Charles Isham

Sir Charles Edmund Isham, 10th Baronet (16 December 1819 – 7 April 1903) was an English landowner and gardener based at Lamport Hall, Northampton.

He is credited with beginning the tradition of garden gnomes in the United Kingdom when he introduced a number of terracotta figures from Germany in the 1840s.

In 1847, inspired by the writings of John Claudius Loudon, landscape gardener and horticulturalist, he commenced construction of a large rockery alongside his house.

[3] The baronetcy, and the entailed estate including Lamport Hall, was inherited by Sir Vere Isham, 11th Baronet, his first cousin once removed.

[5] These included a fragment of Thomas Edwards' Cephalus and Procris; Narcissus which had been lost for 200 years and was the only existing part until a full copy was subsequently discovered at the Cathedral Library at Peterborough.