Reginald Arkell (14 October 1881 – 1 May 1959[1]) was a British script writer and comic novelist who wrote many musical plays for the London theatre.

Arkell was born on 14 October 1881 at Lechlade, Gloucestershire, England, was educated at Burford Grammar School and trained as a journalist.

He also scripted a propaganda comic book, Bosch the soldier, illustrated by Alfred Leete.

[1] Old Herbaceous is a classic British novel of the garden, with a title character as outsized and unforgettable as P. G. Wodehouse’s immortal manservant, Jeeves.

Born at the dusk of the Victorian era, Bert Pinnegar, an awkward orphan child with one leg a tad longer than the other, rises from inauspicious schoolboy days spent picking wildflowers and dodging angry farmers to become the legendary head gardener "Old Herbaceous," the most esteemed flower-show judge in the county and a famed horticultural wizard capable of producing dazzling April strawberries from the greenhouse and the exact morning glories his Lady spies on the French Riviera, "so blue, so blue it positively hurts."