William Rickatson Dykes

William Rickatson Dykes
Born	(1877-11-04)4 November 1877 Bayswater, London
Died	1 December 1925(1925-12-01) (aged 48) Woking, Surrey
Residence	Great Britain
Nationality	British
Fields	Botany
Alma mater	Wadham College, Oxford
Academic advisors	Sir Michael Foster
Known for	Taxonomy Botany
Influenced	George H.M Lawrence, Georgi Rodionenko and Brian Mathew
Notable awards	Veitch Memorial Medal (1924), Victoria Medal of Honor (1925)
Author abbrev. (botany)	Dykes

William Rickatson Dykes (4 November 1877 – 1 December 1925) was a former school teacher and then became an amateur botanist, after meeting Sir Michael Foster. He began growing and breeding Irises as a hobby, he eventually became a known expert in the field and wrote several books that influenced many others. He was also interested in Tulips, Amaryllis and other plants as well.

Biography

William Rickatson Dykes was born on 4 November 1877 at Bayswater in London.^[1] The second son of Alfred Dykes.^[2]

He was a clever student and a talented athlete.^[3] He went to City of London School, and then to Wadham College, Oxford.^[2] In 1900, he obtained a M.A. in classics.^[1] Later he received Licence-ès-lettres from the University of Paris (Sorbonne).^[3]

While studying at Oxford, he met Sir Michael Foster,^[2] who installed a passion for studying irises within William.^[4]

Between 1903 and 1919, he was a Master at Charterhouse School in Godalming.^[4] He was Master of Greek and Latin and occasionally he taught football.^[3]

He lived in Godalming, Surrey where he created a large garden to grow all his irises.^[4]

When Michael Foster died in 1907. Mrs Ellen Willmott loaned Mr Dykes, a large collection of notes she inheritted from Michael Foster.^[5] Mr Foster was working on a study of all irises before he died. Dykes, then took over this study to complete it for him.^[4] This formed the basis for his first book, Irises (published by London, in 1909), a volume in the series Present-Day Gardening. A smallish book, it focuses on the decorative uses of the iris as a garden plant but is also contains plenty of scientific information.^[6]

On 2 April 1910, he was interviewed by Garden Life magazine. Now regarded as one of the highest authorities of iris cultivation among expert amateurs. He had also obtained quite an extensive collection. He has most species. He has several bulb frames.^[7]

In 1911, he traveled to the South of France, in Hyères in Var (department), in search of irises that he had read about, where he discovered Iris spuria var. maritima.^[8] It was later published in his book in 1913.^[9]

He also worked with a retired engineer and plant breeder Arthur J. Bliss (1862-1931). To breed several hybrids.^[5][10]

He did a formal study of the Iris genus at the botanical library at Kew Gardens Herbarium. He also examined hundreds of iris species specimens at other collections including, the British Museum, Oxford Botanical Garden, Cambridge Botanic Garden, Edinburgh Botanic Garden, Berlin Botanical Garden, Vienna Hofmuseum and Jardin des plantes.^[3]

In 1913, he published his second book, The Genus Iris which has 48 full-color plates made from the watercolors by F.H. Round (which were painted from plants in Dykes's garden).^[4][11] Frank was an Assistant Drawing Master at Charterhouse.^[12] Rounds later commentated that, during iris season, Dykes would show up "in his dressing gown" at 5 AM with an iris in hand, of which the painting was supposed to me made immediately. He said, "The drawings for Dykes were easy and comfortable to do."^[11]

This has a basic classification of all irises species. He created the first classification of irises according to Linnaeus's botanical system. The book is now considered out-of-date taxonimically. The classification was improved by George H.M. Lawrence (in 1953), then by Georgi I. Rodionenko (in 1961) and Brian Mathew (in 1981).^[5]

In April 1913, he took a trip to Dalmatian coast, visiting Sarajevo, Clissa, Mostar and Bosnia. He walked and climbed to collect specimens of irises, which he had heard about from other collectors and sources.^[7]

In 1914, he published his third book on irises, Handbook of Garden Irises (published by London). It contains a large amount of information on iris species. (Isbn:978-1176025158)^[6]

On 4 July 1914, he was interviewed by Country Life magazine, talking about various iris species including Iris xiphiodes (the English iris), Junos, Iris reticulata and others.^[7]

In November 1919, he became a fellow of the Linnean Society of London.^[13]

In 1920, Mr. Dykes was appointed to the Secretaryship of the Royal Horticultural Society,^[14] and it was necessary for him to leave Godalming and live nearer London.^[1]

He made arrangements for nearly all of his collection of irises to be moved to Percy Murrell's Nursery at Orpington In Kent. He retained only a few rhizomes each of some seedlings, planting them on a small plot of ground at the John Innes Research Station at Merton, Surrey.^[1]

Between 1921 and 1925, he served as Secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society. He devoted his remarkable abilities whole-heartedly to the maintenance of the Society as a moving force in horticulture.^[2]

In June 1926, Marion Cran wrote in the Dykes Memorial Issue of the Annual of the Iris Society. "He was to be seen at all the shows, the small fortnightly shows at Vincent Square and the great summer and autumn shows at Chelsea and Holland Park. His broad, burly frame moved In a leisurely way among the exhibits. He might be smiling just broadly like a merry schoolboy, or cross as Good Friday's bun just as the moment might take him; for he was a man of strong personality who made no attempt to disguise his emotions.^[2] Unknown by many he suffered from Asperger syndrome.^[3]

He also raised several hybrid Iris seedlings. 'Amber'(pale yellow) 1924, 'Moonlight' (yellowish-white) and 'Wedgewood' (medium blue) are the best known.^[4]

In 1922, with the company with Mr. Wallace, Mr. Bonnewitz, Mr. Wassenberg, and Mr. Dykes he visited the Cayeux Nursery in France. This specialised Iris nursery also exhibits irises at the Chelsea Flower Show.^[2]

He carried on correspondence with many botanists and gardeners, including the American Grace Sturtevant.^[15]

In 1924, he married Katherine (nee Kaye),^[1] who also made a name for herself as an iris hybridizer and painter. They had their own garden at Sutton Green near Guildford, where he planted over 30,000 tulip bulbs.^[2]

In 1924, he was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal for his monograph The Genus Iris.^[1]

In 1925, he translated from the French to English, Professor Louis Lorette's book on pruning fruit trees La Taille Lorette.^[16][17]

Unfortunately, in 1925, only a week after receiving the Victoria Medal of Honour from the RHS, Dykes was killed.^[18] On 27 November 1925, while driving on a slippery road, his car skidded and he crashed into a truck. The impact ejected him from his vehicle and he was so severely injured that he later died on 1 December 1925.^[3]

In 1926, a (yellow, the first true yellow) 'W. R. Dykes' was named by his wife.^[19] It was sold by Orpington Nurseries and became very famous and was used by other iris breeders to create new hybrids.^[4]

On 16 June 1926, a meeting of the British Iris Society was held, it was resolved to award a medal to the hybridizer of the outstanding iris variety of each year in memory of Mr, Dykes, thus the Dykes Medal has become the highly coveted, highly prized award by all hybridizers.^[2] The award was first presented in 1927 to 'San Francisco' hybridized by William Mohr.^[20] The Medal winners are the best irises in their class. The British Iris Society also presents Dykes Medals to Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and previously France.^[21] The Dykes medal was awarded in France from 1928 but it stopped in 1938 due to the Second World War, it never started again.^[5]

Mrs Katherine Dykes carried on her husbands plant breeding work and produced the Iris 'Gudrun' (a white) in 1930.^[22] Which won the Dykes Medal in 1931.^[5] Until she died in Raynes Park on 25 May 1933 after a train accident.^[1]

In 1930, published after his death, Notes on Tulip Species by Dykes, William Rickatson, and Elsie Katherine Dykes, publisher H. Jenkins,^[23] included fifty-four color plates of paintings by Elsie Katherine Dykes.^[24]

In 1930, G. Dillistone edited a book called Dykes on Irises. This was a reprint of the contributions of the Dykes to various journals and periodicals during the last 20 years of his life.^[25]

In 1932, Otto Stapf from Kew Gardens found a hybrid between Iris chrysographes and Iris delavayi in Dykes's Garden. He named it Iris dykesii.^[5] But this has now been re-classed as a synonym of Iris chrysographes (Dykes),^[26] which he had originally published in Gardeners Chronicles 1911.^[27]

Also Tulipa dykesiana was named by Alexei Vvedenski in Flora of USSR in 1935.^[1] But this has now been re-classed as a synonym of Tulipa kolpakowskiana (Regel).^[28]

References

Other sources

• Irises and the Men and Women who Created Them, Clarence E. Mahan

External links

• Lists all the Dykes Medal Winners
• Lists all the hybrid Irises he registered