1910s Timeline - John Innes Centre

1910 The John Innes Horticultural
Institution opens
Two acres of John Innes’ estate at
Merton Park, his Manor House and
conservatories, become the John
Innes Horticultural Institution.
William Bateson’s directorship
starts on 1 January 1910 and the
Bateson family move into the
Manor House in August. Most of
Bateson’s researchers move from
Cambridge with him making the
John Innes Horticultural Institution
the centre of British genetics. The
Trustees purchase additional land
and increase the original site to 6
acres. Work begins in two small
laboratories and four glasshouses.
1910 William Bateson founds the
Journal of Genetics with
associates
The Journal of Genetics, published
by Cambridge University Press and
edited by Bateson and R. C.
Punnett, was launched as a
quarterly periodical ‘for the
publication of original research in
Heredity, Variation and allied
subjects’.
Bateson used the Journal to
promote his particular view of what
the subject of genetics should
include. In the early years this
meant that most papers were
reports of Mendelian hybridisation
experiments and Bateson used his
influence to actively discourage
research on chromosome theory.
However, in line with his view that
genetics was the study of the
‘physiology of descent’, the journal
also included papers on the
physiology of sex determination.
The Journal was an important focus
for British geneticists who faced
powerful opposition from EW
Macbride, Professor of Zoology at
Imperial College, London, and a
member of the governing body of
John Innes (from 1913), and Karl
Pearson, Professor of Applied
Mathematics and Mechanics at
University College. ’They stood at
the entrance of the Royal Society
like the leographs which guard the
portals of a Burmese Buddhist
temple’ (Crew, 1969).
See:
F.A. E. Crew, ‘Recollections of the
early days of the genetical society’,
pp. 9-15 in The Genetical Societythe
first fifty years edited by John
Jinks. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd,
1969.
1910 Drosophila genetics begins
Thomas Hunt Morgan and his
group at Columbia University, New
York select the fruit fly Drosophila
melanogaster as a model organism
to study genetics. Their
experiments show that the flies can
be easily kept in stoppered widenecked
milk bottles and fed on
slabs of fermenting banana.
Drosophila has only four pairs of
chromosomes that differ markedly
in size and shape from each other.
In the salivary glands of the larvae
the chromosomes are relatively
enormous. A mated pair produces
scores of offspring in a 10-day
cycle. All of these advantages make
Drosophila good potential material
for studying the effect of
chromosomes on heredity.
However, the wild flies lack clearly
visible characteristics. It is not until
Morgan’s team start to breed flies
that the laboratory stocks of
Drosophila develop well-marked
and unusual characteristics. By
selecting and breeding flies with
visible mutations they turn
Drosophila into a laboratory tool for
studying inheritance. Morgan’s
group includes Alfred Sturtevant,
Hermann Muller and Calvin
Bridges.
Morgan publishes two papers on
chromosomes: the first expresses
his view that Mendelian factors
could not possibly be carried by the
chromosomes. Before this appears
in print Morgan’s second paper is
published; this provides convincing
evidence that the factors for sexlinked
characters are definitely
carried in the X chromosome.
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