Reginald Philip Gregory (c.1879-1918): JIHI volunteer worker and botanist

Gregory was born at Trowbridge, Wiltshire and was educated at Weston-super-Mare. He entered St John’s College, Cambridge as a scholar in 1898 and took the Natural Sciences Tripos. After graduating with distinction he devoted himself to teaching and research, and was one of the young Cambridge men who took up with enthusiasm the investigation of Mendelism under Bateson’s leadership, working on sweet peas, Primula and Pisum. From 1902 to 1907 he was Demonstrator in Botany, and Lecturer in 1907. Between 1910 and 1918 he worked as a volunteer worker at JIHI, extending Bateson’s work on the genetics of Primula sinensis. He discovered that ‘giant races’ of Primula sinensis had double the number of chromosomes. He died of pneumonia in October 1918.