William Edward Gumbleton

Who was William Edward Gumbleton?

William Edward Gumbleton was an eminent Irish horticulturist with at least one species and two cultivars named after him.

He was the elder of the two sons of Rev. George Gumbleton, an Anglican clergyman, and Frances Anne. The Gumbleton family had lived in Ireland for several generations and Rev. George Gumbleton was vicar of Affane, County Cork. William Edward Gumbleton was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he matriculated 8 June 1858, but seems to have left the university before graduating, as there is no record of his being awarded a degree.

As a young man, he travelled in Europe with his mother and studied languages, art and music, before settling at Belgrove, County Cork, an estate owned by his family and situated on Great Island in Cork Harbour. There, he devoted himself to horticulture, specialising in the growing of rare and newly introduced plants, particularly the species and cultivars of the Compositae such as Dahlia, Gnaphalium, Arctotis and Olearia.

Gumbleton was highly opinionated and quite intolerant of other people and of plants which he considered 'inferior'.