Thomas Hayton Mawson

Today is the anniversary of the death of the most prolific Edwardian Landscape Architect and town planner Thomas Hayton Mawson who died on this day in 1933.

When Mawson was a teenager, his dad started a nursery and fruit farm in Yorkshire. Mawson loved the orchard, but his happiness came to an abrupt end when his father died, and his mother was forced to sell the property.
But the nursery experience had left an impression on Mawson and his siblings, and at one point, they all pursued work in horticulture. 
In 1900, Mawson wrote his classic work, The Art and Craft of Garden Making, which was strongly influenced by the arts and crafts era. The book brought Mawson's influence and authority.
In short order, his firm Thomas H. Mawson & Sons, became THE firm for Landscape Architecture. Mawson's most famous client was William Hesketh Lever, and Mawson eventually designed many of his properties: Thornton Manor, Lever’s Cheshire home, Rivington Pike, and Lever’s London home, The Hill, Hampstead.
Mawson's most notable public work was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie: the gardens of the Peace Palace in The Hague in 1908.