Clarence Elliott, English horticulturalist, was the youngest son of Joseph John Elliott of Hadley, Hertfordshire. He was engaged in fruit farming in the Cape Colony from 1902 to 1905. During this time he collected stone artefacts and ethnological material in the Simonsberg area (between Paarl and Stellenbosch). Upon his return to England his material was donated and sold to the British Museum.
In 1907 Elliott set up the Six Hills Nursery at Stevenage, Hertfordshire, which became famous for its alpine and rockery plants and where he introduced many plants into garden cultivation. He undertook many plant hunting expeditions, to Corsica (1908), the Falkland Islands (1910), the Pyrenees (four times), the Alps (many times), Majorca (1926, 1927), and South America (1927-1928 and 1929-1930); also lecture tours to the United States (1931) and Sweden. (1934). He brought back ornamental plants for Kew Gardens and the Edinburgh Botanic Garden and collected animals for the London Zoo. A primula and a saxifrage were named after him. He was a frequent contributor to the Sunday Times, the Countryman, and the Birmingham Post, and wrote a book on Rock garden plants (London, 1935). In 1946 he retired to the Cotswolds. He received the Victoria Medal of Honour of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1951 and the Silver Veitch Memorial Medal in 1954.
