John Pilkington Hudson

John Pilkington Hudson, (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. He was also a celebrated bomb disposal expert.

Background Hudson was born on 24 July 1910 in Buxton, Derbyshire, to William Arthur Hudson (1884–1976), a post-office employee from Cheshire, and his wife Bertha, née Pilkington (1887–1969), daughter of a local coal merchant. He had a younger sister, Margaret. He attended New Mills Secondary School, but left at 16 to work in a garden nursery his father had started at Chapel-en-le-Frith. Nonetheless, he showed an early interest in physics.

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. In 1936 he married Mary Gretta Heath (1910–1989), a dairy chemist, daughter of William Nathaniel Heath, farmer. They had two sons, Colin and Richard. They lived in Plumpton, East Sussex for three years while Hudson worked as an East Sussex County Council horticultural adviser.

Bomb disposal Shortly before the Second World War, Hudson joined the Territorial Army. He immediately saw action in France and was evacuated from Dunkirk. He was then assigned to bomb disposal with the Royal Engineers, heading a group in Sheffield. 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.

Hudson's war career included several months in the United States liaising with bomb disposal experts there. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire. He was awarded a George Medal in 1943 for disabling the first anti-tamper Y bomb fuse on 24 January 1943, six days after an intact fuse had first been recovered. According to an obituarist:

In 1944 he received a Bar to his George Medal for defusing the first V1 flying bomb or "doodlebug" to land intact. The nature of his war work remained unknown to friends until a Channel 4 television series on defusing was shown in 2001.

Retirement John and Gretta Hudson retired to Wrington, Somerset, where they developed a large garden, which Hudson tended almost unaided into his nineties. Other interests included the local choral society, gliding, volunteering for the Weston-super-Mare Samaritans, and fell-walking. He acted as carer for his wife after she suffered a stroke in 1986. His son Colin, a tropical agronomist in Barbados, predeceased him in 2004. He was survived by his son Richard, a professor of linguistics at University College, London. He died on 6 December 2007 of kidney failure aged 97.