Sir Charles Edmund Isham, 10th Baronet (16 December 1819 – 7 April 1903) was an English landowner and gardener based at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire. He is credited with beginning the tradition of garden gnomes in the United Kingdom when he introduced a number of terracotta figures from Germany in the 1840s. Nicknamed "Lampy", the only gnome of the original batch to survive is on display at Lamport Hall and insured for £1 million.
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Biography
Charles Edmund Isham was born on 16 December 1819 at the family estate at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire. He was the second son of Sir Justinian Isham, 8th Baronet (1773–1845) and his wife, Mary Close (d. 1878).
Isham was educated at Rugby School and Brasenose College, Oxford. In 1846, on the death of his elder brother, he succeeded to the baronetcy. He is recorded as being the High Sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1851.
In 1847, inspired by the writings of John Claudius Loudon, landscape gardener and horticulturalist, he commenced construction of a large rockery alongside his house. It was in this rockery that he first placed gnomes from Nuremberg as ornamentation.
Isham married Emily Vaughan, daughter of Sir John Vaughan and his wife Louisa Boughton on 26 October 1847. Emily died on 6 September 1898 aged 74. Sir Charles had three daughters.