David Austin has the rare distinction of creating a completely new class of rose, which he has called English Roses. As a young man farming in the early 1950s, he was struck by the beauty of Old Roses, especially the Gallicas, Centifolias and Damasks raised in nineteenth-century France and then being collected by his friend Graham Thomas at Hillings Nurseries.

From the time he started crossing roses David Austin has aimed to combine the grace, sent, shape and muted colours of Old Roses with the perpetual flowering habit and health of Modern Roses. He has paid particular attention to the shape of the open flower which had been rather ignored in Hybrid Teas, bred for perfection in the unfolding bud.

The first cross which produced seedlings of note was between the Floribunda Dainty Maid and Belle Isis, a Gallica or Gallica-Centifolia hybrid. This resulted in the sumptuous, large-flowered, tall shrub or climber named Constance Spry after the great English flower-arranger.
David now crossed Constance Spry with recurrent-flowering roses such as the Floribunda Ma Perkins, the Hybrid Tea Monique, and the old Hybrid Tea Mme Caroline Testout. This group of crosses produced a pink-flowered strain, which has continued until the present. One of the seedlings from this group was Wife of Bath (1969). In the next generation, stronger growing, repeat-flowering roses appeared, notably Heritage (1984) and Perdita in 1983. Newer roses in this group include Bibi Maizoon, with very cupped flowers, and Charles Rennie MacKintosh which has huge flowers with a hint of lilac pink.
To get a red strain, David Austin crossed Dusky Maiden, a deep red single, with Tuscany, a deep purplish-red Gallica. This early cross produced The Knight and Chianti. Later, Château de Clos Vougeot, an early Hybrid Tea, was introduced into the strain; it produces good red flowers but rather weak shrubs. This meant the plants in the red ‘family’ have tended to be small so David Austin is now concentrating on breeding much stronger-growing reds.

Yellow has proved to be the most unpredictable of all the colours to raise. Graham Thomas, probably David Austin’s most famous yellow, was raised from Charles Austin and an Iceberg seedling in 1973. Some other yellows were raised using the pink Conrad Ferdinand Meyer which has Gloire de Dijon in its ancestry. The yellow colour has appeared again in Tamora, a pale apricot, and been reinforced in Jayne Austin, a hybrid of Tamora and Graham Thomas. Jayne Austin has the character of some of the old Noisette Roses and even has the controversial Tea Rose fragrance.One criticism of English Roses is that they are reproductions of Old Roses and, by analogy with paintings, therefore inferior, or at least not genuine, compared with the antique Gallicas, Albas, and Centifolias. David Austin has always been aware of this and, as he says in Old Roses and English Roses, has not attempted to breed new Gallicas or Albas, although this would be perfectly possible: ‘and worthwhile if done with care and good taste.’ His intention has always been to breed new groups for beauty first and health and toughness second. This is quite contrary to the practice of other breeders who are almost obsessive about disease and reject otherwise lovely roses if they show the slightest sign of infection.
And what of the future? David Austin has more seedlings coming on than ever before and is introducing new types of roses into his breeding programme. Unlike very large breeders, he is his own master and can introduce and sell anything he considers beautiful. He does not have to get his roses past a committee which considers only those that they think will sell by the hundred thousand. He does not have to aim for one flower shape or rose type and, like Ralph Moore in the USA, is always ready to find a new break among his seedlings and introduce it or give it a trial in the garden.
The photograph shows David Austin in the rose fields at his nursery, Albrighton, Wolverhampton, UK.