Rose Scott Moncrieff

Life

She was born Rose Scott-Moncrieff in 1903 and she received a PhD from Cambridge. However because she was female she was given only a certificate and she was not allowed to join the university. in 1930. She worked at the John Innes Horticultural Institution. In the 1930s she worked alongside some of the leading figures in chemistry and genetics, and her recollections of her career were recounted in her book 'The Classical Period in Chemical Genetics. Recollections of Muriel Wheldale Onslow, Sir Robert Robinson and J. B. S. Haldane'.

In the 1930s Rose Scott-Moncrieff and her colleagues published a number of seminal papers in the Biochemical Journal which determined the metabolic sequence and genetic basis of pigment biosynthesis in flowers. Their research laid the foundation for the field of biochemical genetics or molecular biology.

In 1929 Scott-Moncrieff received a small grant from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research which enabled her to begin work with J B S Haldane on the molecular biology of flower colour. In the early period of their collaboration she was based in the laboratory of Professor Gowland Hopkins at the University of Cambridge where Haldane was a Reader. Their experiments were mainly carried out at Merton College, Oxford on the chemistry of anthocyanins. Haldane persuaded her to widen her research to include the chemical and genetic study of flower pigmentation. He also introduced her to the geneticists at JIHI where she started on a biochemical survey of related genotypes.

The first crystalline form of Primulin was prepared by Scott-Moncrieff in about 1930. This was the first crystalline anthocyanin pigment ever identified. This was possible because of her insight into linking genetics with chemistry. She is creditted with founding biochemical genetics.

Having isolated anthocyanin from purple Antirrhinum majus she now started work on its red variety and on the different strains of Primula sinensis. She was also mentored by Muriel Wheldale Onslow.

After her 1937 marriage to Oswald Mapletoft Meares, an electrical engineer, Scott-Moncrieff's anthocyanin research came to an end. The couple had two daughters, Jean Rosemary Meares and another. They moved to India and remained there until Independence in 1947. Besides raising her daughters she contributed to war-time investigations of camouflage, was Divisional Girl Guide Commissioner for Cawnpore, India and acquired a special insight into Indian education, becoming President of the Women’s Section of the All-India Basic Education Conference in January 1945. On their return to England the family settled at 'Windyridge', One Tree Hill Road in Guildford. Her husband died on 28 April 1973.

Legacy

Scott Moncrieff's book was a good source for historians, however Prof Martin believes that the credit for starting chemical genetics should not go to her mentor, Muriel Wheldale Onslow, but to Rose Scott-Moncrieff.

Rose Scott-Moncrieff....Working with an extremely difficult system (biochemically) she made discoveries that are still of relevance today. Over the past ten years anthocyanin research has re-emerged as a hugely important field because of the health-protecting and health-promoting effects of dietary anthocyanins, which are consumed in significant amounts in super foods such as blackberries, blackcurrants, cranberries, strawberries, raspberries. Many of the scientific principles described by Rose Scott-Moncrieff remain relevant and important today, particularly in the rapidly growing area of natural colourants, where anthocyanins are fast replacing synthetic colourants as not only safe, but also health-promoting natural alternatives., C.Martin