English naturalist who collected shells and plants in South America, the Philippines and the Pacific. Cuming's abiding monument was his awe-inspiring collection of shells, acquired by the British Museum after his death. His plant collections were purchased by William Hooker and George Bentham.

Born in the village of Washbrook, Devon, Hugh Cuming met the naturalist Colonel George Montagu (1755-1815) who lived nearby and is said to have inspired the young Cuming's interest in natural history. He did not however receive a lengthy formal education, but was apprenticed to a sailmaker at the age of thirteen. With this trade in mind he emigrated to Chile, settling in Valparaiso in 1819. Alongside his sailmaking business, Cuming began collecting shells and within a few years, having accumulated some wealth, he retired from his trade in 1826, devoting the rest of his days to searching out shells and other specimens. He built himself a schooner specifically for collecting trips, the Discoverer, and made his first major journey aboard her in 1827 to Tahiti via the Juan Fernandez Islands, Easter Island and Pitcairn, seeking shells and plants. On a second journey in 1828 he traversed along the west coast of South America, reaching as far north as the edge of El Salvador and Chiloe Island in the south, stopping off in numerous locations to make collections.

Cuming did not marry in Chile, but had a mistress who bore him two children. He was destined to be an absent father, however, returning to England in 1831 in order to publicise and sell his collections. He immediately began the business of disposing of his plant specimens to William Hooker and George Bentham for a relatively paltry sum (he was less passionate about these than his shells). News spread of his conchological collections and they became the basis for several publications, while Cuming was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1832, despite his own and others' doubts about his prowess as a scientist.

He continued his publicity campaign on the continent, but after a few years was keen to set off on another adventure. In 1836, therefore, he left for the Philippines, where he collected enormous amounts of plant and animal material over the next three-and-a-half years and pioneered the shipment of live orchids from Manila to England. A few of the 147 cases with which he returned in 1840 were water damaged, but the fruits of the voyage (plants, birds, reptiles and insects) were eagerly studied by systematists. His dried plant specimens numbered over 100,000.

Two more works were based on his shell collections (Lovell Reeve's 20-volume Conchologia Iconica, 1843-1878, and G.B. Sowerby's Thesaurus conchyliorum, 1842-1887), while Cuming continued to add to his stockpile by exchange and purchase and became a shrewd dealer in natural objects. He employed others to collect for him (P.H. Gosse, Hugh Low and David Dyson) and actively sought out rarities missing from his bulging cabinets. Within a few years of his excursion to the Philippines, however, his health began to deteriorate and he suffered a stroke in 1846 which left him partially paralysed and with chronic bronchitis. His daughter in Chile came to London to nurse him, while Cuming set about offering his collection to the British Museum. The Trustees of the museum initially declined his offer, but after his death in 1865 did buy the collection of more than 80,000 shells for the same price at which he had previously offered it, £6,000.