On this day in Yorkshire 1951

Mr. George Russell, the Yorkshireman who created the lupin as know it, and in his lifetime added more gaiety to the English garden than any other man in horticultural history, died yesterday, aged 94, at Albrighton, near Wolverhampton.

In this year’s New Year Honours he was awarded the M.B.E. for his services to horticulture.

A native of Stillington, Mr. Russell became known affectionately as the Lupin Man after years of tedious work in which he evolved from the original blue and white lupins, endless multicoloured variations.

He first became interested in lupins as a boy of 10 when his father took him to York Gala. More than 40 years later he was attracted to a vase of lupins on his employer’s parlour table.

He was then a jobbing gardener living at South Bank, York, and had an allotment at Bishopthorpe Road.

Dissatisfied with the look of his employer’s lupins, Mr. Russell decided to improve on the flower. After buying a packet of German lupin seeds, he crossed them with his own plants. For more than 15 years he sowed, selected, pollenised and tended his lupins until finally new colours began to show.