Dr Andrew Coventry Professor of Agriculture at the University of Edinburgh 

‘But alas ! we have been deprived of the excellent Coventry, the Professor of Agriculture, a most excellent person; learned especially in science; more simple than any child; warm-hearted, ludicrously absent, combining the plainness of a farmer with the knowledge of a philosopher. His whole time was spent going about as a land doctor arranging agricultural affairs. He told me that in nine months last year he only slept four times in the same bed.’ But all beds, and tables, and companies were the same to Coventry ; for he was constantly happy, and so absent that he never knew one from another.’ This is a quote from The Claudians: gardens, landscapes, reason and faith: John Claudius Loudon and Claudius Buchanan, Tom Turner (Kindle, 2024).

More about Dr Coventry

Professor Dr Andrew Coventry lived at 29 Moray Place in Edinburgh and had a country estate at Shanwell, near Loch Leven, 32 miles north of Edinburgh. The Professorship of Agriculture was founded by Mr William Pulteney Johnstone, in the year 1790. Dr Coventry was nominated to the post on 22nd December of that year. 

‘The theory, and even the judicious practice of Agriculture was, at the time, or rather a little before the institution of this professorship, not much regarded, either by the farmers or the landed proprietors of Scotland. Lord Kaimes has the unquestionable merit of having first effectually attracted the attention of his countrymen to the subject. And perhaps this professorship may be regarded as a sequence to his honourable exertions; because it is well known how great intimacy subsisted between his lordship and Mr Pulteney. Dr Coventry's lectures have fortunately since their commencement excited great interest among those gentlemen who have had a taste for disquisitions respecting Agriculture, and have had an opportunity of benefiting by his instructions. In his lectures the Professor unites great scientific precision with details, which are much calculated to assist the student, who is aware of the vast importance of Agriculture to the prosperity and wealth of the individual, as well as of nations.’ The Edinburgh Student's Guide: Or, an Account of the Classes of the University Alexander Bower, 1822

Sir John Sinclair reported that ‘the intelligent Dr Coventry’ advised that ‘the quantity of accurate information on the subject of vegetation… is extremely small. Still, however, the little which has been already discovered, has proved of signal advantage in gardening; and there is no reason, why it should not likewise contribute, in as great a degree, to the improvement of agriculture, which is a more extensive, as well as a more economical mode of cultivating the soil.’

Jane Loudon wrote, in her Life of her husband, that 'While at Mr. Dickson's, he attended classes of botany, chemistry, and agriculture; the last under Dr. Coventry, who was then Professor of Agriculture in the University of Edinburgh, and he was considered by that gentleman to be his most promising pupil.' She adds that 'As he brought a great number of letters of recommendation to different noblemen and gentlemen of landed property, many of them being from Dr. Coventry, with whom he was a great favourite, he was soon extensively employed as a landscape-gardener; and his journal is filled with accounts of his tours in various parts of England.' This evidence gives us every reason to believe that Dr Coventry was a significant influence on Loudon. It explains (1) how Loudon got so many clients at such an early age (2) Loudon's dedication to travel, which Dr Coventry also had (3) Loudon's lifelong belief that estates required comprehensive plans embracing farming, forestry, gardening and estate layout. Loudon called this art 'landscape gardening at the at the outset of his career, 'landscape improvement' in his 20s and, it is suggested in The Claudians, considered calling it 'landscape architecture' in his 50s.

Loudon described his own father as a pioneer of modern farming in Central Scotland and persuaded him to move to England to improve farming techniques there. In JC Loudon's work at Great Tew he had a full opportunity to implement Dr Coventry's ideas.