Edward Max Nicholson

He was born in Kilternan[?], to the south of Dublin, the son of English parents. He and his family moved to England in 1910, settling in Staines. he became interested in birdwatching, beginning his list of birds in 1913. He was educated at Sedburgh School[?]] in Cumbria and then Hertford College, Oxford from 1926, winning scholarships to both. At Oxford he was a founder member of the Exploration Club and visted Greenland and British Guiana through the club.

He already had published work on birds by the age of 21, with Birds in England (1926) and had three more similar books published in the 1920s. He helped found the British Trust for Ornithology[?] in 1932, he was its first secretary and was later chairman (1947-49). His employment was as a civil servant, during the war he worked for the Ministry of Shipping, then the Ministry of War Transport, attending the conferences at Quebec, Cairo, Yalta and Potsda. From 1945 until 1952 he was secretary to Herbert Morrison. In 1947 he aided Julian Huxley in founding the IUCN, now the World Conservation Union. He was also on the committee overseeing the 1951 Festival of Britain.

In 1952 he became Director of the Nature Conservancy[?], a post he held until 1966. In 1961 he was part of the organising group that created the World Wildlife Fund and he was also a founder of the International Institue for Environment and Development[?]. In 1966 he set up and headed Land Use Consultants, he remained with them until 1989. He was also chief editor of the The Birds of the Western Palearctic (1977-94, OUP[?]) from 1965 until 1992. He was President of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds 1980-1985, helped set up the New Renaissance Group[?] and was a trustee of Earthwatch Europe[?].

He married Mary Crawford in 1932 and they had two children, Piers and Tom. That marriaged ended in 1964 and he married Marie Mauerhofer in 1965, they had one child (David), she died in 2002.