William Bradbery

William Bradbery (11 July 1776 – 11 August 1860), an entrepreneur, was the first person in England to cultivate and sell watercress on a commercial basis.

William was born in Didcot in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), he was one of seven children to Thomas and Catherine Bradbery. In 1796 he married Phoebe Whiting in Marcham, Berkshire. Until around 1805 he stayed in the Marcham area, then they moved to Springhead, Northfleet in Kent, where he first started to cultivate watercress.

In an article by Henry Bellenden Ker, FRS in 1822, to the London Horticultural Society. He states, "I lately found that watercress is grown in this neighbourhood, by Mr. William Bradbery, for the purpose of supplying the London markets. Mr. Bradbery first began to cultivate the watercress in February 1808, at Northfleet Spring Head, near Gravesend. For this purpose, he procured young plants, and placed them, with a small proportion of the wet earth in which they grew, in shallow running water; the plants soon formed large , and rapidly spread over the water; and he then gathered the cress regularly for the London markets".

"Mr. Bradbery now having left Northfleet last year (1820),began to plant, at a considerable personal expense, beds of the cress, at West Hyde, near Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. Mr. Bradbery has about five acres of lakes planted with cress. He sends the cress in hampers, each containing eight dozen bunches, to the London markets, every day throughout the year, except Sundays; three days in each week to Covent Garden market, and the other three days to Newgate market. This cultivation of the watercress has insured a constant and regular supply to the metropolis, and the gatherings are received much fresher, and more regularly packed, than those obtained from plants in the wild state; where little selection is made as to the quality, or attention paid to the state of the vegetable, which is usually sent up to town in sacks, and often much bruised and broken before it reaches the retail dealer".

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