John Craigie

John Hubert Craigie, born in Pictou in Nova Scotia on 8 December 1887, to Orcadian John Craigie and his wife, Elizabeth Pollock, made a discovery that is little known but was of world-wide importance.

After serving in India during WWI, he obtained a degree from Harvard in 1925 and an MSc from the University of Minnesota in 1926. He then joined the Dominion Rust Research Laboratory in Winnipeg, as a pathologist.

The laboratory had been established in 1925 to attempt to eradicate wheat rust. This disease had affected wheat since biblical times but had become a serious problem on the Canadian prairies. On average, thirty-five million bushels of wheat a year were lost to rust. In 1927, Craigie made the fundamental discovery that the rust organism reproduced sexually and could hybridise every year. This knowledge enabled researchers to develop rust-resistant strains of wheat.

Craigie went on to become Director of the Rust Laboratory 1928-45, the Dominion Botanist and a world expert on cereal pathology. He received the Medal of the Professional Institute of the Civil Service of Canada in 1937 and was made a member of the Royal Society in March 1952. He died in Ottowa in February 1989, aged 101.