Joseph Rank (1854–1943) was a Yorkshire miller who revolutionised the UK wheat milling industry in mid-1880s. He introduced roller milling from Central Europe and steam power allowing his mills to be moved close to the docks facilitating the use of imported wheat. He was therefore largely responsible for enabling ordinary working people to consume white bread, which had previously been a luxury. After his death his son, J. Arthur (later Baron) Rank (1888–1972), further developed the milling and baking business and added interests in film production and distribution. He also endowed a number of charities, including in 1972 the Rank Prize Funds whose main role is to award prizes for excellence in research in the two areas which reflected his commercial interests: optoelectronics and nutrition (which includes crop production). A total of 31 prizes have since been awarded for nutrition, and it is particularly notable that five of these have been awarded for research on wheat, including the latest prize, of £80,000 to Professor Graham Moore of the John Innes Centre (Norwich, UK) and Professor Keith Edwards (University of Bristol, UK) for their work which has enabled breeders to exploit variation in the wheat genome (see Fig. 1).
