Trustees & Officials

The late Alan Mitchell (1922-1995) was an internationally acclaimed dendrologist who came to public notice when his book A Field Guide to the Trees of Britain and Northern Europe was first published by Collins in 1974.

Alan studied forestry in Dublin, Ireland from 1947-51, gaining a degree before going briefly to Trinity Botanic Garden and then the Forestry Commission as assistant geneticist at the Alice Holt Research Station, Surrey, England. His work gave him access to many private estates in search for the selection of fine trees for seed collection. He had an insatiable thirst for compiling lists, helped by a genuine photographic memory for statistics.

His travels enabled him to find and re-measure trees recorded by JC Loudon in the 1800’s, Elwes and Henry 1906-1913, the 1890 and 1930 Conifer Conference Reports by the Royal Horticultural Society and the more recent work of the Hon. Maynard Greville in the 1950’s.
His continuing work provided most of the data for the 1970 Conifer Conference. In 1972 the Forestry Commission published his detailed descriptions, identification and further data on exceptional specimens as their Booklet 33 Conifers in the British Isles. This work led to the Collins Field Guide and a later Pocket Guide both still selling well. He received the Royal Horticultural Society’s Veitch Memorial Medal for his data on conifers and a Victoria Medal of Honour in 1970.

His continuing search for rare and exceptional trees enabled the Forestry Commission to publish the first comprehensive list of Champion Trees which they continued to update until 1994. Alan retired from the Forestry Commission in 1986 and set up a consultancy service Green Scene with Victoria Schilling (then Hallett) before founding the Tree Register in 1988. Alan continued measuring and recording trees on his hand written card index completing records of over 100,000 trees before his death in 1995.

Victoria Schilling worked alongside Alan Mitchell as assistant dendrologist at Alice Holt for many years before Alan retired and together they set up the tree consultancy Green Scene.

By 1988 they realised the future of this vast register of trees would be best protected within a charity and through its trustees. Vicky became the driving force of this new charity called The Tree Register (TROBI), encouraging a band of keen volunteers to help update and expand the Register. By 1995 the Forestry Commission had recognised the Tree Register’s exceptional status and began passing all inquiries on data collection and champion trees directly to the charity.

After working as the Tree Register Registrar, Secretary and Treasurer and at one time all three, Vicky retired and moved from Sussex to a new home with husband Tony in the north west of Scotland. After a relatively short illness Vicky sadly died in November 2019. In 2020 The Tree Register set up the Vicky Schilling Bursary to help fund tree measuring volunteers.