Hugh Ronalds (4 March 1760 – 18 November 1833) was an esteemed nurseryman and horticulturalist in Brentford, who published Pyrus Malus Brentfordiensis: or, a Concise Description of Selected Apples (1831).
Born with a twin brother John, who died young, they were the fourth and fifth children of Hugh Ronalds Snr and Mary née Clarke.
[6][3] Hugh Ronalds Snr had established a nursery in Brentford in the late 1750s, at the same time that his friend William Aiton began to create what became the Kew Gardens on the opposite bank of the Thames.
Sir Joseph Banks asked Hugh to provide seeds, plants and trees for the new colony in Australia and gardeners tended them on their long journey there.
[2] Hugh also supplied trees for William Bligh's second breadfruit voyage to Australia, Tahiti and the West Indies in 1791 in HMS Providence and other plants later travelled to New Zealand.
In his youth, Hugh created a herbarium as part of his studies and some of his original specimens survive today in the botanical volumes on display in Eldon House.