Professor John MacLeod
21 June 2010
Professor John MacLeod, Vice Chairman of RHS Council, passed away on Friday 18 June after a long illness.
John had been a Member of Council for 10 years, a member of Business Committee and a Garden Advisor for RHS Garden Hyde Hall.
John also served on and chaired the RHS Science and Horticultural Advice Committee for a number of years. As RHS Professor of Horticulture, he was the most consistent and powerful advocate for horticultural science in recent years.
John was involved with many other organisations; he was Director - and more recently a trustee - of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), chairman of the British Beet Research Organisation, Vice-President of the International Institute for Research on Beet, and a board member and Director of the National Non-Food Crops Centre. In 2010, NIAB named its new facility for seed testing and variety evaluation The MacLeod Complex in his honour.
His childhood was spent in the Outer Hebrides and he was educated at the University of Glasgow and Michigan State University. From then on, he was involved in practical biology, field and laboratory research and development programmes.
“Council was planning to honour John at the AGM on 1 July for his commitment to excellence in horticulture by making him a Vice President of the Royal Horticultural Society,” says RHS President Giles Coode-Adams. “John had been a tremendous support to me during my presidency and we all appreciated his wise counsel. We are really saddened by the death of this outstanding man and our sympathies go out to his family.”