Newsletter  (May 2015)  Page(s) 3-4.  
 
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam ....By the onset of the 20th century, the rose had virtually vanished from nursery catalogues, primarily—so it was supposed— because it was difficult to grow. On the one hand it was an abundant early bloomer; on the other, according to several rosarians of the time, a rather feeble garden rose. Yet it was the first English hybrid tea of any significance, being the first hybrid tea to be completely fertile. It was the pollen parent of 30 first generation hybrid teas, though with the exception of five or so they were negligible. Another 2004 roses are related in the second, third, and fourth generation of descendents....
Gertrude Jekyll does not list it in her well-known volume Roses for English Gardens (1902). The rose had virtually vanished. In the early 1960s Wilhelm Kordes went in quest of this productive pink or tawny pink rose. At first he thought he had found it still growing in New Zealand, but that rose was ‘Mrs. Wakefield Christie-Miller’, a two-toned pink. In 1975 Keith Money found a solitary plant growing in a Norfolk garden. When he and Peter Beales published a color photo of the rose is a booklet, two letters from Australia, one from a long-time nurseryman who had grown the rose “extensively,” declared the rose to be ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam’. A photo, however, is not conclusive evidence. The other letter was from the niece of Henry Bennett’s greatgranddaughter, who further added that Bennett’s son Charles had immigrated to Australia and established a nursery in Homebush, New South Wales by 1890. There he bred the rose ‘Mrs. C.B. Pitt’, using the tea ‘Alba Rosea’ and ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam’. Clearly he had taken along some rose stock from his father. But does the rose still grow in Australia? Australian rose authority Patricia Routley grows it there next to ‘Mris. Wakefield Christie-Miller’. The two roses are clearly different. Coincidentally in 2001, when she visited South Australia, she saw the two roses growing side by side as well. What supposedly is the same rose has been found also in a few California locations, including in an old Calaveras County cemetery. But are those the true ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam’? The roses I’ve seen bearing that name are invariably a soft or light uniform pink. Yet the old descriptions from 1883 to that of Dean Hole in 1901 describe it as flesh pink, rosy flesh, delicate rosy flesh, and Bennett himself wrote that it was “light tender flesh colour.” Few rose photos on HelpMeFind show the rose as other than simply pure pink—granted, as I’ve said, photos are not conclusive evidence. Patricia Routley’s rose in Western Australia, however, is clearly “rosy flesh” or “flesh pink.”

Book  (Apr 1993)  Page(s) 300.  
 
Hybrid Tea, light pink, 1882, 'Devoniensis' x 'Victor Verdier'; Bennett. Flowers flesh-color, globular, large; very fragrant; vigorous growth; a famour parent rose.

Magazine  (1992)  Page(s) 13. Vol 14, No. 2.  
 
Dr. [A. S.] Thomas recalls: Lady Mary Fitzwilliam. (H.T. Bennett 1882) Somewhat like ‘La France’ but a tetraploid and an ancestor of most modern roses. The world’s top authorities on the older roses disagree as to this rose being still in existance, some claiming that it has been re-discovered in very recent years. I have never seen it.

Book  (1992)  Page(s) 267.  Includes photo(s).
 
Plate 231

Lady Mary Fitzwilliam. [HT] Bennett, 1882. From ‘Devoniensis’(T) x ‘Victor Verdier’ (HP)

“Robust, well-branched, enormous flowers, globular, very full, pale delicate flesh, of the ‘Captain Christy’ sort; excellent for exhibtion.” (JR6/69)

“Blooms in abundance on short branches, giving blossoms of 3 in (ca. 7.5 cm) at the height of bloom.” (JR7/136)

”Flowers which would be difficult to surpass in beauty.” (JR8/156)

“Of moderate vigour, giving enormous globular blossoms which are full and of a light flesh-white. The large bud is well-formed, and has the advantage of lasting a long time before opening.... lightly fragrant.”(JR14/84)

“Of a delicate rosy flesh-colour, very large globular well-formed flowers with long and fine petals, dwarf growth, hardy and robust, but its growth seems to be checked by the habit of producing too many of these large and exhausting flowers.”(B&V)

“One of the best... dwarf, but robust and very floriferous.”(JR7/83)

Magazine  (May 1987)  Page(s) 91.  
 
The raiser of ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam’ was not Henry Sheperd as stated by Mr. Strange. this must have been a slip of the pen for Henry Bennett, pioneer of controlled hybridization.

Book  (1987)  Page(s) 115.  
 
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam was bred in 1882 from the Tea rose ‘Devoniensis’ x ‘Victor Verdier’ (H.P.), not to be confused with the Hybrid Perpetual ‘Mme. Victor Verdier’(1863) from Verdier. This parentage was very similar to that of ‘La France’ and it proved to be a wonderful rose for breeding purposes. A big, globular, pink rose, it appears generations ago in the ancestry of nearly every modern rose. This rose was believed to be lost. At one stage, it was thought that it had been found again, but unfortunately this was not so. This has been the greatest and most regrettable loss of all the roses which have disappeared from cultivation. In view of its great use in hybridising, this rose is apparently a tetraploid. This is all in contrast with ‘La France’, which was released fifteen years earlier and is still grown. The breeding of ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam is stated to have been:

Jules Margottin. HP (1853) x Safrano. T. (1939)
Victor Verdier. HP (1959) x Devoniensis. T. (1835)
= Lady Mary Fitzwillam. HT. (1882)

I cannot find any record of the ploidy of any of those five roses, but their fertility suggests that they are tetraploids.

Book  (1985)  Page(s) 29.  
 
[In 1882, Henry Bennett released six new roses] of which the most famous was a pink Hybrid Tea, 'Lady Mary Fitzwilliam'... light pink, very fragrant, and of a fine shape... It was raised from a Tea rose found in Plymouth in 1838, called 'Devoniensis', crossed with the deep pink Hybrid Perpetual, 'Victor Verdier'...

Book  (1959)  Page(s) 17.  
 
In 1882 Bennett put out ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam’, a famous rose which appears in the pedigree of a great many modern varieties, but which unfortunately seems to have disappeared completely from cultivation. Wilhelm Kordes of Holstein, the originator of many of our present garden roses, has been searching diligently all over the world for a plant of this variety, for its many distinctive qualities might still be useful in breeding.

Book  (1956)  Page(s) 47.  
 
J. A. Gamble.  ‘Lady Mary Fitzwilliam’.   (A survey of descendants and their colour and fragrance).
….These few really great ‘Mothers of Roses’ down the long stretch of some one hundred and fifty years have, it seems to me, earned a special place of honour in our rose thinking.  They richly deserve to be searched out and the contribution of each to the better roses we now have be made more generally known to those who enjoy this flower.  It would seem desirable also that all these be preserved for posterity in such a way as to prevent their further disappearance.  And unless this is done soon, some of those still here will be lost and become only names to the rose folks who come after.

Book  (1954)  Page(s) 213.  
 
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam (Bennett, 1882) - In blossom production and form of blossom, this famous parent of many of the earlier hybrid teas is a compromise between its two parents, Devoniensis and Victor Verdier. Although of rather weak growth, it greatly increased the general interest in the class at the time and eventually became the parent of such well known varieties as Antoine Rivoire, Kaiserin Auguste Viktoria, Mme. Caroline Testout, Mrs. W. J. Grant, Souvenir du Président Carnot, and White Lady. The blossoms are intensely fragrant, light pink, very large, and globular in form.