Rosemary Nicholson

Lorna Rosemary Nicholson (née Weeks; 1919 – 2004) was a British co-founder of the museum of garden history in London. She and her husband discovered the tomb of two men who had been Royal gardners, plant collectors and the founders of the first museum in England. Two years later she heard that the church where they were buried was to be demolished. They started a campaign that restored the church and transformed the site into the first museum of gardening which is located near the houses of parliament and the garden is free to visitors. Life Nicholson was born in 1919 in Lancashire at Southport. Her parents were Louise Wilhelmina (born Black) and Robert Foster Jeffrey Weeks. They already had four children and she was their last. Her father had been in the military and he had been gassed. He became a mining engineer but he had not recovered so her family emigrated to South Africa when she was very young. The family lived in South Africa and then in India where her father died. She was successful in her application to attend the Slade School of Fine Art but her mother refused her permission because it was "not respectable". In 1940 she married John Edward Nicholson who served in the Royal Navy in Glasgow - he was a few years older than her. After the war, John founded an engineering business in Cheltenham, and they had three children. In time they moved to London. Nicholson and her husband were garden lovers and they found a tomb they were looking for in 1974. The tomb was for two important gardeners who were both named John Tradescant. They were both Royal gardeners and they are individually known as John Tradescant the Elder and his son John Tradescant the Younger.