Alexander Hill Gray (1837 Calcutta - August 21, 1927 Bath) was an Honorary Vice President of The National Rose Society, England from c1920 to 1926-1927.
Published an autobiography "Wanderings of a Stonyhurst Boy in Many Lands" in 1925.
[From
The Gardeners Chronicle, June 25, 1892, p. 817:] National Rose Society ....twenty-four distinct single trusses ....Alexander Hill Gray, Esq., Beaulieu, Newbridge Hill, Bath, was 2nd , with a very fair collection, the best of which were Maréchal Niel, Catherine Mermet, Climbing Devoniensis, &c.
[From
Tea Roses: Old Roses for Warm Gardens, 2008, p. 23-24:] ..The lure of this benevolent climate [in the south of England] was enough to persuade wealthy Scottish landowner Alexander Hill Gray to move to Bath in 1885, where he grew his roses in heavily manured terrace beds, reputedly with underground heating. He produced a stream of fine Teas that were the envy and despair of his fellow rose exhibitors at London rose shows. ....The last known book on Teas was A Symposium on How to Grow and Show Tea Roses (1901), sponsored by the National Rose Society in England and revised in 1904 ...part of the cost of publication was defrayed by a donation from that well-known rose grower and exhibitor, Alexander Hill Gray.
[From "Stonyhurst Association Newsletter", February 2017, p. 12-13:] Alexander Hill Gray OS 1842-54 ....with great reluctance, the Jesuit Principal permitted Hill Gray and his brother, at the ages of five and four, to attend Hodder Place, Stonyhurst's preparatory school. ... Hill Gray travelled to India in 1857, into the already raging Indian Mutiny ...After being employed as an interpreter for the British troops in the Sikh Cavalry during the Mutiny, Hill Gray travelled thousands of miles in India, over the Himalayas, and into Tibet. He journeyed further, through Kashmir, Afghanistan, Turkestan ...and into Russia. Having returned to Europe to visit every major country, Hill Gray decided to go to South Africa....On the invitation of James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, Hill Gray went to Borneo...From there, he progressed through Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand....Following the death of his wife in 1877, Hill Gray's later life became quieter. He finally decided to settle in the south of England for the ideal rose-growing climate, purchasing the fine Georgian house of Beaulieu, near Bath, for £3,000 in 1885. .... Away from Stonyhurst and his collection of objects and photographs, Hill Gray is best known for his cultivation of roses, especially tea roses. Such was his passion and skill for growing roses, he won the cup for tea roses at the Show of the National Rose Society for fourteen years in succession, and at Beaulieu he bred a new kind of tea rose, which is named after him to this day. It is said that on his specially-constructed garden terraces, Hill Gray had grown over 10,000 roses.
