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Stephen Percival Cane (also known as Percy, Percy)

Percy Cane was born in Essex in 1881. He was inspired to become a garden designer after visiting Harold Peto's garden at Easton Lodge. He studied art and architecture at the Chelmsford College of Science and Art and wrote for the monthly magazine My Garden from 1915 onwards.

By 1919 he was established as a garden architect in London, and within a decade had built up a great reputation. He received several large commissions after World War 2, working mainly in large private gardens. He also produced several books on garden design from the 1920s to the 1960s. He was the winner of eight gold and three silver medals at Chelsea. He gained the Royal Horticultural Society Veitch medal in 1963 and continued to work until 1972. He died in Oxfordshire in 1976.

Sources:

Johnson, Charlotte, ‘Cane, Stephen Percival (1881–1976)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2004) < http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/46397> [accessed 7 Dec 2007]

Hadfield, Miles, et. al., British Gardeners: A Biographical Dictionary (London: A. Zwemmer, 1980), pp. 58-59.

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