Ronald Hatton

Sir Ronald Hatton CBE FRS
Portrait by Walter Stoneman, 1945
Born	Ronald George Hatton 6 July 1886
Died	11 November 1965 Benenden, Kent
Nationality	British
Occupation	pomologist horticulturalist
Known for	Malling series

Sir Ronald George Hatton, CBE FRS, (6 July 1886 – 11 November 1965) was a British horticulturalist and pomologist.

Hatton was born on 6 July 1886, either in Hampstead, London, or in Yorkshire. His father Ernest Hatton was a barrister, and his maternal grandfather William Pearson a KC; his mother Amy was the sister of the biometrician Karl Pearson. Hatton attended Brighton College and later Exeter School, and in 1906 went up to Balliol College, Oxford, to read history; he took a fourth in 1910, and his BA in 1912. He went to work as a farm labourer, and in 1913 published a book, Folk of the Furrow, written under the nom de plume "Christopher Holdenby". From 1912 he studied agriculture at the South-Eastern Agricultural College at Wye in Kent. In 1914 the Fruit Experimental Station of the college became the East Malling Research Station; when the director left for the First World War, Hatton became acting director. He was made director in 1918.

In 1914 Hatton was married to Hannah Rachel Rigden, who was from Ashford. In 1922 they had a son, Christopher, who became a monk.