NICHOLSON, (Edward) Max 1904-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born July 12, 1904, in Kilternan, Ireland; died April 26, 2003, in London, England. Ornithologist, environmentalist, journalist, civil servant, and author. Nicholson is best remembered as a cofounder of the World Wildlife Fund and former director of the Nature Conservancy. He published his first book about birds, 1926's Birds in England, while he was still a student at Sedbergh and Hertford College, Oxford, and this was soon followed by How Birds Live (1927). The success of these books is credited by some with the revival of the hobby of bird watching in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s. Nicholson's first job outside of writing, though, was as a journalist for the Saturday Review and the Weekend Review during the early 1930s. He then founded a social science foundation called Political and Economic Planning, for which he served as general secretary from 1933 to 1939. When World War II began, he entered the British civil service and headed the supply department of the Ministry of War Transport, and from 1945 to 1952 was secretary of the office of the lord president of the council. He left government work in 1952 to become director general of the Nature Conservancy, which he led until 1966. He was a cofounder of the World Wildlife Fund in 1961 and was chair of Land Use Consultants from 1965 until 1989, the latter organization being a consulting firm that advised businesses on proper land management. Other involvements in environmental conservation activities included being founder and president of the New Renaissance Group, where he was chair from 1995 to 2000, and trustee and chair of Earthwatch Europe from 1989 to 1993. Among Nicholson's writings on birds and the environment are Songs of Wild Birds (1936), More Songs of Wild Birds (1937), Birds and Men (1951), The Environmental Revolution (1970), The New Environmental Age (1987), Bird-watching in London (1995), and the coauthored Where Next? (2000).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Independent (London, England), April 29, 2003, p. 18.

Times (London, England), April 30, 2003.