From “New Botany” to “New Systematics”: an historical perspective on the Jodrell Laboratory

Abstract

SummaryKew’s Jodrell Laboratory was established in 1876 as a centre for botanical research in disciplines including plant physiology, anatomy and embryology, palaeobotany and mycology. Despite relatively little available funding, its location in one of the world’s largest botanic gardens and close to several well-curated plant collections has ensured its continued existence for almost a century and a half. Under the far-sighted leadership of Kew’s second Director, Joseph Dalton Hooker, the Jodrell Laboratory was established to coincide with Thomas Henry Huxley’s pioneering course at the Normal School of Science in London. Funded by a generous private donation, the Laboratory complemented and augmented the programme in taxonomy and systematics already established in Kew’s Herbarium, and provided a broader educational and research base to explore contemporary laboratory-based discoveries in fields such as physiology and lifecycles (sometimes termed the “New Botany”). The Jodrell Laboratory represents one of the world’s first non-university affiliated laboratories and has spawned several “spin-off” facilities such as the Laboratory of Plant Pathology and the Millennium Seed Bank. This paper traces its early influence as an important centre for research in palaeobotany and plant systematics, its subsequent decline during the inter-war years, and a relatively dynamic period of innovative research following the construction of a new building on the same site.