234 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
skilful gardeners of his acquaintance. Fairchild was the 
author of The City Gardener. In this work he gives a list of 
evergreens, trees and flowers “ which will thrive best in the 
London gardens/’ as “ everything will not prosper . . . because 
of the smoke of the sea-coal. . . but,” he continues, “ I find that 
most persons whose business requires them to be constantly 
in town will have something of a garden at any rate. One may 
guess the general love my fellow citizens have of gardening, in 
furnishing their rooms and chambers with basons of flowers 
and Bough pots, rather than not have something of a garden 
before them.” In the course of the work he mentions several 
trees which were then (1722) to be seen flourishing in different 
parts of London : Spanish broom, ilex, guelder rose, syringa 
and lilac in Soho Square ; pears, in several “ confined alleys ” 
about Barbican, Aldersgate, and Bishopsgate ; a vine bearing 
good grapes in Leicester fields ; figs in Roll’s Garden in Chancery 
Lane, and in Dr. Bennet’s in Cripplegate ; lily of the valley in a 
close place at the back of Guild Hall; plane trees by St. 
Dunstan-in-the-East, above forty feet high, besides all the 
numerous plants seen growing to perfection at Westminster, 
and “ the parts of London near the river.” So many curious 
plants were raised by this enthusiastic gardener in his own 
garden at Hoxton, that he thought with proper care almost 
anything would grow in the town. He completes a list by 
saying : “ I am almost persuaded that the olive would do well 
in London.” 
The name of Fairchild is still remembered in the part of 
London in which he lived. “ The Fairchild Lecture ” is 
delivered annually in St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, in accordance 
with the bequest left by him. The subject of the sermon, 
which is preached on Whit-Tuesday, is either on “ The 
Wonderful Works of God in the Creation,” or “ On the certainty 
of the resurrection of the dead, proved by the certain changes 
of the animal and vegetable parts of the creation.” The 
preacher, appointed yearly by the Bishop of London, still 
expounds the founder’s analogies by the light of modern 
science. 
Fairchild was a member of a Society of Gardeners, and seems 
to have taken a leading part, as his name stands first upon the 
