Background

Max Nicholson was born on July 12, 1904, in Kilternan, Ireland. His family moved to Staines, United Kingdom, in 1910.

Education

Max Nicholson studied at Sedbergh School in Cumbria. He also attended Hertford College, Oxford, in 1926.

Career

Max Nicholson 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. Among his writings on birds and the environment are Songs of Wild Birds, More Songs of Wild Birds, Birds and Men, The Environmental Revolution, The New Environmental Age, Bird-watching in London, and the coauthored Where Next?

Nicholson's first job outside of writing was as a journalist for the Saturday Review and the Weekend Review during the early 1930s. Then he founded a social science foundation called Political and Economic Planning. Nicholson served there as general secretary from 1933 to 1939.

When World War II began, Max Nicholson entered the British civil service. He 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. Nicholson left government work in 1952 to become director-general of the Nature Conservancy, which he led until 1966. He was a co-founder of the World Wildlife Fund in 1961, together with Victor Stolan, Sir Peter Scott, and Guy Mountfort, and was chair of the environmental firm, Land Use Consultants, from 1965 until 1989, which is 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 Max Nicholson was chair from 1995 to 2000, trustee and chair of Earthwatch Europe from 1989 to 1993, and a president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in 1980-1985. He served as a senior editor of British Birds from 1951 to 1960 and chief editor of The Birds of the Western Palearctic in 1965-1992. Also, he was an instrumental part of the setting of Britain's first urban ecology park in 1976, the Trust for Urban Ecology, and the ENDS Report magazine in 1978.

Achievements

• Max Nicholson was known as a pioneering environmentalist, ornithologist, and internationalist. He was a founder of the World Wildlife Fund in 1961 and the New Renaissance Group in 1995, and also was a holder of the Royal Victorian Order and Order of the Bath. Additionally, every year in Nicholson's honor, on his birthday, 12 July, a group of people walks a section of the Jubilee Walkway in London to celebrate his work in creating the route. Moreover, two memorial sundials have been put in place in memory of Nicholson - one by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust London Wetland Centre in Barnes, London, and another at Sedbergh School in Cumbria, where Nicholson went to school.

Works

More photos

• book

  • How Birds Live 1927
  • The Art Of Bird-Watching 1931
  • Songs of Wild Birds 1936
  • The System 1967
  • The Environmental Revolution 1970
  • Birds And Men 1951
  • The New Environmental Age 1987
  • Bird-watching in London 1995

Membership

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  World Wide Fund

Connections

Max Nicholson married Mary Crawford in 1932 and divorced in 1964. They had two children, Piers and Tom. Nicholson then married Marie Mauerhofer in 1965. They had one child, a son, David.

ex-wife:

Mary Crawford

Mary Crawford was Max Nicholson's first wife. They divorced in 1964.

Son:

Piers Nicholson

Son:

Tom Nicholson

Wife:

Marie Mauerhofer

Marie Mauerhofer was Max Nicholson's second wife.

Son:

David Nicholson

colleague:

Victor Stolan

Victor Stolan was a businessman and hotel owner.

colleague:

Peter Scott

Peter Scott established the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge in 1946 and helped found the World Wide Fund for Nature, the logo of which he designed.

colleague:

Guy Mountfort

Guy Mountfort was an advertising executive, an amateur ornithologist, and conservationist. He also was known for his books on wildlife.