Botanist.
James Robert Gowen (1784–1862) was an amateur English botanist and horticulturist, who was secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) from 1845 to 1850, treasurer until 1855, a landowner in the Wairau Valley in 1848, was still paying rates in Nelson in 1862 and was a director of the New Zealand Company from 1840 to 1854. He was a lay member of the Lunacy Commission from 1842 to 1844 and patron of the Nelson Agricultural and Horticultural Society in 1845. The RHS lists 12 rhododendron varieties created by Gowen between 1826 and 1842 at Highclere Castle, on the Berkshire-Hampshire border