Researching Henry Wise

Wise and London translated into English two well-known French texts on gardening. The resulting work was titled "The Retir'd Gard'ner, in Two Volumes: the Whole Revis'd, with Several Alterations and Additions, Which Render It Proper for Our English Culture." The book was printed in London in 1706 and went through several printings thanks to its popularity.

Kensington Gardens were laid out by Henry Wise and Charles Bridgeman with fashionable features including the Round Pond, formal avenues and a sunken Dutch garden.

Queen Anne of Great Britain and King George I both appointed him to the post of Royal Gardener. Although the Brompton nursery passed into other hands, Wise retained the house, Brompton Park. His will, in 1734, directed his heir to remove all the pictures remaining at Brompton to his house at Warwick.

Wise became wealthy through his gardening endeavours and purchased the manor of The Priory, Warwick. He purchased the estate and the mansion and retired there as a country squire in 1727. Henry Wise died at The Priory on 15 Dec 1738, said to be worth some £200,000 – far more, probably, than some of his clients.

The writer and garden designer Stephen Switzer trained with London and Wise.

Born in Oxford, Wise worked his way up as a mariner in the East India Company's Marine Service from midshipman in 1819 to chief officer in 1831, and then a supercargo in the China trade. His logbooks from voyages in the Castle Huntly, Astell, and Elizabeth are preserved at the National Maritime Museum.

He invented several schemes related to speeding travel between England and the East, publishing a book proposing the use of steam and a 'propellor' in 1839, a 'Plan for the Acceleration of the China Mails' (i.e. their conveyance from Suez via Ceylon to Hong Kong direct) submitted to her Majesty's Government 14 September 1843, and advocating a canal across Siam in 1859.

By 1838, he was settled in London and he is principally known for his subsequent involvement with James Brooke: he helped fit out the ship for his 1839 voyage and became the agent in London to the now Rajah of Sarawak in 1841. This relationship soured around 1847 when the Eastern Archipelago Company was set up at considerable advantage to Wise who contributed rights handed to him by Brooke to mine coal in Labuan in return for fees, equity, and the job of Managing Director. The Rajah also blamed Wise for his loss of money when the firm of Melville & Street collapsed in 1848. Legal wrangles instituted by the Rajah established that the EAC was undercapitalised and only got its charter by very creative accounting, in which officials acquiesced. Fraudulent or not, the company was ambitious, but struggled until finally being wound up in 1857. Wise lost money as a shareholder in the fraudulent Royal British Bank, which had had the same founding Chairman as the Eastern Archipelago Company, one John MacGregor MP.

He died in Hampstead in 1866, leaving a wife, Elizabeth, two daughters (Henrietta Elizabeth b.1848 and Harriet Grace b.1850), and 'effects under £1500' in his will. Elizabeth died 26 March 1872, at 27, Fairfax-road, South Hampstead, aged 62.

Wise was the son of Rev. Henry Wise of the Priory, Warwick and his wife Charlotte Mary Porten, daughter of Sir Stanier Porten. He was educated at Rugby School and at Oriel College, Oxford. He was Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for Warwickshire and a major in the Warwickshire Yeomanry Cavalry. At the 1865 general election Wise was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for South Warwickshire. He held the seat until 1874.

Wise died at the age of 76.

Wise married firstly in 1828, Harriett Skipwith, daughter of Sir Gray Skipwith, 8th Baronet. She died in 1858 and he married secondly Jane Harriet Disbrowe, daughter of Sir Edward Cromwell Disbrowe, G.C.G.