Rothamsted Experimental Station



The Rothamsted Experimental Station, one of the oldest agricultural research institutions in the world, is located at Harpenden in Hertfordshire, England. It is now known as Rothamsted Research.

51.80917°N, -0.35528°W

History
It was founded in 1843 by John Bennet Lawes on his inherited 16th century estate, Rothamsted Manor, to investigate the impact of inorganic and organic fertilizers on crop yield. Lawes, a noted Victorian era entrepreneur and scientist, had founded one of the first artificial fertilizer manufacturing factories one year earlier in 1842.

Appointing a young chemist, Joseph Henry Gilbert, as his scientific collaborator, Lawes launched the first of a series of long-term field experiments, some of which continue to this day. Over the next 57 years, Lawes and Gilbert established the foundations of modern scientific agriculture and the principles of crop nutrition.

In 1902 Daniel Hall moved from Wye College to become director. Hall took a lower salary to join an establishment lacking money, staff, and direction. Hall decided that Rothamsted needed to specialise and that it needed new sources of finance. He was eventually successful in obtaining state support for agricultural research. In 1912 John Russell who had come from Wye in 1907 took over as director and continued in the post until 1943. Russell saw through a major expansion in the 1920s. In 1943 Russell retired and was replaced by Sir William Gammie Ogg. During Ogg's directorship which ended in 1958 the number of staff increased from 140 to 471 and new departments of biochemistry, nematology, and pedology were formed.

Many distinguished scientists have been associated with Rothamsted. In 1919 Russell hired Ronald Fisher to investigate the possibility of analysing the vast amount of data accumulated from the "Classical Field Experiments." Fisher analysed the data and stayed to create the theory of experimental design, making Rothamsted a major centre for research in statistics and genetics. Among his appointments and successors in the Statistics department were Oscar Irwin, John Wishart, Frank Yates, William Cochran and John Nelder. Indeed, many consider Rothamsted to be the birthplace of modern statistical theory and practice.

Partly through these methods, researchers at Rothamsted have made significant contributions to agricultural science, including the discovery and development of systemic herbicides and pyrethroid insecticides, as well as pioneering contributions to the fields of virology, nematology, soil science and pesticide resistance. During World War II, aiming to increase crop yields for a nation at war, a team under the leadership of Judah Hirsch Quastel developed 2,4-D, still the most widely used weed-killer in the world.

In 1987 Rothamsted, the Long Ashton Research Station, and Broom's Barn Experimental Station merged to form the Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR). The station is now operated by a grouping of private organizations under the name of Rothamsted Research and is mainly funded by various branches of the UK government through the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Books

 * A History of Agricultural Science in Great Britain 1620-1954, by E. J. Russell (1966) London, George Allen & Unwin. Sir John Russell was director of Rothamsted from 1912 to 1943, and his book emphasises the role of Rothamsted in the development of agricultural science in Britain.
 * The early directors Lawes and Gilbert, Hall, Russell and Ogg all have entries in the  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).

Directors 1902-1958

 * A. D. (Sir Alfred) Daniel Hall FRS
 * E. J. (Sir John) Russell FRS photograph
 * Sir William Gammie Ogg.

Rothamsted chemists
Some of the chemists associated with Rothamsted can be found by searching on Rothamsted on the
 * Biographical Database of the British Chemical Community, 1880-1970.