He was born in Wimbledon, Surrey, England, the second son of gardener Allan Cunningham, who came from Renfrewshire, Scotland, and his English wife Sarah.
John Adams Academy at Putney and then went to work for William Townsend Aiton on Hortus Kewensis for six years.
[1] For the next 18 years, he worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England, cataloguing specimens sent from Australia by his brother Allan.
One day near the Bogan River he failed to return,[4] and a search organised by Mitchell—led by Mitchell's second-in-command, James Larmer[5][6]—only found some of his belongings and his dead horse.
A search party in November headed by Henry Zouch ascertained that Cunningham was camping with a group of aborigines, and was later killed by them when they became alarmed by his behaviour, thought to be the result of his delirious state.