He promoted town gardening, aquariums, bee-keeping, vegetarianism, water recycling, environmental conservation and the prevention of cruelty to animals and birds, all before they were taken up as 'causes' in the twentieth century.

Shirley Hibberd was born in Mile End Old Town, now part of Stepney, in east London, England.

As a journalist, Hibberd worked on a succession of popular family magazines and was a frequent contributor to Notes and Queries.

He soon discovered the difficulties of gardening in inner city London where the atmosphere was laden with soot, and fog and smog was prevalent throughout the winter.

This was Hibberd's opportunity to make a name for himself, and he began to teach himself gardening, discovering what plants could survive in London and how amateurs could learn things for themselves.

The same year he had already published Brambles and Bay Leaves, a book of essays on science and natural history, largely based on articles he had previously written for magazines or on lectures he had given.

These were followed by three books on aquariums, another enduring interest for early scientists, who were fascinated with the complexities of preserving living things in water and how oxygen was used.

By 1856 Hibberd had moved to Tottenham, further north in London, and there began to keep a variety of aquatic creatures, birds and bees.

He exhibited his 'town honey' at horticultural shows and promoted the idea of keeping bees on balconies and even inside people's houses, where they could come and go through windows.

Later, however, when the society had been reformed, he worked closely with them, and the main reason he moved to Kew was to help re-organise the neglected RHS garden at Chiswick.

Hibberd ended the quarrel with a quotation from Shakespeare's King John implying that Robinson was of so little account that a drop of water would drown him.

It is sometimes thought that he promoted what is considered as typical Victorian formal gardening, based on half-hardy 'bedding plants' and that his books are therefore old-fashioned and irrelevant today.

Hibberd constantly condemned the use of bedding plants by amateurs as he felt they were unsuitable for small gardens whose owners would not have the facilities for growing them in glasshouses or the finances to buy them in sufficient quantities, and nor would they be able to maintain such displays adequately.

He also taught amateurs all the skills of growing fruit and vegetables, secrets so closely guarded by professionals that they refused to write about them for general readers.