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David JC Austin, who has died aged 67, joined the family rose-breeding business founded by his father David (CH) Austin at Albrighton, near Wolverhampton, and helped him to build it into a great British success story.
David Julian Charles Austin was born on August 15 1958, one of three children of David (Charles Henshaw) Austin and his wife Patricia, nee Braithwaite, a sculptor and painter. He was educated at Abraham Darby School, Telford (now Haberdashers’ Abraham Darby) and the University of Salford, where he read business studies.
In the 1950s his father, a Shropshire farmer and keen gardener, unimpressed with the stiff habit and often crude colours of hybrid teas, had begun crossing old-fashioned rose varieties with modern cultivars with the aim of combining the style of flower, rich fragrance and shrubby growth of old roses with the wide colour range, robust health and repeat-flowering habit of modern roses.
What began as a hobby developed into a commercial venture when he introduced his first commercially available rose, Rosa “Constance Spry”, in 1963, followed by “Chianti” and “Shropshire Lass” in 1967 and 1968 respectively. But these first roses bloomed only once, and it was only in 1969, when he took his repeat-flowering “Chaucer” varieties to Chelsea, that he founded his company.
The roses took Chelsea by storm and David Austin Roses would become a show-stopping fixture in the main marquee, notching up some 30 RHS Chelsea Flower Show gold medals over the years.
During the school holidays young David and his friends would earn pocket money weeding in his father’s rose fields, and after graduation he spent a couple of years working in the family business.
At that time, however, the business was still relatively small, so David decided to gain wider commercial experience in the jewellery industry. From 1981 to 1993 he and his first wife Francine opened and ran David Austin Jewellers, a chain of six shops across the West Midlands employing 50 people.
He returned to the family business in 1990 as managing director and, working alongside his father, built David Austin Roses into a substantial international brand.
By the end of the century it was running one of the largest rose-breeding programmes in the world, carrying out more than 150,000 crosses each year and supplying garden centres in Britain as well as outlets in Europe, the US, Canada and Japan – and even China and Russia.
By his father’s death in 2018 the company was employing 200 staff at its headquarters in Shropshire and 225 internationally, and selling two million roses every year around the world.
David JC Austin took over as chairman of the company, emphasising that the creation of new roses would remain central to its work. “The possibilities for new roses are endless and there is always the potential to improve even the most beautiful rose,” he said.
He continued to work until shortly before his death from the rare neurodegenerative disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
2025 saw the launch of The King’s Rose, the company’s first striped rose, created in honour of King Charles III in collaboration with The King’s Foundation. And in May this year Austin was present at the company’s spectacular Cotswold-themed display at Chelsea, featuring more than 700 blooms tumbling over curving pathways and honey-coloured stone walls.
These included a new rose named after Sir David Beckham, which, Austin explained, “represents everything we value in modern rose breeding – beauty, fragrance, charm and strength – while also marking a contemporary moment within a long horticultural tradition.”
David Austin’s marriage to Francine was dissolved. He is survived by his second wife Penny, by two sons and a daughter from his first marriage, and by three stepchildren.
David JC Austin, born August 15 1958, died July 18 2026
