SubSection VRU/1/5 - Kenneth M Smith and Claude F Rivers Correspondence

Extent: 1 box

Box labelled 'Kenneth M Smith and C F Rivers VRU correspondence 1955-1962':

Admin History: Kenneth Manley Smith B. 13 Nov, 1892, Helensburgh, nr Glasgow - 11 June 1981. Educated at Dulwich College, Royal College of Science (Imperial), 1914. Started research into the anatomy of Amphioxus in 1915 at Imperial; MSc, 1922, DSc, 1926, Manchester; PhD, Cambridge; FRS, 1938; CBE 1956. Smith was lecturer in Agricultural Entomology, Manchester University 1920-1927. He became interested in plant pests particularly onion and carrot root flies and developed methods to control them. In 1927 he was recruited as entomologist at the new Potato Virus Research Station headed by Redcliffe N Salaman, funded by the Ministry of Agriculture. By 1931 he had identified and separated potato virus X and Y complex. He became director of the Unit in 1939 and expanded the research beyond potatoes, renaming it the Plant Virus Research Unit and finally the Virus Research Unit. Smith worked with Roy Markham and Douglas Lee on the effects of ionizing radiation on the inactivation of viruses and aspects of aphid-transmission as well as continuing his work on new viruses including the tobacco, tomato, and turnip mosaic viruses. He was one of the pioneers of using electron microscopes to study virus particles. During WW2 Smith developed ways of improving the health of potatoes, developing the system of producing a nuclear stock of virus-free tubers. After the war he studied the virus diseases of insects discovering one group now named 'Smithia' after him. He continued work with the electron microscope and developed methods of biological control of insects using viruses. He retired as Director in 1959 and spent seven years on research in the USA from 1962-69 before returning to Cambridge. Kenneth M Smith was one of the founding members of the Society for General Microbiology and laid the foundations for the study of plant and insect virology. Under his directorship the VRU attracted scientists from all over the world to train in virus research. Among other books he wrote the standard text on plant viruses 'A Textbook of Plant Virus Diseases', 1937, revised 1973 and he was the co-editor of 'Advances in Virus Research' from 1953-1981. Claude Frederick Rivers (also known as Tom), b. Bexley 13 Dec 1925 - April 2006, Swansea. Educated at Margate College and Dartford Grammar School. He worked at a butterfly farm, a bank and served in the Royal Marines before starting a moth farm with his wife (https://www.britishpathe.com/video/lepidopterist/query/Lane) in Dartford in 1948. He joined the VRU (The Insect Virology Unit) in 1953. He also continued collecting insects in his local woodland with colleague Brian Gardiner, compiling a list of its lepidoptera and in 1954 discovered the first iridescent virus disease of insects. He pioneered the use of nuclear polyhedrosis virus for the control of European pine sawfly. In 1960 he began publishing papers on viruses as insect pesticides, and in 1976 provided a chapter in John Heath's The Moths and Butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland on pathogens in the regulation of insect populations. In the 1960s he joined the Natural Environment Research Council's Institute of Virology in Oxford, retiring in 1982 to became a consultant in applied insect pathology. He was the honorary secretary and treasurer (until 2004) of the Entomological Club, founded in 1826 and restricted to 8 members. In 1963 he had become a Cambridge councillor, serving on the education and housing committees. Later in Oxford, he was a school governor, a JP, chaired the Confederation for the Advancement of State Education, supported many charities - including the Galapagos Islands Conservation Trust - and worked as a volunteer driver for a cancer hospice. He gave many talks on his entomological work and, in the 1970s, helped with insect material and background information for the BBC series Natural World.