John Alexander Fraser Roberts (1900-1987)

John Alexander Fraser Roberts (1900-1987) was a Research Assistant at the Institute of Animal Breeding at the University of Edinburgh under the supervision of Francis Albert Eley Crew (1886-1973).

Early Years

Fraser was the eldest child of a Welsh farmer and a Scots mother. Early in life he showed an interest in the attempts of local farmers to improve their sheep flocks by selective breeding. Already he loved collecting data, plotting it onto graphs and in statistics. He had achieved university entrance qualification by the age of 15, and in 1916 went to the University College of North Wales at Bangor as an agriculture student, but soon transferred to natural science and genetics. His studies were interrupted when he was called up for war service in 1918-19. He obtained his B.Sc. in 1920 and transferred to Cambridge University as an affiliated student from the University College of North Wales. Here he obtained his B.A. (1922) and M.A. (1925). In 1923, he became a researcher on a Ministry of Agriculture-funded project to study the wool of Welsh mountain sheep.

Fraser Roberts at Edinburgh University

This project brought Fraser Roberts into contact with Professor Francis Albert Eley Crew (1886-1973) of the Institute of Animal Breeding, University of Edinburgh, and he went to Edinburgh in 1923. In 1933 he obtained his Edinburgh D.Sc. with the thesis 'Studies on the biology of the sheep'. By this stage, his research interests were leading him towards work on human genetics. From 1931 to 1933 he held a Macauley Research Fellowship in Human Biology at Edinburgh and immediately after this he enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine of that university, following Crew's advice. He qualified M.B. Ch.B. in 1936, and in 1943 he obtained his M.D. degree with the thesis 'Blood-Group Frequencies in South-Western England and North Wales: A Study in Racial Variation, together with a Search for Evidence that the Blood-Groups Possess Selective Value; and Other Contributions to Human Genetics'. In the same year he became a Member Membership of the Royal College of Physicians, London.

Post-Edinburgh Career

During World War II he served as a surgeon-commander in the RNVR and assisted the Admiralty with the collation of statistical material. He returned to Edinburgh and qualified M.D. in 1943 for his thesis on the distribution of blood groups between the people of North Wales and southern England. Since 1933 he had been involved in the Burden Mental Health Research Department at the Stoke Park Colony, Bristol. His early work there involved the assessment of intelligence and by 1946 this interest had developed into pioneering work in genetic counselling. He founded the first genetic counselling clinic in Europe at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street in 1946, and was the first Director of the Clinical Genetics Research Unit there from 1957 until he retired in 1964.

Research

Fraser Roberts studied the science of genetics in its application to inheritance in humans. His interest focused on the application of laboratory and statistical knowledge in the field, and ultimately he became a pioneer of genetic counselling. In addition to his work on intelligence he also examined the relationship between blood group and inherited disease, and the genetical causes of high blood pressure and diseases of the nervous system. The precision and clarity that he brought to his research is evident in his book, An Introduction to Medical Genetics, the first student text on genetics. It is still highly regarded and went into eight editions from 1940 to 1985.

Notable publications

The Story of Scotland (1942)
The Care of Farm Animals(1943)
Crofting Agriculture (1945)
Alaska: An Ecological Reconnaissance (1953)
An Ecological Renaissance of the Mara Plains in Kenya Colony (1960)
Wild Life in an African Territory: A Study Made for the Game and Tsetse Control Dept. of Northern Rhodesia (1960)
Impacts of Man on the Biosphere (1969)

Honours, Qualifications and Appointments

1927 - Elected Fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh
1928-1931 - Appointed Head, Biology Department, Wool Industries Research Association, Leeds
1931 - Graduated DSc, University of Edinburgh
1933 - Appointed Macaulay Research Fellow in Human Biology, University of Edinburgh
1940-1957 - Appointed Director, Stoke Hospital, Bristol
1949 - Elected Fellow, Royal College of Physicians, London
1952 - Appointed Galton Lecturer, Eugenics Society
1957-1959 - Elected President, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
1960-1962 - Elected President, Biometric Society
1963 - Elected Fellow, Royal Society
1965 - Awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire
1971 - Founder Fellow, Royal College of Psychiatrists
1976 - Awarded Ballantyne Prize, Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh

Sources

P. E. Polani, 'John Alexander Fraser Roberts. 8 September 1899-15 January 1987', Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 38 (1992), 307-22.