Biographical note

David Austin OBE is the creator of the English Roses, an entirely new style of roses that have achieved international recognition. With his eldest son David J. C. Austin, he owns one of the world's leading rose nurseries, David Austin Roses. At Albrighton in Shropshire the family-run business has created rose gardens containing over 800 varieties. More than 1.2 million roses are grown for sale every year and the team carries out one of the largest rose breeding programmes in the world, selecting each year's new introductions after eight years of trialling.

Born in 1926, David Austin has been breeding and hybridizing roses for more than seventy years and is still very active at the nursery, devoting most of his time to developing new roses. He was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour by the Royal Horticultural Society in 2003 for his services to horticulture and in 2007 he received an OBE. He was awarded the Dean Hole Medal by the Royal National Rose Society and has received an honorary MSc from the University of East London for his work on rose breeding.