History
The Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) was founded in 1954 to research and promote organic gardening, farming, and food. The charity adopted the working name "Garden Organic" in 2005 and is now the UK’s leading organic growing charity. "Henry Doubleday Research Association" remains the legal name the charity is registered and trading.
It was founded by horticulturist and freelance journalist Lawrence D Hills and named after Henry Doubleday, an Essex-based Quaker smallholder who had a particular interest in the properties of comfrey.
The organisation was first based at Bocking near Braintree, Essex hence the name of Bocking 14, a variety of comfrey bred by Hills for its useful properties. A sister organisation was also formed in Australia, the Henry Doubleday Research Association of Australia Inc.
Jackie and Alan Gear took over management of the charity in 1976, and in 1985 the organisation relocated to its present 22-acre (89,000 m2) headquarters site at Ryton-on-Dunsmore near Coventry in the West Midlands. The Gears retired in 2004, when Dr. Susan Kay-Williams became the chief executive and the charity changed its working name to Garden Organic. Dr. Kay-Williams left in the summer of 2007 and the charity appointed Myles Bremner, former Director of Fundraising at children’s charity, NCH.
Read more about this topic: Garden Organic
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