The Innes Lecture
Since 2015 the John Innes Centre and John Innes Foundation have hosted an annual Innes Lecture on the history of science, with themes which have synergies with John Innes research past and present. These evening lectures are open to the public, and accompanied by a display of related items from the John Innes Historic Collections.
The lecture is named for the benefactor whose legacy led to our existence. John Innes (1829-1904) was a London property developer and philanthropist. His will, made only a week before he died, instructed that the bulk of his fortune be used to establish a school for horticultural instruction or a local museum and art gallery. The will also mentioned the people and charities closely associated with him in his home borough of Merton, south London. The Innes family contested the will (unsuccessfully) and the John Innes Charity was formed (now the John Innes Foundation). In 1910 the John Innes Horticultural Institution was founded at Innes’ former home, Merton Park.
Innes Lecture Speakers
2025 – Professor Sujit Sivasundaram, University of Cambridge
Following the Pepper: Black Berries, Asian Trade and European Empires
2024 – Dr Alex Aylward, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
2023 – Dr Paul White, University of Cambridge
Darwin and the Evolution of Emotions
2022 – Dr Joy Hawkins, University of East Anglia
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme: Treating Eye Complaints in Medieval and Early Modern England
2021 – Professor Nick Hopwood, University of Cambridge
Visible Embryos: A History of Human Development
2020 Professor Joe Cain, University College London
The 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial: why did so many people hate evolution?
2019 – Professor Helen Anne Curry, University of Cambridge
From Farm Field to Genebank; A Short History of Seed Keeping
2018 – Professor Sally Shuttleworth University of Oxford and Dr John Tweddle Natural History Museum London
Networks of Naturalists: Scientific communities in the 19th and 21st centuries
2017 – Dr Patricia Fara, Clare College Cambridge
Botanical Boudicas and Scientific Soldiers: Struggles past and present
2015 (Inaugural lecture) – Professor Gregory Radick, Leeds University
Mendel the Fraud? A social history of truth in genetics