Allan Cunningham (13 July 1791 – 27 June 1839) was an English botanist and explorer, primarily known for his expeditions into uncolonised areas of eastern Australia to collect plants and report on the suitability of the land for grazing purposes.

Allan Cunningham was educated at a Putney private school, Reverend John Adams Academy and then went into a solicitor's office (a Lincoln's Inn Conveyancer).

[1] He afterwards obtained a position with William Townsend Aiton superintendent of Kew Gardens, and this brought him in touch with Robert Brown and Joseph Banks.

Banks later wrote the Cunningham's collections of orchids and bulbs from this part of South America contributed much honour to the Royal Gardens.

Cunningham joined John Oxley's 1817 expedition beyond the Blue Mountains to the Lachlan and Macquarie rivers and shared in the privations of the 1,200 miles (1,930 km) journey.

Shortly after his return, Cunningham made an excursion south from Sydney, ascending the prominent peak of Mount Keira overlooking the Illawarra region and present day Wollongong.

The third voyage to the north coast with King began on 15 June, but meeting bad weather the bowsprit was lost and a return was made for repairs.

Though they found the little vessel was in a bad state when they were on the north-west coast, and though serious danger was escaped until they were close to home, they were nearly wrecked off Botany Bay.

A sufficiently long stay was made for Cunningham to make an excellent collection of plants, and then turning on their tracks the Bathurst sailed up the west coast and round the north of Australia.

His account of about 100 plants met with will be found in Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales, edited by Barron Field, 1825, under the title "A Specimen of the Indigenous Botany ... between Port Jackson and Bathurst".

[citation needed] Cunningham soon became more interested in expeditions of discovery than botany and in 1823 he set out from Bathurst to explore inside the Great Dividing Range.

On 7 June, after some difficult climbing, he came across a gap in the mountains which he named Pandora's Pass, which he thought would allow for a practicable road to the Liverpool Plains.

Although his main role was to collect propagation material, his lasting legacy are his herbarium sheets which are thought by his biographer, Anthony Orchard, to exceed 20,000.

)[15] When Cunningham returned to London, he sent duplicates of his herbarium specimens to other botanists, including de Candolle, Schauer, William Jackson Hooker, Bentham, Lindley and others, who published his descriptions with acknowledgement to "A.Cunn.".

[20] The Australian federal seat of Cunningham, which stretches from Port Kembla in the south of Wollongong to Heathcote in southern Sydney, was named after him in honour of his being the first European explorer to visit the Illawarra region.