The site is now occupied by part of Rutlish School and a distinctive wall adjoining the path between John Innes Park and the Recreation Ground.
The John Innes Horticultural Institution was founded in nineteen ten under the directorship of William Bateson. Two acres of land in Merton Park, later extended to six acres, were purchased with money left in the will of John Innes, a London property developer and philanthropist. He had died in nineteen hundred and four, bequeathing the bulk of his fortune for the creation of a horticultural school.
Bateson was one of the founding fathers of plant genetics and the John Innes Horticultural Institution is said to have been the first British research centre in this field. In nineteen thirty-eight, after hundreds of painstaking trials, horticulturalists perfected methods of soil sterilisation and developed two of the famous ‘John Innes’ composts which are still in use today.
During World War Two, the institute directed its research towards the urgent problem of food supply and the need for domestic seed production. It published a series of leaflets and gave radio broadcasts to promote its new composts and other improved methods for raising garden crops. To ensure staff safety and limit interruptions to this vital work, a large underground air raid shelter was built near the institute’s testing grounds.
The Horticultural Institution finally left Merton Park in nineteen forty-five and transferred to Norwich.
