The Colegrave Seabrook Foundation
Now known as the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation, the David Colegrave Foundation was set up in 1993, following the death of seedsman, David Colegrave. During his career, David Colegrave took a keen interest in supporting and promoting the development of young people, and it was with this in mind that the David Colegrave Foundation was launched shortly after his death. His great friend and fellow horticulturist, Peter Seabrook, became one of the founder trustees and remained a very active trustee until his death in January 2022. Peter shared David’s passion for horticulture and encouraging young people to join the industry. The trustees, with the blessing of the Seabrook family, felt that changing the name to The Colegrave Seabrook Foundation would be a fitting and lasting tribute to Peter’s untiring work to promote horticulture as a career and his tremendous support and enthusiasm for the industry as a whole. The name change took place in June 2022, but the fundamental principles and aims of the Foundation to support students studying horticulture and plant sciences, and to promote horticulture as a career, remain the same.
About David Colegrave
Born in 1925, David Colegrave entered the horticultural industry as a young man when he left the UK immediately after the war to work in Canada for the old-established Canadian seed house, McKenzie Seeds.
From there, his travels took him down to the US where he spent five years working in the flower seed production industry in California for Waller Flowerseed (a company that he would purchase in later years), followed by another five years back in Europe working for Graines d’Elite Clause, the well-known French flower breeding company.
In 1962 he returned to the UK and started his own business specialising in the sale of flower seeds to professional growers. The introduction to the UK market by Colegrave Seeds of innovations such as F1 hybrids, heat-sealed foil packs and plug (young plant) production, would help transform the bedding plant business into a significant industry, and turn Colegrave Seeds into a major British success story.
David Colegrave died in 1992, but his son, Jeff, continued to run the business until it was sold to Ball Horticultural Company, a major family-owned American business, in 2001.
During his career, David Colegrave took a keen interest in supporting and promoting the development of young people, and it was with this in mind that the David Colegrave Foundation (now The Colegrave Seabrook Foundation) was launched shortly after his death.
His son, Jeff Colegrave, was Chair of the Foundation until September 2025, but remains as a trustee.
About Peter Seabrook, MBE
Born and brought up near Chelmsford in Essex, Peter Seabrook began growing plants as a young child. After training in horticulture at Writtle Agricultural College (now part of Anglia Ruskin University) he became a company director for Cramphorn’s and later joined the Irish peat company Bord na Mona.
In the late 1960s Peter Seabrook began to pursue his freelance career as a horticultural journalist and presenter following his first appearances on television with a weekly slot about vegetable gardening on the BBC Pebble Mill at One programme. In 1976 he succeeded Percy Thrower as the chief presenter of BBC Gardeners’ World. He also became very well known USA during the 20 years that he was a regular presenter on the American public television programme The Victory Garden, which began in 1975.
He wrote many books on gardening and was The Sun’s gardening columnist for over 45 years. His overriding passion was to encourage as many people as possible, whatever their age, to take up, and more importantly succeed at gardening. He was always keen to share his tremendous knowledge through his writing and broadcasting and loved to chat to the public. He was involved in many school projects and had exhibited at RHS Chelsea Flower Show on numerous occasions. He was awarded RHS Associate of Honour in 1995 and the Victoria Medal of Honour in 2002. In 2005 he became an MBE. He was a founder of the Garden Media Guild, created in 1991, and in 1993 he became the first recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award.
Peter was a founding trustee of The Colegrave Seabrook Foundation when it was set up in 1993 (under the name of The David Colegrave Foundation) and was an active trustee right up until his death in January 2022.
Thanks to Arthur Edwards for supplying the photo of Peter.
Patron
A Message from our Patron - Alan Titchmarsh MBE
“I am immensely proud to be the Patron of the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation.
As a charity they do marvelous work in supporting students studying horticulture.
And horticulture is such an important part of our world and our economy. We need people to take on this mantle and follow us into the industry, to enjoy doing what we do and to persuade other people that horticulture is a career that covers so many branches.
I did a little survey once to find out how many different things in horticulture, how many different careers. I stopped at 70 – propagator, florist, plant breeder, research scientist, designer and artist, electronics technician, biologist, arboriculturist, grounds person – the list goes on.
The renaming of the Foundation is brilliant, I’m so glad that Peter will be remembered this way.
I knew Peter Seabrook for probably longer than I’ve been married – nearly 50 years, as a colleague, a fellow horticultural journalist, and also as a co-presenter of the Chelsea Flower Show programme for many, many years.
He was good company. He was a real fighter for horticulture and for getting children interested, not forcing them, but just showing them what gardening had to offer.
So I am very pleased to lend my support to the Trustees of the Colegrave Seabrook Foundation, many of whom I have known and worked with for a number of years, and the work they are doing to support all our futures through the students they support and encourage.”
