1910s Timeline - John Innes Centre

1949 The John Innes
Horticultural Institution moves
to Bayfordbury
The removal of the Institution
takes place between 22 August
and 18 October 1949. The
operation consists of three
stages, all undertaken by
contractors. In Stage One, the
personal possessions of staff are
moved (several staff live on site
both at Merton and
Bayfordbury). In Stage Two, the
movable buildings and the
contents of the workshops,
offices, laboratories and library
are transferred. Finally, the
trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants
and seeds in the care of the
Garden Department are moved.
During November and
December the gardens at
Merton are gradually cleared so
that at the end of the year
nothing remains except the
glasshouses which are to be sold
by auction in January 1950. The
whole estate at Merton is
transferred to Surrey County
Council. At Bayfordbury, noise,
dirt and displacement are
suffered by JIHI staff well into
1950.
1949 The John Innes Club is reactivated
The reconstituted John Innes
Club opens at Bayfordbury on
22 October 1949. The club
(which in pre-war days catered
mainly for the student
gardeners and younger
members of the laboratory
staff) has been in suspension
since the beginning of 1940
because most of its members
joined the forces. The
Committee forms three sections
to cater for the social, sporting
and cultural activities of the
Club. The first section arranges
a dance in November and
Christmas, New Year and
children’s parties. The second
section arranges table tennis
and billiards in the Mansion and
a squash court for use in winter.
Two hard tennis courts are
being prepared for the summer.
The third section arranges
musical evenings and produces
several plays. A fourth
horticultural section is added in
1950. This section is open to any
member of staff whether
members of the Club or not. Its
objects are purely educational
and the organizers arrange
lectures, film shows, brains
trusts on gardening matters and
visits to places of gardening
interest. Bayfordbury is
removed from the amenities of
a town, so the Club assumes
more importance than in the
past in catering for the social
welfare of the staff.
1949 Darlington and Mather
publish Elements of Genetics
Comparatively little was
published in genetics during
World War II. After the war the
first major textbook of genetics
to be published was Cyril
Darlington and Kenneth
Mather’s The Elements of
Genetics (London: MacMillan).
This widely-used textbook was
influential enough to be
reprinted, with a new
introduction by Darlington, in
1969. It is salutary to look with
hindsight at some of the
descriptions of key genetical
events in the original 1949
publication, notably the idea
that the nucleic acid ‘coat’ was
‘thrown off’ the chromosomes
at a particular stage in cell
division. Evidently the
cytogeneticists at John Innes
had not been impressed by the
results of the Avery group on
the ‘transforming principle’
(DNA).
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