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JAMES HENRY MANGLES. 
James Henry Mangles was born in 1832. He was the eldest son of 
Charles E. Mangles, Chairman of the London and South Western Railway, and 
he also occupied a seat at the Board of that Company for some years. 
His cousin, James Mangles, a captain in the Royal Navy, studied the Swan 
River plants, and was a friend of Lindley. The genus Manglesia (now 
merged in Grevillea), is named after James Mangles and his brother Robert, 
who also introduced many West Australian plants. 
James Henry Mangles studied for the Bar but did not practise. He settled 
at Valewood, near Haslemere in Surrey, and became an ardent gardener. He 
was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society on April 24th, 1874, and served for 
a few years on the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society, where he did 
much useful work. He died at Valewood, after a painful illness, on August 24th, 
1884, at the age of 52. 
Mangles devoted himself chiefly to Rhododendrons, and took a special interest 
in hybridising. He must have begun his hobby at an early age, for in the article 
dated July 19th, 1879, he states that nearly 20 years previously Sir William 
Hooker one day at Kew gave him some pollen from a scarlet arboreum, then in 
the Temperate house, with which he made “ his first very hackneyed experiment 
in Rhododendron hybridising,” by applying it to R. ponticum. He continued 
his work for many years, and though he met with failures, time has shown that 
he was abundantly successful. It is melancholy, however, to have to record 
that he lived to see very few of his hybrids flower. One was ” Alice Mangles ” 
(AucKLANDir X ponticum), which he exhibited in 1882. It is unfortunately 
not possible to trace the parentage of many of his hybrids, but a perusal of the 
following articles will show that he operated chiefly with Himalayan species, 
and especially with Aucklandii (Griffithianum). He was greatly encouraged 
in his work by his friend Mr. Anderson-Henry, of Edinburgh, also an enthusiastic 
hybridiser, and he never missed an opportunity of visiting gardens in all parts of 
the country where Rhododendrons were cultivated. At Valewood he erected 
shelters or houses with removable canvas roofs, which he called his ‘‘ cathedral 
houses,” and in these he kept the more tender plants. At his death these became 
the property of his brother, Mr. H. A. Mangles, who removed them to Littleworth 
Cross, near Farnham, and on his dying in 1908, they were left to his sister. Miss 
Mangles, who has not only cultivated them with assiduous care, but has added 
largely to the collection. 
On August 13th and 14th, 1911, a very destructive heath fire occurred 
betvv^een Aldershot and Guildford, which destroyed some 2,000 acres of 
vegetation ; it reached Littleworth and approached to within 50 yards of the 
house, which was in great danger ; as it was, a part of the garden was 
destroyed, including many Conifers and rare Rhododendrons. 
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