grown in the Arboretum at the Brandon Experimental Farm.
The Patmore’s family business was carried on for many years by the second generation. Mr. Dick Patmore, a graduate of political economy at Brandon College, took over the nursery and seed business when his father died. He developed a species of graceful ascending Elm Trees that adorn the boulevards on Clark Drive arguably making that street one of the most beautiful in Brandon.
The business was sold on his retirement in 1971 to Jake and Mary Driedger who in 2002 transferred ownership to their son-in-law, Ed Krueger. On December 15th 2006, Mr Kent Mulholland, and Mr. Ian Ross purchased the company but still retained the Patmore family name.
Daisy and Muriel studied floral arrangement in New York, Montreal, and Minneapolis, and operated the flower shop until 1973.
In recognition of his contribution to Manitoba, Mr. H. L. Patmore was inducted into the Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1978.
Mr. Patmore may still make one more contribution to the greenery of Manitoba. He was first to recognise the usefulness of the Hackberry tree. The Manitoba tree is still being used as an alternative to the Elm tree because large numbers of that species are being destroyed by disease.
Note #1: Alice Maud Mary was Mr. Patmore’s wife: she was born in Bristol England on the 12th of June 1866, and died in Brandon aged 81 on October 3rd 1947. She is buried with her husband in the Brandon Cemetery.
Note #2: Mary Anne “Daisy” was born in Brandon on the 30th of March 1903, and Died in Brandon at age 96 on August 21st 1999.
Note #3: Muriel May was born in Brandon on the 1st May 1908, and died in Brandon on the 20th of September 1999. Both Daisy and Muriel are buried in the Brandon Cemetery with Richard Lawrence Patmore, (He was born at Bishop Stotford England in 1822, and died in Brandon on the 3rd of April 1908 aged 86 years).
Note #4: Mr. Patmorerecognize’s Son, Richard, ‘Dick’ Henry was born in Brandon on 1903 and died in Brandon on June 30th 1979. He is buried in the Brandon Cemetery.
Source: Brandon a City by G. F. Barker. The Brandon Cemetery.
http://www.patmorenursery.com/history.html
http://www.manitobaaghalloffame.com/hall_of_fame.php?ID=93
Prepared by Robert Booth.