William Martin was Dunedin’s pioneer horticulturalist. Born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, he served his apprenticeship at the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens. He also attended classes in botany, Latin and Hebrew at Edinburgh University. In 1847 he left for Otago as one of the pioneer Scottish group aboard the Philip Laing. The journey began badly with the ship pinned against the British coast by violent storms for a full month. During one storm, when all the passengers feared they would be lost, Martin wrote a hymn (the manuscript of which is now in the Museum archives).
Martin brought with him a collection of seeds that he put to good use after arrival. He leased and cleared land around Dunedin, growing vegetables and other plants from his store of seeds. Within a short time he was able to buy 186 acres of land just beyond the Green Island bush. He planted out 10 acres as a nursery, naming it ‘Fairfield’, and leased the rest for farming.
In 1850 he imported fruit trees and conifers from America. This was the first importation of exotic tree species to Otago. They were popular additions to many early gardens. He was also a member of the first Otago Horticultural Society committee in 1851. By 1872 when he issued his first catalogue, Martin’s nursery had over 600 different kinds of plants available for sale.
William Martin married Mary Kirkland in 1852. They had three children. Mary died in 1884 and William remarried a cousin, Janet Thomson. His two sons also pre-deceased him but a grandson, also William Martin, was to become a noted New Zealand botanist. Martin’s garden at Fairfield was recognised as Otago’s finest for more than 50 years. Martin Road commemorates its site and trees planted by William Martin over 150 years ago can still be seen there.
William Martin