1 www.oxforddnb.com
2 Oxford University Press
3 Over 55,000
4 ‘People who shaped all walks of life’
5 25 – from the 4th BC (before Christ) to the 21st century .

Sir Charles Edmund Isham
1 1819 – 1903.
2 At Rugby school.
3 In Oxford, at Oxford university.
4 Because his elder brother died (who would have inherited the baronetcy).
5 Emily.
6 Since 1560
7 He rebuilt cottages in the village in a decorative style.
8 On the garden around the house
9 His most ambitious project of building a large rockery.
10 The writings of a landscape gardener and horticulturalist John Claudius Loudon
11 Sir Isham built it with his own hands, and it was made of local ironstone.
12 Alpine plants and miniature trees – often rare – (many are still there today ‘ many survive’.
13 It has been largely filled in.
14 No, because he wasn’t particularly interested in colour, he aimed to keep the garden green for as much of the year as possible.
15 Vegetarianism and spiritualism.
16 Fairies and gnomes.
17 As races of tiny beings who with their lights and knockings led miners to the best seams of minerals
18 Yes, in an article in 1889.
19 In Nuremberg, in Germany and they were made by hand (they were ‘hand-modeled’).
20 They carried spades, pickaxes and wheelbarrows – (mining tools because they were thought to work in mines), and were placed so they looked as if they were mining
the rockery.
21 When the Ishams held fêtes in aid of local orphanages.
22 1867.
23 For 200 yrs.
24 A London bookseller offered him a ridiculously low amount of money, a ‘paltry’ sum.
25 Many first edition issues of Shakespeare.
26 Yes, the British museum and collectors elsewhere were very interested.
27 On the death of his wife in 1898.
28 He made over the garden to his cousin.
29 They disliked them, so the gnomes were removed (Louisa had them removed).
30 He set about restoring the hall and its garden in the 1950s.

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