Introduction: The Jodrell Laboratory and the “New Botany”

The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of exciting new discoveries in diverse fields of biology, coinciding with increased international dissemination of novel scientific ideas. Charles Darwin’s (1859) foundational book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was read widely by scientists in mainland Europe, including the great German biologist, Julius von Sachs. In 1871, Sachs wrote to Darwin “Like so many others I have greatly benefited from the study of your work. For even if my own research to date has been predominantly concerned with the physical and chemical processes in plants, I have always maintained a lively interest in the great problem of the natural relationships among organisms, a problem which through your theory, particularly on the breeding of varieties through the struggle for survival, has found a solution as magnificent as it is simple.” (Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter no. 7512). Thus, although not a systematist, Sachs recognised explicitly the importance of a comparative approach in understanding plant evolution.

The term “systematics” is subject to contrasting definitions in the literature. A report by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology (1991 – 1992) defined Systematic Biology as the “science of naming and classifying all organisms and of investigating the relationships between them” (page 9). They drew upon an earlier classification by a Research Council Review Group (Taxonomy in Britain: Smith 1977) in recognising three overlapping subcategories of Systematic Biology: (1) “Alpha taxonomy”, describing and naming species, (2) “Beta taxonomy”, revising classifications to provide a better basis for predicting natural patterns of variation, and (3) “Gamma taxonomy”, exploring the nature of factors (both physiological and genetic) responsible for evolutionary change and diversification. Gamma taxonomy often involves field observations and laboratory experimentation, including anatomical, biochemical and molecular studies. Most subsequent authors restrict the term “taxonomy” to the alpha (and sometimes beta) categories, and use the term “systematics” as an “all-encompassing field” with a primary goal of reconstructing the phylogeny of life by “acquiring, analysing and synthesising information” (Simpson 2006).

In Victorian Britain, much research in plant systematics was focused on taxonomy, especially describing, naming and classifying species. Despite the addition of many new plant specimens to UK collections and the resulting increase in taxonomic studies, leading scientists in Britain recognised that other aspects of botanical research were falling behind that of other countries (Metcalfe 1976b). This shortcoming was readily understood by Kew’s second Director, Joseph Dalton Hooker FRS, who was personally acquainted with many eminent British scientists, including Darwin himself, the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley FRS and the geologist Charles Lyell FRS. Indeed, Hooker was himself an early palaeobotanist who provided the first detailed description of a coal ball — a calcite-infused fossilised peat-containing anatomically-preserved plant fossils (Hooker & Binney 1855).

Many new biological discoveries were being made in Europe, especially in Germany. Wilhelm Hofmeister’s important works on the fertilisation of the egg and the formation of the embryo in flowering plants were published at around the same time as pioneering studies of cell plastids and mitosis by Hugo von Mohl, Eduard Strasburger and other researchers of cell biology (Hofmeister 1862; Campbell 1925; Kaplan & Cooke 1996; Gunning et al. 2006; Kutschera & Niklas 2018). British botanists relied heavily on received knowledge of these findings, drawing on English translations of German publications, notably the translation in 1862 of Hofmeister’s Higher Cryptogamia (described as an “immortal work” by Thiselton-Dyer 1925), Julius von Sachs’ Textbook of Botany (first English translation 1875) and later Eduard Adolf Strasburger’s Textbook of Botany (first English translation 1898) and Gottlieb Haberlandt’s Physiological Plant Anatomy (Haberlandt 1914, though the first English translation was published in 1898). Several influential British botanists subsequently travelled to Germany to study with luminaries such as Sachs.

Responding to these developments in laboratory-based science, Huxley was determined to modernise scientific education in Britain. He comprehensively redesigned his “Elementary Instruction” course at Imperial College, London (then designated the Normal School of Science and the Royal School of Mines), aiming to cover all the major plant groups and to emphasise practical experience of microscopical techniques, using living specimens where possible (Thiselton-Dyer 1925; Jones 1987). This approach would not only achieve a broad systematic focus but would also effectively target other aspects of systematics: understanding evolutionary histories and environmental adaptations. A focus on the laboratory-based “New Botany” should successfully integrate Darwinian botany with the many exciting new developments in cell biology and physiology (Seward 1934). As the primary course instructor, Huxley initially appointed William Turner Thiselton-Dyer, a future Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. For part of his tenure, Thiselton-Dyer was assisted by Dukinfield Henry Scott, who later took over as Assistant Professor of Botany under Huxley, and subsequently became the first Keeper of Kew’s Jodrell Laboratory (Seward 1934; Thomason 2004). Based on contemporary accounts, it was an excellent course: “The difficulties we had to encounter were enormous. The first was to keep up a continuous supply of material; but we had Kew to draw upon …. Gymnosperms gave us the most trouble. I was very keen to demonstrate what Hofmeister had done … It would have seemed insuperable if Casimir de Candolle had not come to England after working with Strasburger, and brought a number of preparations with him” (Thiselton-Dyer 1925).

In 1874, while Huxley’s course was still being established, the influential and ongoing Royal Commission report on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science (Fourth report, 1874) recommended that Kew should pursue investigations into plant structure and physiology to complement the taxonomic work already underway in the Herbarium. In doing so, they effectively countered the so-called “Ayrton controversy” of the early 1870s, in which the First Commissioner of Works, Acton Smee Ayrton, sought to transfer all of Kew’s scientific work to the Natural History Museum (Cornish 2015). Kew’s Director, Joseph Dalton Hooker, welcomed the Royal Commission's (1874) recommendation, and immediately sought funding to build a new laboratory, consulting with Darwin extensively about its design and direction (Darwin Correspondence Project, Letter no. 9771). Since no Government funding was forthcoming, Hooker gratefully accepted a generous offer from a scientific benefactor, Thomas Phillips-Jodrell (Thiselton-Dyer 1910; Metcalfe 1976a, 1976b; Desmond 1995). The sum donated was £1500, which proved sufficient to build a small single-storey laboratory (Fig. 1A), often described as “cottage-like” (Hyams 1965). The donation also covered the installation of fittings that were considered suitable for a range of potential disciplines, including plant physiology, anatomy and embryology, palaeobotany and mycology. The new laboratory was opened in 1876, just two years after the idea was first mooted. It had initially been conceived as an extension of the Kew Herbarium, but concerns about a potential fire risk from coal fires and inflammable chemicals led to its construction opposite the extensive Order Beds and near Kew’s support greenhouses and potting sheds in the Melon Yard, thereby facilitating ready access to the living collections. The original Jodrell Laboratory building remained in use for the next 88 years until its demolition in 1964, though it was slightly extended in 1934 to include a photographic dark room, an attendant’s room and a larger dedicated greenhouse (Fig. 1B) (Metcalfe 1976b).

Fig. 1
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The original Jodrell Laboratory. A exterior prior to extensions; B exterior following extensions in 1934 to include a photographic dark room, an attendant’s room and a greenhouse; C interior of laboratory showing staff working at benches (L to R: Mary Gregory, Margaret Stant, F. R. Richardson); D interior of Keeper’s office showing Charles Russell Metcalfe (standing) with portrait of Dukinfield Henry Scott on the wall behind him. Photos reproduced from Kew’s archive with permission.

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Establishing scientific research in the Jodrell Laboratory

Hooker handed responsibility for the Jodrell Laboratory to Thiselton-Dyer (then his Assistant Director and prospective son-in-law), thus adding to Thiselton-Dyer’s many other administrative duties, such as supervising the introduction of South American rubber trees into Malaya (Thomason 2004). Although he was never formally designated as Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory, Thiselton-Dyer was responsible for allocation of space to prospective researchers. Since no money was available to employ staff at that time, attracting suitable people was a daunting task. It was envisaged that the Jodrell Laboratory would be occupied by independent senior researchers who could obtain a grant from either the government or the Royal Society to pay their own assistants plus a small fee to cover laboratory materials. In return, they could consult Kew staff and access the plant collections and library. Having taught for several years at Imperial College, Thiselton-Dyer was already well aware of the added value that access to Kew’s plant collections could provide to researchers, despite the potentially restrictive financial constraints. The Jodrell Laboratory has an advantageous location close to internationally important plant collections, including not only Kew’s own Living Collections and Herbarium but also the extensive collections of dried and fossil plants housed in London’s Natural History Museum in South Kensington.

In 1885, Thiselton-Dyer was appointed Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and therefore urgently sought a successor to oversee the Jodrell Laboratory. He was extremely fortunate in attracting the interest of his former assistant at Imperial College, the celebrated botanist Dukinfield Henry Scott FRS (youngest son of the eminent architect Sir George Gilbert Scott). Having already spent several years as a researcher in the Jodrell Laboratory while employed as a lecturer at Imperial College, Dukinfield Scott became its first Keeper from 1892 to 1906. Fortunately for the future of Kew Science, Scott generously accepted the post as an honorary (unpaid) position; the high-profile researchers that he attracted ensured that the post later became salaried upon the appointment of his successor. Importantly, even after Scott retired from his honorary post as Keeper in 1906, he maintained an active research base in the Jodrell, though most of his large collection of microscope slides of fossil plants were eventually transferred to the British Museum (now the Natural History Museum).

The list of researchers that Thiselton-Dyer and Scott attracted to the Jodrell Laboratory reads like a roll-call of the eminent botanists of the time. In 1910, Thiselton-Dyer published a letter in the journal Nature advocating more government funding for lab-based researchers (Thiselton-Dyer 1910). He pointed out that several Jodrell researchers had received the Royal Medal, an important accolade in UK science, for research on a diverse range of topics including protoplasm, embryology, mycology and fossil botany. Furthermore, the prestigious Davy Medal was awarded to Jodrell-based researcher Edward Schunck FRS in 1899 for his work on chlorophyll. The list compiled by Thiselton-Dyer also includes Walter Gardiner FRS, who worked on protoplasmic connections between cells, Felix Eugen Fritsch FRS, who later wrote a classic textbook, Structure and Reproduction of the Algae, and the physiologist Joseph Reynolds Green FRS, who studied plant enzymes and the protein content of seeds. The eminent palaeobotanists William Henry Lang FRS and Frederick Orpen Bower FRS carried out their early research in the Jodrell Laboratory. Bower had demonstrated in Thiselton-Dyer’s course at the Normal School of Science and subsequently collaborated with Scott to translate De Bary’s (1884) Comparative Anatomy, before taking up a position as Chair of Botany in Glasgow in 1885 (Lang 1949). Wilson Crossfield Worsdell (1915) wrote his classic volumes on the Principles of Plant Teratology while based in the Jodrell Laboratory. His descriptions of natural spontaneous mutants are now increasingly relevant in modern studies of evolutionary developmental-genetics (“evo-devo”). More applied studies initiated in the Jodrell included early work on wood-pulp-derived viscose by Charles Frederick Cross FRS and Edward John Bevan in 1883, which led to the later development of the synthetic fibre Rayon (Metcalfe 1976a, 1976b).

Mycological research was undertaken in the Jodrell Laboratory from an early date. The plant pathologist and botanist George Edward Massee, co-founder and first President of the British Mycological Society, was based partly in the Jodrell until his retirement in 1915, when Elsie Maud Wakefield took over as Head of Mycology at Kew — a rare achievement for a woman. They used the old microscopy room in the Jodrell for making fungus cultures until the constraints of space necessitated a temporary move of Mycology to Gumley Cottage, a small building on Kew Green that is today used for student accommodation. In 1920, work in plant pathology was transferred from the Jodrell to the newly established Laboratory of Plant Pathology (Central Science Laboratory) in Harpenden, close to present-day Rothamsted Research. In 1930, a new building was constructed in Kew to accommodate the International Mycological Institute. This included Kew’s Fungarium, which today is housed in the Wolfson Wing of the modern Jodrell Laboratory.

Scott’s enduring influence on systematic botany and palaeobotany

Dukinfield Scott himself was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1894 and received the Royal Medal in 1906. Scott was a well-connected and prolific researcher with immense knowledge, unlimited energy and an unusually impressive educational background. His doctoral supervisor had been the great German botanist Julius von Sachs at the University of Würzburg in Germany, where Scott also attended lectures by the eminent plant morphologist Karl von Goebel (Scott 1925; Arber 1919, 1954). Scott was essentially interested in plant structure, and his focus later turned to plant evolution and studies of fossil plants, especially after meeting the celebrated palaeobotanist William Crawford Williamson FRS, who retired in 1889 as Professor of Botany at Manchester University to work with Scott in the Jodrell Laboratory. Scott wrote an important textbook in two volumes, An Introduction to Structural Botany (first edition 1894); his later books include Studies in Fossil Botany (1900) and Extinct Plants and Problems of Evolution (1924). In those days, botanical and palaeobotanical studies were not so clearly demarcated as they are today, resulting in a healthy interplay of knowledge and ideas.

Arguably the greatest breakthrough of this period was made by Oliver & Scott (1904); as described by Taylor et al. (2009, p. 529), "Finally, in 1904 two British paleobotanists, F.W. Oliver and D.H. Scott, established the existence of the seed ferns, or Pteridospermae, by a remarkable piece of detective work that united stem, petiole, foliage, and most importantly seeds of the same [fossil] plant, Lyginopteris. The initial identification of the group, however, was not based on organic attachment of plant parts, but rather on the common occurrence of a peculiar epidermal appendage in the form of a gland present on all the plant parts, together with the frequent association of the vegetative remains and seeds at the same fossil-bearing locations." The pteridosperms are today widely recognised as the central plexus from which all modern groups of seed-bearing plants ultimately evolved (e.g. Hilton & Bateman 2006).

In addition to his academic ability, Scott’s personality was an important factor in raising the profile of the Jodrell Laboratory. His informal style of writing and lecturing appealed to his audiences, and he had a deep and lasting influence on systematic botany, both in Britain and elsewhere. As one of the first lecturers in botany to allow women into his classes, Scott was an enlightened early exponent of the higher education of women, also supporting the employment of women at the Jodrell Laboratory and their admission to the Linnean Society (Seward 1934; Ayres 2020). One of Scott’s early female assistants in the Jodrell Laboratory was Ethel Sargant, who later created her own laboratory in her home in Reigate, which she dubbed “Jodrell Junior”, and where she employed the young Agnes Arber FRS (then Agnes Robertson) as a research assistant (Metcalfe 1976a, 1976b; Ayres 2020). Both Sargant and Arber produced important and ground-breaking botanical research that remains widely cited today. In her obituary of Ethel Sargant, Agnes Arber wrote that “Her natural capacity for balanced thought developed to an exceptional pitch in the congenial atmosphere of the Jodrell Laboratory” (Arber 1919). When he took up the Keepership at the Jodrell, Scott brought with him one of his students, Henderina (Rina) Victoria Klaassen, whom he married in 1887. Rina Scott was a pioneer of the use of time-lapse cinematography to record the growth and movement of plants (Jones 2016; Ayres 2020).

Together, Dukinfield and Rina Scott were an outgoing and welcoming couple who frequently entertained visiting foreign botanists in their home (Seward 1934). Scott was also an excellent conference chair, who presided over the palaeobotanical section at the fifth International Botanical Congress in Cambridge in 1930. As Seward (1934) wrote: “He knew, of course, all the foreign delegates who attended the section, and at the opening meeting introduced them in turn to the audience with great charm, describing in a few telling sentences their principal achievements, till the whole company seemed to glow with appreciation of their distinguished guests. He brought an atmosphere of friendliness and interest to every aspect of botany when he was present at a meeting.”

Archaeobotany and plant identification

Scott’s successor in the post of Keeper — in a salaried role from 1909 onwards — was Leonard Alfred Boodle, a former pupil of Scott who had accompanied him to Kew from Imperial College and worked as one of Scott’s three assistants, their salaries being initially paid by Scott himself. Boodle was an unlikely — and temperamentally unsuited — appointee to a senior administrative role. Though in need of an income after Scott’s departure, he was probably himself somewhat reluctant to assume this particular mantle. According to his successor, Charles Russell Metcalfe, Boodle was an exceptionally shy and reclusive person with a deep knowledge of plant anatomy (Metcalfe 1976b). Boodle remained in the post until 1930, throughout the period of the First World War and the Great Depression. Little funding was available for either staff or equipment and Boodle was disinclined to make sufficiently pressing requests. His primary achievement was to establish the Jodrell Laboratory as a centre for identification of plant fragments, a role that is maintained today. He was highly skilled at the use of comparative anatomy to identify the botanical origins of timbers, medicinal plants and archaeological remains, including remains sent to Kew from excavations of ancient Egypt (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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Item in Kew’s Economic Botany collection (fragments of cloth from an Egyptian mummy) identified by Leonard Alfred Boodle as flax (Linum usitatissimum). Reproduced from Kew’s archive with permission.

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Upon Boodle’s retirement in 1930, his successor Charles Russell Metcalfe accepted the position of Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory, overcoming his initial reluctance after receiving strong encouragement from his Cambridge tutors, the palaeobotanists Hugh Hamshaw Thomas FRS and Albert Charles Seward FRS, both of whom retained positive memories of the Scott era. Upon his arrival at the Jodrell, Metcalfe immediately encountered problems (Metcalfe 1976b). He was initially the only paid staff member in the Laboratory, though he obtained funding for an assistant in 1934 and later added further staff (Fig. 1C, D). He found the lab poorly resourced with often outdated equipment. “To be permitted to spend as much as £50 [to purchase a microtome] was a major event” (Metcalfe 1976c).

Visiting researchers at the time pursued a diverse and somewhat opportunistic range of projects based partly on topicality and availability of material. Metcalfe prudently decided to endorse this eclectic approach, which seemed appropriate in a collections-based laboratory. However, he also found the need for a major undertaking of his own, so he commenced a long-term collaboration with Laurence Chalk at the Oxford Imperial Forestry Institute. Together, Metcalfe and Chalk embarked on their encyclopedic work Anatomy of the Dicotyledons (1950), which subsequently led to a series of volumes on the Anatomy of the Monocotyledons. This major collaborative project prompted Metcalfe to establish a Plant Micromorphology Bibliographic Database; this valuable resource was initially developed by Mary Gregory on handwritten index cards but was later placed online.

Kew’s microscope slide collection

In addition to his own encyclopedic works, Metcalfe’s other significant legacy was to establish an important reference collection of permanent glass microscope slides in the Jodrell Laboratory, considerably enhanced by Metcalfe’s highly skilled technician, F. R. Richardson. The collection not only consolidated the forensic work that Boodle had initiated using anatomy to identify plant parts, but also helped to reconstruct a firmer basis for systematic botany in the Jodrell. It survived the Second World War intact, despite being initially housed in the supposedly bomb-proof basement of the old Jodrell and accessible only via a trapdoor in the ground — an arrangement that would undoubtedly fail a modern safety inspection. (Indeed, an unfortunate wartime incident resulted in an elderly visiting geneticist falling through the trapdoor while working in the laboratory, though happily he eventually made a full recovery: Metcalfe 1976c.)

Today, the microscope slide collection occupies numerous fire-resistant cabinets in the existing Jodrell building. It contains microtome sections of plant material of known botanical origin, including leaves, roots, stems, timbers, seeds and flowers. Many of the wood slides were made from wood samples in Kew’s xylarium (Cornish, Gasson & Nesbitt 2014). The collection was considerably enlarged post-war, aided by greater systematic focus combined with increasing numbers of staff, visiting researchers and students. Now indexed and partly digitised, it remains probably the largest accessible microscope slide collection of its kind in the world, based on well-documented reference material. Its uniquely broad taxonomic and geographical scope make it a significant resource, especially since access to the world’s shrinking natural resources becomes increasingly difficult. The collection is used today as the basis not only for plant identification but also for broad-scale systematic studies of traits in plants that can help to inform studies in plant evolution and the impact of climate change.

New Systematics, New Morphology and the Modern Synthesis

The Jodrell Laboratory continued to host visiting researchers during the inter-war years, but with considerably reduced importance as a centre for systematic botany until at least the late 1950s. This period overlapped with a period of limited resources in general for Kew that resulted in relatively sparse and poorly-paid scientific staff. Increasing friction with the nearby British Museum (Natural History) resulted in the two organisations competing for botanical influence with the government of the day (Desmond 1995), echoing the dispute surrounding the Ayrton controversy and Royal Commission of the early 1870s.

The general decline in broad scientific relevance of the Jodrell Laboratory during the 1930s and 1940s also coincided with a period of considerable debate in taxonomy and systematics regarding the purpose of classification in general and the relevance of the relationship between natural classification and phylogeny. The debate essentially centred on the importance of phylogenetics in systematics and classification. In an exposition of the “New Morphology”, the palaeobotanist Hamshaw Thomas (1933) wrote that “The general ideas of the New Morphology … are based on considerations of phylogeny. The forms of plants and plant organs can only be explained by reference to their origin … Fragments of the evolutionary history of one group may enable us to guess what has probably gone on in another group.” Thus, in contrast with the “New Botany”, which sought to introduce laboratory-based methods to science, the “New Morphology” had an explicitly systematic and phylogenetic focus.

Formation of the Systematics Association in 1937 (Winsor 1995; Forey 2000) was soon followed by publication of The New Systematics and the Modern Synthesis (Huxley 1940, 1942). Early impetus for this initiative came from John Scott Lennox Gilmour, who was Kew’s Assistant Director from 1931 to 1946 before later becoming Director of Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Three Kew Herbarium staff were also involved in the initiative: William Bertram Turrill FRS, Thomas Archibald Sprague and Ronald Melville, who later compiled the world's first Red Data Book of endangered species, published in 1970. Non-Kew participants included both palaeontologists and zoologists, notably Julian Huxley FRS (Winsor 1995). Gilmour chaired the Taxonomic Principles Committee, which encountered major differences of opinion over the meaning of a natural classification — a debate that failed to reach any consensus (Winsor 1995). Gilmour, Turrill and Melville all voted with the sceptics who did not consider that classification should be necessarily based upon phylogeny. Despite the active involvement of the palaeobotanists Thomas and Lang, both of whom had early Jodrell connections, the Jodrell Laboratory contributed relatively little to this important but increasingly bitter conceptual dispute. Instead, Metcalfe focussed on rebuilding the Jodrell’s staff and resources and pressing for the construction of a new and larger building to house them.

However, the eminent plant scientist and cell biologist John (Jack) Heslop-Harrison FRS did participate in the New Systematics debate (Gilmour & Heslop-Harrison 1954) and was well-versed in many aspects of plant systematics. His subsequent appointment as Kew’s Director in 1971 represented a considerable boost for Kew in general and the Jodrell in particular, since it re-expanded Kew’s research base to explicitly include reproductive biology. Upon arrival at Kew, he set up a small Cell Physiology laboratory focused on reproductive biology and plant ultrastructure, in partnership with his scientist wife Yolande Heslop-Harrison. He also helped to establish a Palynology Unit in the Kew Herbarium. Later consolidation of resources resulted in the subsequent transfer of both of these innovative facilities to the Jodrell Laboratory.

New Jodrell Building

In 1958, a scientific visiting group led by Sir Eric Ashby noted the general decline in influence and resources in the Jodrell Laboratory (Ashby et al. 1958). They recommended the appointments of two new senior researchers in cytogenetics and physiology, together with the promotion of the Keeper and construction of new facilities for research and teaching. Thus, in 1963, the original Jodrell building was demolished, and government funding was provided to build a new two-storey building (Fig. 3A). This development provided greatly increased space and facilities, including a ground-floor teaching laboratory for Kew’s horticulture students and a lecture theatre used both for teaching and as a conference venue. The new building was officially opened in 1965 by Lord Florey, President of the Royal Society (Hyams 1965; Jones 1987). It originally housed three research sections: Cytogenetics, Plant Anatomy (later Micromorphology), and Plant Physiology (later Seed Physiology). It remained under Metcalfe’s Keepership until his retirement in 1969, when the Welsh botanist and cytogeneticist Keith Jones was promoted as his successor. Following Keith Jones, the final two Keepers of the rebuilt Jodrell Laboratory were Michael David Bennett (Jodrell Keeper 1987 – 2006, formerly based at the Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge: Leitch & Fay 2008) and Mark Wayne Chase FRS (Jodrell Keeper 2006 – 2013).

Fig. 3
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The new Jodrell Laboratory. A exterior in 1965; B exterior in 2021, showing the Wolfson Wing (centre) and the 1994 extension (right), with water garden on the left. photos: a reproduced from kew’s archive with permission; b p. j. rudall.

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Following the opening of the new Jodrell building, an ensuing dynamic period increased the staff and activities of the Jodrell Laboratory, not only in modernising systematics research to include new anatomical equipment, such as an electron microscopy suite, but also in establishing related disciplines, especially Biochemistry. Formerly based at the Welsh Plant Breeding station in Aberystwyth, Keith Jones had initially been appointed in 1960 to a new position in the Jodrell Laboratory aimed at establishing a much-needed Cytogenetics section, taking advantage of Kew’s extensive living collections. Under Jones’ leadership, pioneering comparative research on chromosome evolution in higher plants led to studies of DNA hybridisation and chromosome painting, and subsequently to research on the organisation and evolution of genomes. His successor, Mike Bennett, had also trained as a cytogeneticist and so maintained this tradition, adding facilities for DNA sequencing and associated activities. In 1997, Bennett launched an online Plant DNA C-values database that remains an invaluable resource for plant researchers (Leitch & Fay 2008; Pellicer & Leitch 2020).

As Keeper, Keith Jones was a much more outgoing personality than his two immediate predecessors, possessing strong networking skills that helped to raise the profile of the newly restructured Jodrell Laboratory as a modern centre of systematics research. Together with his deputy, David Frederick Cutler, Jones re-established close links with the Linnean Society and supported effective networking with the Botany Department of the Natural History Museum, which in the 1970s and 1980s was the dynamic centre of the cladistic revolution that led to today's ubiquitous phylogenetic systematics. The annual Jodrell Christmas party became a widely anticipated event on the social calendar. Cognisant of the benefits that his own earlier sabbaticals had brought, Keith Jones also actively sought ways to develop his younger staff with extra training and overseas plant collecting, to the benefit of the present author, among many others. During the Jones Keepership, Kew science was partly driven by healthy rivalry between the Jodrell, Herbarium and Horticulture throughout the late 1970s and 1980s.

This increased activity attracted a series of visiting researchers who contributed to the enhancement of Kew’s reputation as a centre for botanical research. From Keith Jones’ Keepership onwards, monocotyledons became a significant research strand in the Jodrell Laboratory, due partly to cytological studies on monocots with large chromosomes (e.g. some Iridaceae and Commelinaceae) and large genomes (e.g. many bulbous monocots), and partly to a series of anatomical studies. The completion of Metcalfe & Chalk’s Anatomy of the Dicotyledons had led to an extended series of more detailed volumes on the Anatomy of the Monocotyledons, attracting many important researchers to the Jodrell, such as Philip Barry Tomlinson, who wrote three volumes in the ten-volume series (Tomlinson 1961, 1969, 1982), and Dennis William Stevenson, who visited the Jodrell as a NATO Fellow in 1976 – 1977 and helped to establish a range of anatomical techniques (Rudall & Specht 2021). In collaboration with Herbarium colleagues, Jodrell researchers organised the first international Monocot conference at Kew in July 1993 (Rudall et al. 1995), which itself spawned a subsequent series of international Monocot conferences held at five-yearly intervals in different parts of the world.

Organisational and structural transformations

Over the decades following the construction of the new laboratory, the Jodrell’s research foci went through a series of transformations that reflected both practical issues and the research needs of the time. The Plant Anatomy Section, initially centred on vegetative anatomy and plant authentication under first Metcalfe and then Cutler, was subsequently merged with the Cell Physiology Laboratory and Palynology Unit to form the Micromorphology Section, which allowed a much greater focus on flowers and the evolution and development of plant structure, led by the present author. The Seed Physiology section was relocated in 1980 from the Jodrell to Wakehurst Place, where it quickly formed the Kew Seed Bank facility under Peter Thompson, partly to ensure greater viability of stored seed. This important Jodrell spin-off facility later developed into Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank.

The resulting vacant laboratory space in the Jodrell was occupied by the Biochemistry Section. In 1970, an AFRC Laboratory of Biochemical Systematics had been established in a small building behind the Jodrell, under the leadership of the eminent biochemist Tony Swain. Although Swain later moved to Boston University in the United States in 1975, his laboratory formed the basis for Kew’s Biochemistry section. Under the successive management of Tom Reynolds, Linda Fellows and Monique Simmonds, the Biochemistry Section was equipped to investigate a range of primary and secondary metabolites and also to authenticate botanical and fungal extracts used in industry.

In 1992, Michael Bennett introduced a much-needed and innovative new Molecular Systematics Section dedicated to systematic Molecular Biology; this was managed initially by Tony Cox and subsequently by Mark Chase. Capitalising upon its proximity to Kew’s important plant collections, the Molecular Systematics Section established a DNA Bank in the Jodrell Laboratory and played a significant role in the dramatic transformation of knowledge in plant molecular phylogenetics that permeated the last few decades, leading to the influential Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classifications, of which the first was published in 1998 (APG 1998).

Ultimately, the installation of extra facilities and large equipment rapidly outgrew the new building. During his time as Keeper of the Jodrell, Michael Bennett supervised a series of infrastructure projects that considerably enlarged the new Jodrell building to allow the addition of more laboratories, collections and staff (Fig. 3B). The first major extension was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994, and a second, larger extension named the Wolfson Wing (after its primary funding benefactor, the Wolfson Foundation) was completed in 2006. However, the Jodrell ceased to be an administrative unit in 2013, when restructuring of Kew’s Departments followed the re-establishment of the previously vacant post of Director of Science with the appointments of Katherine Jane Willis in 2013 and Alexandre Antonelli in 2018.

Conclusions

The Jodrell Laboratory was established at a time of immense scientific discovery in the early days of laboratory-based research. A combination of readily available systematics expertise and laboratory facilities, enhanced by a close relationship with London colleges, ensured that Kew was effectively placed at the epicentre of contemporary plant science. The Laboratory was fortunate in attracting important and influential scientists — especially palaeobotanists — at an early stage in their careers. Its foundation was also politically expedient, allowing Hooker to counter calls to merge resources with the Natural History Museum and to consolidate Kew science on a firmer footing. Furthermore, as several influential nineteenth-century scientists well understood — notably Charles Darwin, Joseph Hooker, T. H. Huxley, W. T. Thiselton-Dyer and D. H. Scott, successful comparative research requires extensive (and ideally well-curated) collections. In a poetic exposition on systematic biology, Thiselton-Dyer (1910) wrote that “The mathematician only requires his study. The physicist and the chemist are rarely at a loss for opportunity of research. But the position of the biologist is different. He must go to his material.”

The location of the Jodrell Laboratory in the heart of one of the world’s largest botanic gardens has ensured its enduring success over almost a century and a half, though inevitably it has been a fragile success that has always been dependent on funding availability. Kew Science benefitted from a healthy tension between the Jodrell and Herbarium, and there has always been overlap between the two departments. Even before Vicki Funk’s course on cladistics was held at Kew in 1991, many Kew systematists had employed phylogenetic methodology, and Kew’s seminal conferences on taxonomic groups ranging from euphorbs and legumes to monocots have encompassed all of these fields.

At its best, the Jodrell Laboratory has been the creative hub of several major scientific innovations achieved by talented individuals. Such successes not only greatly expanded Kew's sphere of influence but also helped to future-proof the scientific endeavours of the broader botanical community, allowing a rapid response to new challenges and opportunities. In this new era of unprecedented social challenge and the heightening threat of climate change, there remains an ongoing role for such a facility, albeit inevitably shaped to the requirements of new societal challenges.