John Pilkington Hudson, CBE, GM & Bar, VMH (24 July 1910 – 6 December 2007) was an English horticultural scientist who did pioneer work on long-distance transportability of what became known as the kiwifruit.
After a one-year course in horticulture, he went on to take a University of London external degree in the subject at the Midland Agricultural and Dairy College in Sutton Bonington, and briefly lectured there in 1935.
There his scientific acumen stood him in good stead and he was summoned to work on new defusing methods in London, with the rank of major.
It could be paralysed by liquid oxygen, which deadened the batteries, but the resulting extremely low temperature would crack the bomb-casing, setting off another type of fuse.
[1] After the war, Hudson found work in the government agricultural department in Wellington, on the transportability of Actinidia deliciosa, then known as the Chinese gooseberry, now as the kiwifruit or kiwi.
He showed almost military precision in his research and administrative work, which he shared in 1961–1963 with the department of horticulture at the University of Khartoum, where he was seconded for six months each year as a visiting professor.
Hudson left Nottingham in 1967 to direct the Long Ashton Research Station, the job being coupled with a chair of horticultural science at the University of Bristol.
Peter Waister, a former graduate student of Hudson's, stated at his funeral, "I was impressed by his ability to balance the three areas [of research, teaching and advisory work] and to be inspirational in them all, a rare achievement."