Bledisloe Medal Winner’s Courage

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30630, 22 December 1964, Page 18

Bledisloe Medal Winner’s Courage

A former student of Lincoln College, who gained a doctorate and carried out internationally important research in spite of contracting poliomyelitis has been awarded the Bledisloe Medal for 1965 by the Lincoln College council.

He is Dr. Robert Thaine. The medal is awarded annually by the council to a former student of the college who, as a result of his training at the college, has materially assisted farming in New Zealand or has otherwise advanced the country’s interests. Dr. Thaine entered Lincoln College as a farm cadet in 1942 and four years later qualified for the Diploma of Agriculture. For a short time he was in the Department of Agriculture in Blenheim, which is his home town. He went to Canada where he completed his bachelor and master of science (agriculture) at the University of Saskachewan.

Dr. Thaine studied for his doctorate in the botany department at the University of Melbourne. In 1955 these studies were to have been continued in England but while on a visit to Blenheim he contracted poliomyelitis and was in the Wairau Hospital for 12 months, eight of which were spent in an iron lung. This period was followed by another year when he was bedridden and had no power of limb or speech. Spirit

The citation to the award says: “His case was regarded as hopeless but by his spirit, and sustained and helped throughout by his wife, he progressed to be able to use a wheel-chair. He was able to give his wife details of his research work and she typed this material for his doctorate thesis.”

In early 1957 he and his wife and child, with few funds and no job to take up, went to England. There he was assisted by several benefactors and after an examination by Professor Maskell, of Cambridge University, the Melbourne doctorate of philosophy was awarded in 1957.

By this time, the citation: says, he had become known for arresting work on the physiological prenomena of translocation in plants. The

University of Leeds granted him research facilities and funds were granted by the Nuffield Foundation.

He and his family lived in a cottage in Surrey where he continued his work. Dr. Thaine's work is now based on the Agricultural Research Council unit at Oxford University, but he returned to New Zealand last month to take up a one-year research fellowship appointment with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and is at present engaged on this programme at the Physical Science Division at Lower Hutt.