John Gould Veitch

John Gould Veitch (April 1839 – 13 August 1870) was a British horticulturist and traveller, one of the first Victorian plant hunters to visit Japan.

He brought back a number of the glasshouse plants in vogue at the time, such as Acalyphas, Cordylines, Codiaeums (Crotons) and Dracaenas, and, from Fiji, a palm of a new genus later named after him, Veitchia joannis.

[2] In Japan, he came across the eminent plant collector Robert Fortune, and their competing collections returned to England on the same ship.

The Veitch Nursery on Kingston Coombe site, established a Japanese Water Garden adjacent to Warren House.

He was married to Jane Hodge soon after his return to England in 1866 and fathered two sons, James Herbert Veitch (1868 – 1907) and John Gould Veitch, Jr. (1869 – 1914) before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 31.He is buried in Brompton Cemetery and according to their burial registers, he died at the Coombe Wood Nursery on Kingston Hill.