One of the father figures in the study of plant genetic resources dies

 

Professor John Gregory (but better known as Jack) Hawkes OBE died on 6 September 2007, aged 92. Jack Hawkes played a key role in the development of the study of plant genetic resources and, through the establishment of the University Birmingham (UK) as a centre for research and training in this discipline, influenced a whole generation of scientists across the world devoted to the conservation and utilization of crop diversity.

Jack had taken part in expeditions to South America in the late 1930s during which he had collected and studied potato taxonomy that had then formed the basis for his PhD at Cambridge University (UK). He had also visited Leningrad to meet the world-renown Russian scientist, NI Vavilov, who had done much to lay the foundations for the development of seed banks and the scientific study of plant genetic resources. Vavilov suffered persecution under the Stalinist regime and died in 1943.

After a period work in Colombia, during which he worked to broaden the genetic base of potato breeding using related wild species, Jack took up a post at the University of Birmingham in 1952. Nine years later, he was awarded a Personal Chair in Taxonomic Botany and subsequently was appointed Mason Professor of Botany and Head of Department in 1967, remaining in the department until his retirement in 1982.

In 1969, he established the Master’s course in Conservation and Utilisation of Plant Genetic Resources in Birmingham which, to date, has trained some 1,500 students (many from developing countries).  RBG Kew’s seed conservation staff have been involved in teaching on this course since 1989.

It was during the 1960s that Jack, together with Sir Otto Frankel, Jack Harlan and Erna Bennett, were at the forefront of successful efforts to galvanise, through FAO and later through the CGIAR, a major international programme of conserving the crop diversity (land races and primitive varieties) that was being displaced by modern cultivars.

The Millennium Seed Bank Project owes a particular debt of gratitude to Professor Hawkes. At a critical point during the project’s development, his strong support helped to secure financial backing. It was therefore a great pleasure to record our gratitude to him at a special Linnean Society gathering at the Wellcome Trust Millennium Building in October 2001 when he was guest of honour.