Best Site Good Work bad credit loan loan personal unsecured Since that visit I’ve found out that Arthur J Bliss (1862-1931) was a major iris breeder in the early years of the 20th century. He had an international reputation and his full-petalled irises changed the direction of iris breeding. Bliss was the son of an Oxford vicar called William Bliss and Arthur was the oldest son of 11 children. The family budget precluded him from going to university, although all seven sons were educated at Stonyhurst College, a catholic boarding school in Lancashire. Bliss, who is thought to have been a civil engineer, worked in New Zealand and South Africa. However, he went deaf, possibly after an accident, and retired aged 40. He moved to the Devon village of Morwellham Quay on the banks of the River Tamar in 1912 and devoted himself to breeding irises. He was encouraged by Britain’s foremost iris authority, William Rickatson Dykes, secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society 1921-25. Following Dykes’s tragic death in a road accident in 1925, the Dykes Medal was created and it’s still awarded annually to the best tall bearded iris.