Edward Max Nicholson CVO CB, 1904–2003

With the death of Max Nicholson in his 99th year, Britain has lost a legend, a person who was central to British ornithology for almost the whole of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, although his many achievements in the fields of conservation and ornithology are reasonably well known, few people are aware of his wider interests and accomplishments, which were many and varied. Indeed, after his first job in 1923 – when he joined a small company as a writer of guide-books, to quote himself, he was to ‘hold seven more posts in my life, each in a different profession, but would never again have to apply for one.’ Max was born in Ireland in 1904, a time when Ireland was still a part of the United Kingdom. He moved to England when still young and spent his schoolboy days there, through the First World War. Although too young to be involved, he recalled going to Portsmouth and seeing troops embarking for the front in France; like some others of his generation, he later felt that he bore a responsibility on their behalf. He was raised largely by his mother. His father was often absent and was unable reliably to finance his family; crucially he was unable to finance Max's schooling adequately and Max had to leave school without prospects of going to university. He was already completely hooked on birds and was soon earning most of his living by writing about them. However, he was encouraged by Geoffrey Dawson, Editor of The Times, to apply to Oxford for a scholarship, which he won and went up in 1926 at the age of 22. He read history, in between periods of intensive ornithology. While there, he was greatly influenced and encouraged by Bernard Tucker. Very soon, his organizational abilities started to surface. He persuaded the University officials to set up the University Exploration Club, partly on the basis that Cambridge already had one. But he had been misinformed; the Oxford Club was the first in any British university. He then went on the University expeditions to Greenland in 1928 and British Guiana (as it then was) in 1929, so setting a tradition that has seen countless thousands of students from a whole range of universities around the globe gain experience of far-flung parts of the world. He also started to gather people together to count birds. With the Oxford Ornithological Society, he organized censuses of the birds on the University's farm at Sandford, he set up the first constant effort ringing programme, using a trap erected in Christchurch Meadow (described in British Birds in May 1928), and initiated the first national surveys – those of Grey Herons Ardea cinerea and Rooks Corvus frugilegus. In the case of the Rooks, he showed that the total amount of food eaten by the birds was trivial compared with crop production, so making the first economic study of any bird. His organization, known initially as the Oxford Bird Census, was the forerunner of the unit called Oxford University Research in Economic Ornithology, which spawned both the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology and the British Trust for Ornithology and the latter's extensive censuses, undertaken largely by teams of amateurs. By the time he arrived in Oxford, Max had already published about birds. His first note, on Icterine Warbler Hippolais icterina, was in British Birds in 1922, followed the next year by his first article on Bird Protection (in The Field, entitled Bird Protection in the Rhineland), a subject which was to dominate much of his future life. His first book, Birds in England: An Account of the State of Our Bird Life and a Criticism of Bird Protection (Chapman & Hall), appeared in 1926, followed by How Birds Live: A Brief Account of Bird Life in the Light of Modern Observation (Williams & Norgate) the following year. He played a major part in many ornithological productions, being Senior Editor of British Birds 1951–1960 and remaining on the editorial board until 1971. He played the key role in the production of the nine-volume Birds of the Western Palearctic (OUP 1977–94). He was a driving force in its planning and setting up the contract with the publishers, Oxford University Press, and he continued on the management committee throughout the publication of the early volumes. He also wrote the habitat sections for every single species in all nine volumes, being the only author to remain with the project from start to finish. Less well known – to the ornithological community at least – were Max's other achievements. He was from an early stage involved in journalism, trying initially to survive on writing about birds. However, he made his living as assistant editor and leader writer for the Weekend Review (1930–33), here covering a wide range of political and economic issues. Much later, he was a Trustee of the independent Observer newspaper from 1952 to 1960. Because of these links, he mixed with politicians, and while he might easily have gone into politics, he was rapidly put off by what he saw as a mixture of dishonesty and incompetence. Later he wrote three books on the subject: The System: The Mismanagement of Britain (1967), Environmental Revolution: A Guide to the New Masters of the World (1970) and The Big Change: After the Environmental Revolution (1973), all published by McGraw-Hill. Then and always he devoted much time to what might broadly be termed socio-economics. His forthright (Max was seldom anything but forthright) leaders in the Weekend Review led to politicians – such as Harold Macmillan among others – challenging him to do more than criticize government. His response was to draft A National Plan for Britain and this excited much interest and led to the formation of an organization known as the PEP (Political and Economic Planning). For most of the 1930s, he was deeply involved with this, being Chairman of the Executive and later (1953–58) on the Council of Management. This part of his life is described in Fifty Years of Political and Economic Planning: Looking Forward 1931–1981 (Pinder (ed.) 1981, Heinemann). While the PEP took up a lot of his time, it established Max as a respected thinker and put him in touch with many of the influential people of the time. Yet despite his ‘independence’ he played an important part in a number of key issues in Government in the Second World War and after. His first foray into this field was as Controller of Literature in the Ministry of Information. This job lasted just seven weeks, ending with Max walking out completely disillusioned. It was with difficulty that he was persuaded back again, this time by Cyril Hurcomb (Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Shipping, and, probably significantly, both a member of the PEP and an ornithologist). Max joined him in March 1940 and in January 1941 became Head of Allocation of Tonnage for the trans-Atlantic convoys. So, for much of the war he was in charge of organizing the Atlantic convoys (he seems to have had a hand in the decision to marshal shipping into warship-escorted convoys as opposed to the haphazard – and far less successful – habit of single ships trying to run the gauntlet of the submarines). He also organized the Middle East Supply Centre, chaired the Anglo-Soviet Shipping Committee and seems to have played a key part in the shipping planning for ‘Overlord’, the invasion of Europe. The importance of this logistical planning in getting key supplies to the right front at the right time can hardly be over-estimated and he was involved in the high-level strategic conferences in Cairo, Quebec, Yalta and Potsdam. At the end of the war he was made Head of the Office of the Lord President of the Council (1945–52); he was persuaded to take this post by Herbert Morrison, then Deputy Prime Minister, apparently partly on the grounds that Morrison wanted someone whom he could rely on to stand up to the Treasury. In this post, Max was heavily involved with the planning for post-war reconstruction and, among other things, was deeply involved with the planning of the Festival of Britain and the building of the Royal Festival Hall. As he himself comments, he ‘had a ringside seat in the innermost arena of British Government virtually throughout the Attlee administration without any political commitment to its aims and doctrines.’ Among other things he saw the emasculation of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Bill of 1949, so learning about many of those who would be his enemies when he took over the Nature Conservancy. Although he did not leave Government until 1952, his post-war commitment to conservation seems largely to have been set by his being persuaded in 1945 to join the Wild Life Conservation Special Committee chaired by his long-term friend Sir Julian Huxley. The Nature Conservancy was set up in 1949 and, of course, Max played a leading part in that. However, after a short spell, the first Director General resigned in 1952 and Max was persuaded to take charge. In Civil Service rankings, this was a clear step down from his previous post, but he made the move without hesitation, being pleased to get out of central politics. These were formative and tricky years for the Conservancy, with so many opposing the Conservancy for a wide variety of reasons that it could have easily ‘gone under’. It seems to have been widely felt at the time that only Max's forceful advocacy enabled it to survive. In the event, he ran the fledgling organization through its formative years and only relinquished the reins 14 years later. The early years of his rule were crucial for setting the scene in Britain's post-war conservation. That he did so well (and against much political infighting) is the more amazing considering that, after a brief visit to Baluchistan in 1952, on a study of resource development for the UN, he contracted polio and was told by the specialist that he would always be a cripple. With his usual drive, he ignored this information and, notwithstanding the limp and a stiff arm, carried on as forcefully and energetically as before. During his Directorship, over 100 National Nature Reserves and more than 2000 Sites of Special Scientific Interest were established. He set up the Monks Wood Experimental Station, perhaps the first in the world to look at the effects of toxic chemicals on wildlife. There must have been few organizations or developments in ornithology or nature conservation in which he did not play a role. Through his Nature Conservancy position, he had a hand in the setting up of our National Parks. He was a founder member of the World Wildlife Fund. He was involved with the creation of IUCN and helped Peter Scott set up the Wildfowl Trust. He oversaw the setting up of Earthwatch Europe and through this played a major part in the creation of the S’Albufera reserve on Mallorca. He played an important part in the International Biological Programme (1963–74). In 1966 he set up Land Use Consultants, perhaps the first environmental consultancy, and was involved with it until 1989. He always saw the need to link the needs of conservation with those of social engineering and social economics. He published The New Environmental Age (Cambridge University Press, 1989) and founded the New Renaissance Group in 1995, ‘to stimulate and support a twenty-first century agenda for humanity and nature’ by bringing together environmentalists, scientists, economists, policy-makers and others. He stressed that care for the environment should be central to the political agenda and throughout all his dealings and activities he always emphasized the need for decisions to be based on sound science. With that in mind, he was (with T.H. Pearsall) the driving force behind setting up the MSc Conservation Course at University College London. He felt a deep gratitude to some of the leading ecologists, such as Charles Elton, for their support, though in this case regretted Elton's reluctance to participate in the politics of nature conservation. His awards and the offices he held are too numerous to mention, but in the case of the BOU, he was a Vice-President 1958–61 and was awarded the Godman–Salvin Medal in 1962. His disdain for the political process and the way in which, especially in the early days, he fought so furiously to establish the Nature Conservancy against many opponents probably in part accounts for why he did not receive greater civil recognition. Occasionally it is said of someone that ‘We shall not see his like again’. In the case of Max it may well be true. Many of his papers are deposited in the Alexander Library at the Edward Grey Institute.* These include an unpublished autobiography on which this obituary is partly based. Other material has been returned to the bodies with which it was associated (e.g. BTO, WWT). The PEP papers are in the LSE library and much conservation material is with the Linnean Society. I am grateful to Teresa Sexton and John Sheail for guidance in preparing this obituary.

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