ALBRIGHTON, England — A family business built on the pursuit of the perfect English rose has lost its guiding force for the second time in less than a decade. David J.C. Austin, chairman of David Austin Roses, died March 20 at his home in Shropshire after a battle with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and incurable brain condition. He was 67.
Austin’s death removes the second of two men who transformed a small, unassuming nursery tucked into the fields outside this Shropshire village into one of the most recognized names in global horticulture. His father, David C.H. Austin, who founded the company and pioneered the “English Rose” hybrid, died in December 2018 at age 92.
The younger Austin joined the family firm in 1990, stepping into a business already gaining notice for his father’s distinctive crosses between old garden roses and modern varieties. Those hybrids solved a problem the elder Austin had long lamented: that in breeding roses for continuous summer bloom, the industry had stripped them of their scent, fullness and romance.
Over the next three decades as chairman, Austin expanded the nursery from a niche operation into a global enterprise. Under his leadership, the company’s roses — now grown under license on multiple continents — became fixtures at international flower shows, in florists’ windows and, increasingly, in the nostalgic bridal bouquets that became a house signature.
Those who worked with Austin described a man who preferred greenhouses to boardrooms. The Royal Horticultural Society expressed deep sadness at his death, while broadcaster and gardening writer Monty Don noted that Austin had left behind millions of exquisite roses that would outlive him — a tribute with literal truth.
In a family statement, Austin’s children — Richard, James and Olivia — said their father was, first and foremost, a gardener. They described a man who carried forward his own father’s vision with humility and unwavering responsibility, placing the roses, the business and its people before himself. He met his illness, they added, with the same quiet courage he brought to everything.
Austin is survived by his wife, Sarah, and their three children. The company said operations would continue under its existing leadership team, working alongside the next generation of the Austin family — a third generation already close to the business.
The timing carries a melancholy symmetry. It has not yet been eight years since David C.H. Austin died, having spent 75 years pursuing a single conviction: that a rose should be beautiful, of course, but that it should smell like something, too. His son spent the rest of his life turning that conviction into a business that reaches gardens on every continent, without ever losing sight of his father’s sense of what actually mattered.
With his death, David Austin Roses enters a new chapter for the first time without either of the two men most responsible for its identity. Those who know the family best suggest the rose bushes themselves will not notice the difference.