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.