Arthur Warwick Sutton (1854-1925): Plant breeder and businessman

Sutton was educated at Malvern College and the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. When Bateson met him he was senior partner in his family's seed firm based in Reading, Berkshire, and a member of the Royal Horticultural Society and the Linnean Society. He joined Suttons Seeds in 1870 and was made a partner in 1876, taking over responsibility for the vegetable side of the business, producing many new varieties over the years. As a seed merchant he was interested in achieving good germination, high standards of purity, and in protecting Suttons' rights in the new varieties produced.

With Bateson, Sutton served on a joint committee of the Royal Horticultural Society and the Royal Society Evolution Committee. The Royal Society Evolution Committee had been formed in 1893 for the purpose of ‘conducting a statistical enquiry into the variability of organisms’ and aimed to bring scientists and breeders together in the investigation. The new joint committee was a step towards building closer links with plant breeders.

In March 1900 Bateson, hemmed in by lack of land for his experiments, wrote to Arthur Sutton reminding him that the joint committee had been set up some time before, but that so far nothing much had come of it. Bateson proposed that he and his co-worker A. Wallis work on some of the plants being bred at Sutton’s nurseries. Sutton made it possible for Bateson to spend several years making careful observations on heredity in Primula sinensis at his nurseries and they became friends.

Introduced into England from China in 1820, the florists' form of P. sinensis has hairy leaves and umbels of showy blooms: pink, red, lavender, blue purple or white. Bateson was particularly interested in the genetics of the many mutational forms, such as fern- and ivy-leaved, and the stellata type with handsome star-like long-stemmed flowers. He focused particularly on the inheritance of colour and the genetics of the pin-eyed (long-styled) and thrum-eyed (short-styled) forms. In February 1904 the Linnean Society gave Bateson an opportunity to promote his studies of Primula when, with Arthur Sutton, he exhibited a series of about 240 Primula sinensis specimens observed at Sutton's nurseries during five seasons and illustrating the effects of heredity and variation. Bateson's Primula display was much admired. Sydney Vines, Oxford Professor of Botany and President of the Linnean Society, proposed a special vote of thanks to Suttons for their magnificent exhibition.

Link: on the history of Sutton’s nurseries

http://www.suttons.co.uk/History.htm

See also: Sutton’s seeds: the history, Reading: Reading University Press, 2006