Noel Farnie Robertson

Noel Farnie Robertson
Born	1923 Dundalk, Ireland
Died	2 July 1999
Occupation	Botanist and Agriculturist
Spouse(s)	Doreen, doctor and cellist
Children	two boys and two girls

Noel Farnie Robertson CBE (1923–1999) was a botanist and agriculturist who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE).

Robertson was born in 1923 in Dundalk, Ireland. He had a Scottish Presbyterian upbringing, attending Trinity Academy in north Edinburgh, then going to his local university, the University of Edinburgh. He studied Botany which at the time was taught in Inverleith at the Royal Botanical Gardens. During his studies Robertson developed interests in plant pathology and fungal taxonomy, most probably inspired by the Reader in Mycology, Malcolm Wilson. He also became interested in botanic gardens and horticulture. Robertson won the Sir David Baxter Scholarship and the Turner Prize and obtained a degree with first class honours in Botany in 1944.

Robertson then went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a Diploma in Agricultural science. He later described this time as one of the happiest in his life, as he was able to work on the land, getting his hands dirty, and gained pleasure and fulfilment from hard manual labour. His time at Cambridge concluded with time at the Virus Research Station with Kenneth Smith, at Rothamsted Experimental Station with Frederick Bawden and studying tree viruses on a tour of the US. The University of Edinburgh awarded Robertson the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize for his report on tree viruses.

Following Cambridge, in 1946 Robertson spent a short time in Ghana working with Peter Posnette at the Cocoa Research Institute at which he studied viral swollen shoot disease in cocoa. Later he wrote this work up as a thesis for which the University of Edinburgh awarded him a PhD.

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