John Haverfield

He was born at Haverfield House on Kew Green, the son of John Haverfield Sr (1694–1784) and Ann Drew. His father, a surveyor at Twickenham, was Head Gardener at Kew to Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, and superintendent of the Royal Gardens at Richmond Lodge. Haverfield was trained as a gardener and from 1762 was his father's assistant.

When his father died in 1784 John took over his father's position at Kew Gardens, but only for a few years, by which time he had developed his own landscape gardening business.^[3][4] In July 1794 the Kew kitchen garden was closed and John resigned. In September he was placed on a Bounty List with a £250pa pension.^[5]

In 1769 he met Augusta's nephew, Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, who was the same age, who took him to Gotha. There, near the castle, he laid out a garden based on the ideas of Lancelot Capability Brown, which is one of the first English landscape gardens on the continent.^[6] In 1790 John designed the landscape for Chiselhampton House.^[7]

He was also involved in other garden projects and played a key role in the construction of Walsingham Abbey Park, Walsingham, from 1804 to 1816. John remodelled the gardens at Pitzhanger Manor for Sir John Soane, creating a curving 'serpentine' lane, a rustic bridge, and a plantation. He also worked on Tyringham House in Buckinghamshire which Soane had designed. Haverfield also visited other Soane schemes: Hinton Saint George (1796), Bentley Priory (1798), Ramsey Abbey (1804), Moggerhanger House (1809 & 1810).^[7]

In 1783 Haverfield and Robert Tunstall (c 1759–1833), his brother-in-law, applied and obtained an Act of Parliament to rebuild Kew Bridge in stone to replace the wooden bridge.^[8]

In 1773 he married married Elizabeth Tunstall (1756–1819), daughter of Robert Tunstall (d 1762). The Tunstall family came from Brentford and had operated a horse-ferry since 1659.^[9] Her father had built the first wooden Kew Bridge in 1758–1759.^[10] Their children were

• Elizabeth Ann Haverfield (1776–1817). Her portrait was painted by Thomas Gainsborough, when she was aged about eight or nine years old; it is now in The Wallace Collection.^[11][3]
• John Haverfield (1780–1830) who became a Justice of the Peace, Lieutenant Colonel and Quarter Master General.^[12] His first marriage in 1805 was to Susannah Slade. His second marriage in 1815 at Kew was to Isabella Francis Meyer, the daughter of Jeremiah Meyer, a miniature painter who also lived on Kew Green.^[13] He is buried at St Anne's, Kew.
• Mary Isabella Haverfield (1782–1852)
• Robert Tunstall Haverfield (1783–1839) a captain in the Royal Navy.^[14]
• Rev Thomas Tunstall Haverfield (1787–1866), who was curate at St Anne's Church, Kew (1812–1818), Chaplain to Queen Charlotte (d. 1818), and Rector of Goddington.^[15] He is buried at St Anne's, Kew.

Haverfield retired in 1795. He died in April 1820 and was buried at St Anne's Church, Kew, on 25 April 1820, in the family tomb.^[16]