The history of the nutrition society.

Introduction In 1963 Dr L. J. Harris, the first secretary of the Nutrition Society, wrote a brief history of the Society on the occasion of the 6th International Congress of Nutrition held in Edinburgh. He declared his intention of filling in the facts of the intriguing early history of the Society and also of its later affairs. However, he did not find time to do this and it is the loss of the Society that his happy knack with words has not come down to us. In 1975 the Council invited me to become honorary archivist and historian to the Society, and since May 1975 I have endeavoured to examine and sort out the large collection of reports and correspondence accumulated in the secretarial office at Chandos House and contributed from various other sources, especially the many files stored by Mr D. S. Miller at Queen Elizabeth College, London. Much of the material was related only to small immediate matters such as the acknowledgment of petty cash between honorary secretary and honorary treasurer, or preliminary suggestions about dates for meetings and people to be consulted before programmes could be drawn up. Some of the programme secretaries had most intricate timetables for planning of meetings while others seemed to manage without specific timetabling. Much correspondence was transitory, but some interesting letters had been kept and are now filed in appropriate categories. It is not easy to define a filing system for much of the heterogeneous material but I trust that what has been preserved will provide useful material for historians of the future. The history of the foundation of the Society is a base for the rest of the story that I have written from information supplied by minutes, letters and reports, and to some extent from my own knowledge since I was a member of the Lister Institute Division of Nutrition housed dbring the war by Sir Charles Martin at Roebuck House in Cambridge. I was therefore in the midst of the discussion and planning of the Society in 1941. I was also an active member of the informal group of nutritionists who met before the official Society was promulgated. I am most grateful to Mrs June Schulkes for the hospitality of the office at Chandos House and for her bearing with my presence there surrounded by masses of dusty papers gradually being put away into sacks for disposal or piled into filing cabinets for future reference. I have to thank Dr E. M. Cruickshank, Dr R. J. L. Allen and Dame Harriette Chick and other members of past Councils for much helpful advice, and Dr Elsie Widdowson for editing my manuscript.