Sir Rowland Harry Biffen FRS (28 May 1874, in

Cheltenham Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...

– 12 July 1949) was a British

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

mycologist Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungus, fungi, including their genetics, genetic and biochemistry, biochemical properties, their Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy and ethnomycology, their use to humans, including as a so ...

, geneticist and a professor of agricultural botany at the University of Cambridge who worked on breeding wheat varieties. He was also a gifted artist known for his landscapes in watercolours. He was the founder of the ''Journal of Agricultural Science''.

Biography

Biffen was the oldest child of Henry John who was headmaster of Christ Church school in

, and his wife, Mary. After studying at

Cheltenham grammar school en, That which is hidden shall be revealed , established = , closed = , type = Grammar school;Academy , religion = , president = , head_label = , head = Russel Ellicott , r_head_label = , r_head = , chair_label = , chair = , founder ...

, he graduated from

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...

in 1898 after being Frank Smart student in botany at Gonville and Caius College. He went on an expedition to the Caribbean and South America to examine rubber production soon after graduation. He then worked as a university demonstrator, researching fungi under

Harry Marshall Ward Harry Marshall Ward (21 March 1854 – 26 August 1906), FRS, , was a British botanist, mycologist, and plant pathologist. Born in Hereford, the eldest child of Francis and Mary Marshall Ward, Harry Ward was educated at Lincoln Cathedral s ...

and obtained a patent for the handling of rubber latex. He published a number of papers on mycology between 1898 and 1902 and subsequently became president of the British Mycological Society in 1905 and again in 1930. In 1908, Biffen was appointed the first professor of agricultural botany at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, a post he held till 1931. He won the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

Darwin Medal The Darwin Medal is one of the medals awarded by the Royal Society for "distinction in evolution, biological diversity and developmental, population and organismal biology". In 1885, International Darwin Memorial Fund was transferred to the ...

in 1920. Biffen was the first director of the

Plant Breeding Institute The Plant Breeding Institute was an agricultural research organisation in Cambridge in the United Kingdom between 1912 and 1987. Founding The institute was established in 1912 as part of the School of Agriculture at the University of Cambridge. R ...

, which became part of the John Innes Centre in 1994, and was an early proponent of using genetics to improve crop plants. His primary research plant was

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

. Among the most important wheat varieties he bred were Little Joss (1910. named inadvertently by Sir

Rider Haggard Sir Henry Rider Haggard (; 22 June 1856 – 14 May 1925) was an English writer of adventure fiction romances set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a pioneer of the lost world literary genre. He was also involved in land reform t ...

) and Yeoman (1916). Biffen founded the ''Journal of Agricultural Science'' and instrumental in the founding of the Genetical Society in 1918 and the National Institute of Agricultural Botany. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1914, was knighted in 1925, and received an honorary DSc in 1935 from the University of Reading. He had married Mary Hemus of Upton upon Severn in 1899 and they had no children. Biffen also took an interest in watercolour painting, gardening (with a special interest in auriculas), botany, photography, and archaeology. He died in Cambridge.

References

External links

Portrait
{{DEFAULTSORT:Biffen, Rowland Henry 1874 births 1949 deaths People from Cheltenham People educated at Pate's Grammar School Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge English botanists English mycologists Fellows of the Royal Society Knights Bachelor Professors of the University of Cambridge