Hugh James Rose (9 June 1795 – 22 December 1838) was an English Anglican priest and theologian who served as the second Principal of King's College, London.

Rose was born at Little Horsted in Sussex on 9 June 1795 and educated at Uckfield School, where his father was Master, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1817, but missed a fellowship.

[4] He was appointed Principal of King's College, London, in October 1836, but caught influenza, and after two years of ill-health he died in Florence, Italy, on 22 December 1838.

[4] He was buried in the English Cemetery, Florence, his name in the register given as "Ugo Giacomo Rose", his Scipio tomb having a lengthy epitaph in Latin.

In 1836 he became editor of the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, and he projected the New General Biographical Dictionary,[8] a scheme carried through by his brother Henry John Rose (1800–1873).