sub-fonds GB 0117 MS 527 - Food (War) Committee of the Royal Society

84 folders

GB 0117 MS 527 1916-1919 Sub-fonds 84 folders Food (War) Committee , Royal Society

The Food (War) Committee was founded in 1915 to act as a scientific advisory body to government bodies regulating food policy, trade and distribution, and rationing schemes in the food shortage of WWI. Composed of eminent biochemists, physiologists, agricultural scientists and economists, headed by William B Hardy, Secretary of the Royal Society. Prominent members include physiologists A D Waller, D Noel Paton, E P Cathcart, F G Hopkins, and W M Bayliss; agriculturalists T H Middleton, and T B Wood, and economist William J Ashley.

The Committee undertook pioneering work in researching dietary requirements, arriving at the minimum calorie needs to maintain a body at rest, and investigating the calorie requirements of different classes of workers. They advised against rationing of bread and developed distribution schemes based on sound science. Most of the correspondence deals with these research interests and policy advice.

Topics addressed include diet and mental work, scurvy and beriberi, nitrogen in the diet, early work on vitamins, and investigation of alternate food sources such as soya beans, cocoa butter, banana chips, and saccharine [MS/527/2]. The most successful scheme involved a public campaign to collect horse chestnuts to use in producing acetone for munitions manufacture, so that cereals usually used for this purpose could be saved to increase the nation's supply.

Correspondence, agendas, memos, drafts and printed reports on topics investigated by the Food (War) Committee of the Royal Society, and the day to day committee business.

Open

No publication without written permission. Apply to Archivist in the first instance.

English

See also the Committee minute books, CMB/72 and CMB/73.

Copied from the Royal Society catalogue by Sarah Drewery.

General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

Feb 2009. Dietetics Diet Physiology Nutrition Wars (events) World wars (events) World War One (1914-1918) Systems of medicine Food Agricultural products Royal Society

Correspondence, agendas, memos, drafts and printed reports on topics investigated by the Food (War) Committee of the Royal Society, and the day to day committee business.

Open

No publication without written permission. Apply to Archivist in the first instance.

• inglês

• latim

English

See also the Committee minute books, CMB/72 and CMB/73.

General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

• inglês