Walter Easlea, 1st. (1832-1919) Born April 11, 1932 in Stowmarket. Married Sarah Barnard on October 20, 1856. Died January 27, 1919.
Walter Easlea, Jr. 2nd. (September 14, 1859 - February12, 1945) Born September 14, 1859 in Colchester. Married Harriet Ada Allen in December, 1884. They had three sons and three daughters. Walter and Ada moved to Cambridge during WWII and he died on February 12, 1945.
Walter Allen Easlea, 3rd. Son of Walter Easlea Jr. (1889- 1917 Ypres). Married Ethel Salter. One daughter,Margaret. Died September 21, 1917
George Easlea. Son of Walter Easlea Jr. (1893-1961) Married Louisa Webb on September 21 1919. One daughter, Thelma. George and Louisa emigrated to New Zealand in 1955.
Maurice Easlea. Youngest son of Walter Easlea, Jr. Born 1898, Married Adeline Clark. they had two daughters and he lived in Cambridge, which is why Walter, 2nd moved there.
Walter Easlea's great grand daughter, Vivienne Hawken, writes: "The breeding of Easlea's Roses ceased during the Second World War when the ground they were renting was taken back for growing vegetables. My grandfather, George Easlea, emigrated to New Zealand in 1954 and although was still involved in horticulture did not continue the rose growing. He died in 1961."
For prior roses see the listing of Walter Easlea .
[From Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener, January 21, 1897, p. 51:] Hybridisation of Roses. The N.R.S. Prize Essay, by Walter Easlea... He is the son of one who was associated with the late Mr. Laxton in the various experiments on hybridisation carried out both at Stamford and Bedford, and he is moreover engaged at Messrs, W. Paul & Sons, at Waltham Cross...
[From Rosen-Zeitung, 1897, Nr. 4, p. 51:] Prized work of National Rose Society, delivered by Walter Easlea, Head gardener at W. Paul and Son.
[From The Garden, 1909, p. 524:] Catalogues received. Mr. Walter Easlea, Danecroft Rosery, Eastwood, Essex: Roses
Heritage Roses New Zealand June 2009, vol 30, No. 2, p13. Walter Easlea and Sons. A Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Walter Easlea. by Jim Sanctuary.
[From Leighway, January 2010, Nr. 29, p. 5-6:] Walter Easlea and Son's famous Danecroft Rose Nursery, established in 1906, and where, in 1932, Walter was to produce his finest and most celebrated rose, 'Easlea's Golden Rambler', still in commerce today. Walter Easlea was the son of a working gardener. His father, also Walter, was employed by a wealthy Colchester family when Walter junior was born in December 1859. A few years later, Walter senior moved his family to Stamford, Lincolnshire, to take up employment with the plant breeder, Thomas Laxton. It was seeing Laxton, a scholarly horticulturist and associate of Charles Darwin, crossing peas that first fired young Walter with the enthusiasm for hybridising, and, while still a young boy, he was raising his own crosses of peas, potatoes and strawberries.....Walter's first experience of rose growing was when the family moved to Oxfordshire, where his father worked for the rosarian, George Prince. Bitten by the rose-bug, young Walter moved to Cheshunt to take up a job as a budder. A little later, he joined his father at Waltham Cross, working for the rose-breeder, William Paul, where he developed his hybridisation skills....In the early 1900s, after thirty years of working at Waltham Cross, Walter, now in his mid-forties, thought it time to better himself financially and decided he should start his own rose growing business. His search for suitable land took him to the Pickett's area of Eastwood (which did not become part of Leigh until 1913), and here he secured 'some acres of good clayey loam', as he was later to recall, on the south side of Eastwood Road North, then known as Pickett's Road. At this time, most of the land in Leigh to the north of the London Road was still being farmed and Walter's nursery plot had previously been a wheat field. The year was 1906 and the Danecroft Rose Nursery was now in business.....Walter and his wife, Ada, moved to Cambridge at the start of the War to be near their son, Maurice, from where Walter continued to write informative articles on roses for the horticultural press. He remained on the Council of the National Rose Society until his death, aged 85, in February 1945.
