The fantastic story of a vanilla orchid, a man and his need for a watering plants
Game-changing ideas often start as solutions to particular challenges, and this is certainly the case with Haws. To understand how our watering cans came into being since 1886, consider the context and times in which our founder John Haws first conceived his device…
Although our John Haws originally came from Clapton in east London, he lived on Mauritius from 1862–1886, when he worked for the British Colonial Service. The island, with its tropical climate lies just over 1,000 miles from the coast of south eastern Africa, and just east of Madagascar. In those times of empire, Mauritius had previously been colonised by the Dutch, and then later the French, but in 1810 it was seized by the British. (Interestingly many French traditions long endured and indeed French is still widely spoken across the island; John and his family spoke it even after his return to the UK.)
The vanilla connection
Vanilla plants (Vanilla planifolia) were brought as a crop to Mauritius and Reunion (a nearby island once known by the French as ‘Ile de Bourbon’– the name lives on today in the term ‘Bourbon vanilla’) from Mexico in 1819. Vanilla plants are orchids that grow as a vine, scrambling up trees, with a light green to pale yellow flowers.
Although plantations were developed and the plants flourished, one vital point had been overlooked. In the wild in Mexico, vanilla orchids are pollinated by a very particular kind of bee, but these insects are absent on Mauritius – and unfortunately, the structure of the vanilla flower, each of which lasts just a day, prevents natural self-fertilization.
As a result, the all-important vanilla pods used in flavouring a wide range of different foods would just not develop (it takes around nine months for them to mature) and the venture was initially a complete failure, despite extensive plantings. But then in 1841, a 12-year-old boy originally born into slavery named Edmond Albius made an amazing discovery – how to hand-pollinate vanilla plants so that they would produce pods.
After this, the valuable crop went on to thrive, with teams of people hand-pollinating plants daily. Mauritius and Reunion became major producers until a cyclone in 1892 wiped out the plantations, after which Madagascan production took off and took over. Today vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world (after saffron) and is again grown on the island, as a premium quality, organic crop.
Mauritius around 1853, a hand-coloured print by Frederick Fiebig, a decade or so before John Haws arrived on the island in 1862.
Image courtesy of the British Library
Inspired design
But where does Haws fit into the story? Many islanders including John Haws grew their own vanilla on a small scale in their gardens, as young plants can be raised from stem cuttings. To do this, the cuttings needed careful cultivation and John found traditional French-style watering cans then in use were woefully inadequate for the task; their looped handle made it hard to control the water flow and he found the delicate young plants were easily damaged.
What was needed was a more manoeuvrable can, better-suited to lifting and precision watering… so he started thinking up ways in which to improve the traditional design.
When he left Mauritius for good in 1886, John returned to Clapton where he started the Haws company and secured the patent for a new kind of watering can. Painstakingly made by hand in those early days, Haws watering cans soon became known for their quality, versatility and practicality making them every bit as desirable as the hand-pollinated crop that originally inspired their development.
The can carefully improved since 1886
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