RESEARCH - Louise Little pressed flower sample mystery
We received from Louise Little in January 2018 these photos of a plant sample with a printed label “HERBARIUM C. BICKNELL BORDIGHERA”. Prof Massoni and the year 1876 are referenced.
This sample is a mystery to me and the researchers in the Clarence Bicknell Association, for a couple of reasons. We would be grateful if any botanical expert could give us guidance.
1) We have never seen this printed label before and we think it unlikely that it was printed by Bicknell himself. It could, however, have been printed by the institution housing the herbarium (that is, the collection of pressed flowers and plants), a collection big enough to have warranted printing of a label. The network of collectors and museums was large at the end of the 19 century, so it would be one of them.
2) The hand-writing is not Clarence Bicknell’s.
3) Bicknell was not established in Bordighera in 1876. He first arrived there in 1878 and settled there a year later. We have no previous evidence of Bicknell collecting samples and sending them to other collectors before he settled in Bordighera. The Museo Bicknell, which housed his own botanical collections, was not built until 1888. Therefore, whoever prepared this printed label and the framed pressed flower, most likely back-dated it. It might be that the person framing it did not know at which Prof Massoni received the sample. It is possible that the date reads 1896 in which case this paragraph is not applicable.
4) The water-coloured frame for the pressed flower is unusually ornate, as if to try to add value to the object. Similarly, the wood of the frame is of a kind called “distressed beach wood” and very popular in modern framing, even available in this form on eBay and other popular web sites. Any thought that the frame is a modern fabrication is offset by the fact that the French-language newspaper on the rear of the frame appears to be a genuine period piece. The text of the newspaper is all in French, but there is no indication of which newspaper it is from. The text is mainly on events in Rome, dated 12 and 15 January 1872. This would seem to confirm that date of 1876 for the pressed flower, not 1896.
5) In the top left corner is written Firenze and what could be a catalogue number.
6) The pressed flower was found so framed by Louise Little in the last few months a local brocante fair in South West France “and was instantly drawn to it due to its colours and age, but at the time was not sure of its historical significance.
Thanks in advance for any information you can provide.
Clarence Bicknell au Palais d l'Agriculture de Nice, 
glais. Propriété de la SCAH, l'édifice est inscrit au titre des monuments historiques le 28 mars 19911. Le bâtiment a reçu le label « Patrimoine du XXe siècle ». Sa restauration s'est achevée en 2012.
I wrote to Thomas Cook to ask for permisson to reproduce images of theirs in the biography of Clarence Bicknell by Valerie Lester due in 2018. I was delighted not only to get the approvals but also a charming letter from Paul Smith, the Archivist for Thomas Cook, with some useful information. I reproduce the email here in full as it might be of interest to historians of travel and to students of Clarence's life. I have corrected the transcript of Clarence's Egypt diary and added the salient points here to its footnotes and the annex. You can consult the new version by clicking on the following link:
Clarence Bicknell - the biography - by Valerie Lester is due in spring 2018. We are delighted to tell all Clarence's followers that the completed book is at second draft.
Did you know that the book's writer, Valerie Lester, left, a descendant of Clarence Bicknell's maternal grand parents Browne, and of his uncle Phiz, Dickens' illustrator, also wrote Fasten Your Seat Belts! History and Heroism in the Pan Am Cabin (1995), which is a history of Pan American told in the voices of its cabin crew; Phiz, The Man Who Drew Dickens (London, 2004), a biography of Hablot Knight Browne, Dickens’s principal illustrator (Clarence Bicknell’s uncle and Valerie’s great-great-grandfather); and Giambattista Bodoni: His Life and His World (Boston 2015). Her bio is available 
At the award ceremony for the Parmurelu d'Oru in Bordighera in October I had the pleasure of meeting Lucetta Rostan who had purchased a copy of the Casa Fontanalba Visitors' Book. She wrote to me yesterday with interesting information about Edoardo Rostan, botanist, as follows:
The talk I and Dr Giovanni Russo gave in Bordighera's Museo Bicknell on Saturday 11 October went down well. Sophie Forestier of Nice Matin, a great Clarence fan who lives in Tende where he was buried, wrote a cracking article with all the facts and a good feel too. You can look at the article in French at 
“By the Grace of God, John, just look at the Samuel Enderby will you? What a ship. Glorious. And full to the gunwhales with sperm oil, I’ll be bound. We’ll find out tomorrow our share”.
“Elhanan, dear friend, do you feel the chill of an industry coming to an end? How many times will we watch with pride a sailing ship returning from the south Pacific ocean with such a rich cargo? Will London’s street lights and the lighthouses of the world burn bright with our whale oil? Will we long see sailing boats plying their trade on the high sea; why, only this August I read that Brunel’s iron steamship SS Great Britain crossed from Liverpool to New York with a engine driven by steam and a metal screw rotating faster than the eye can see. The Queen, god bless her, travelled on his Great Western Railway… and survived.”
when necessary, Landseer, sketching him at full length in pencil on the back of an envelope. It’s an amusing little drawing and I have encouraged the pair of them to have Hogarth print it for the amusement of the public! Amusement… even my children, peeping into the room, understood the joke, even Clarence who, although he is only 3, spends all his time with Lucinda learning how to draw.”
Helen Blanc-Francard writes...An extremely well researched, exhaustive and interesting paper entitled 'Les Plantes Alimentaires de la Vallee de La Roya’ 
Maddalena Cataldi is here at our home near London looking at the Clarence materials for her PhD provisionally entitled ""Découvrir et Comprendre les Gravure Rupestres du Mont Bégo". Like us, she has let her mind wander over Clarence's person and his time in Bordighera and Casterino. Within minutes she had found a little gem which I had not noticed ...